In article , Don Pearce
wrote:
On Mon, 15 Mar 2010 17:25:47 -0400, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:

"Don Pearce" wrote in message

On Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:06:47 -0000, "David Looser"


There are perhaps a few hundred actual Christians in the world, to
be found in the murderous armies of central Africa.

Obviously, an excluded-middle argument.


There is no middle to exclude. If you are a Christian, you believe in
the bible. If you reject large parts of the bible, you are not a
Christian. This is simple.

I don't really agree with that, nor with some of the other comments you
have made wrt "The Bible" for the following reasons.

As I previously mentioned a friend of mine for many years was (is) a
preacher in the URC and studied theology, etc. He often found he had to
consider a lot of the source material in various languages, and try to make
some coherent sense of the varying things they all said. And then to try
and work out which interpretations and translations appeared in which
various 'versions' of "The Bible" was most likely to be most accurate in
his view.

The point is that, perhaps unlike Islam, "The Bible" is only seen as a
single work with a single set of words and meanings by those who haven't
appreciated how it has come to be collated from source materials and
'interpreted' by the people who produced the version in front of you.

Accordingly, although I am sure there are some 'Christians' who put their
faith in a version like the King James as being "The Bible" and take that
as the literal "Word of God", I know of other 'Christians' who do no such
thing and who use the various versions, sources, etc, to try and form a
less dogmatic idea of what 'Christ' said, did, etc.

So, no, I don't think this is as "simple" as you said. :-)

However for me - as I explained earlier - the above is essentially an
irrelevance to the more basic question of the existence (or not) of a
deity. Neither of the above approaches to 'being a Christian' seem to me to
shed any light at all on that basic point.

Slainte,

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
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Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

There is some truth that believing in a higher power can be
beneficial - it's the basis of both AA and NA.


Just had to delurk briefly....

I've had newsgroup discussions with quite a few US Christians and conclude
that there is actually a difference in understanding of what "belief"
actually is. It seems that these people have the ability to believe things
by simply wanting to do so. They can't understand why I don't share that
ability to "Just let yourself believe and all will become clear to you"

Strangely, many of these people are technically highly qualified and expert
programmers/engineers. They are not stupid. I would have expected their
world view to be reasonably rational but, in fact, several of them are
Christian fundamentalists with an absolute and unshakable belief in the
literal text and authority of the Bible. They seem able to switch from
"rational mode" to "faith mode" at will. Almost like a bilingual person
swapping languages.

I simply don't understand how they can function, but they obviously do.

.....back to lurking.

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in
message
In article
, Arny
Krueger wrote:
"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in
message
In article
, Arny
Krueger wrote:

People tend to decry this sort of poll - when it
produces results they don't agree with.

A good example is Trevor's avoidance of more recent
data from the same polls that disagrees with his
initial claims.

Perhaps you'd post a link to those polls, then?

A bunch of them, and right from the pollster's web site:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/21814/Evo...nt-Design.aspx

The percentage of 'god created man in his present form'
is 44% in 1982 and 44% in 2008...

IOW, it was never the 50% claimed.

Interesting that both religious conservatives and anti-Christians believe
that the means that God used to create man could not have possibly been
anything like evolution...

There's only a conflict here between Science and the Bible if you're
spoiling for a fight.

"Don Pearce" wrote in message

On Tue, 16 Mar 2010 07:48:32 -0400, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:

"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message


My view is that:

1) I have no idea if a deity exists or not.

My view is that there is no scientific proof either way.


The atheist position is that as there is no reason to
believe that a god exists,

IOW, the atheist position is that they get to choose everybody else's
reasons for believing whatever.

non belief is the logical and reasonable position.

That is not atheism, it is agnositicism. The atheist knows for sure that it
is logically and ethically wrong to believe in God. By extension, they
believe it is wrong to not make up your mind. Like the radical Islamic
theists, you either agree with atheists or you have big problems with them.

If you want to believe that one does
exist, you have to create and design it since there is no
natural prototype available.

If you want to be so sure that there is no God, you have to make up a
universe where you know for sure that there is nothing that is transcendent.

The self-honesty of agnostics is clear - they admit what they don't know.
The atheists replace belief in something with disbelief in anything.

Thus all gods are man-made.

All negative hypothesis such as atheism are difficult or impossible to
prove.

Why would you invent something to believe in - that is
the most circular piece of mis-logic it is possible to
imagine.

The atheists have invented something to not believe in.

2) I see no physical evidence or experimental result
which would allow me to clearly decide one did.

My view is that there is not even agrement about what
form such evidence should take.

There is no reason to define the form in advance.

Right, you disbelieve in something, but you don't know what it is.
Furthermore, you assert that this thing that you apparently can't describe
cannot possibly exist.

If there is a god, and he is manifest, then the effects must
be both observable and measurable.

Right, if there is such a thing as radioactivity, it must be both observable
and measurable. However, radioactivity was neither observable nor measurable
by man in say the year 1,000. Therefore, according to your ?logic? there
was no radioactivity in the year 1,000. However we now make measruments that
we now believe show that radioactivity existed in the year 1,000 AD.
Something is wrong here and just maybe it is your ?logic?.

I don't know exactly all the ways that God manifests himself, but I believe
that radioactivity is one of the ways his presence is manifest. Since God
has always been, I have no problem with the idea that radioactivity existed
in the year 1,000 AD. You seem to have a problem, since radioactivity was
neither observable and measurable at that time. If you and I were speaking
in 1,000 AD, you would tell me that there was no such thing as
radioactivity. It was neither observable nor measurable at that time, so
according to you, it didn't exist. In the year 1,000, I would have said that
since I believe that things


3) I feel no reason to presume one does.

My view is that a belief in God can have beneficial
results.

That would be wishful thinking then.

Sue me for having a positive world view. Perhaps it comes from a world view
that allowed the belief in the existance of unknown things, even back in the
year 1,000 AD.

Wishing something to be so has never yet made it true.

Really? You mean that no body ever wished for a cure for Polio? No, what
you should say is that merely wishing for nothing, and denying that it can
possibly exist, and not lifting a finger to find it does not help.

4) Even given one did I see no reason to decide that
'Christianity' is the one true version of such a
deity's nature, etc.

My view is that Christianity if sufficiently evolved can
lead to a highly beneficial world view.

Christianity admits of no evolution.

That would be your little personally invented Christianity, that you may
have picked up from some other people, that admits of no evolution.

My Christianity has no problem with evolution as a scientific theory among
many. It seems to have a lot of merit, but it is not the sole explanation
for what we observe.

Christ himself was
quizzed on this very question by the disciples. He
replied that not one jot or tittle of the law would
change until all had come to pass.


Matthew 5:18 (King James Version)

18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one
tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

The context is the well-known "Sermon on the Mount" which is a semon, IOW a
declaration, not a question and answer session. As usual, you must be citing
some other Bible - one of your own personal invention?


If you think that
christianity has evolved, you are not a christian.

I have shown that you have invented your own Bible and Christianity, where
declarations become question and answer sessions. I can't help you with that
situation!

5) Even given 'Christianity' I see no reason to pick
any given version of that religion as being 'correct'.
Although some versions seem rather dubious when they
espouse 'creationism' or other similar ideas that
conflict with the usual scientific methods.

My view is that Creationism while not itself a uniform
belief system is clearly wrong when it tries to
contradict the better substantiated scientific
information we have about the development of the
Universe.

Yet your holy book - the word of the living god - is
crystal clear on how the world and life came into being.

You think that the Genesis account is "crystal clear"?

Must be a different Genesis than the one in my Bible. I read Genesis and
creation is a tiny part of it. I see a few comments and sketchy anecdotes.
Nothing that I can possibly interpret as a modern text on say, geology,
biology, chemsitry, physics, etc. So you see something in Genesis that you
feel you can compare with modern texts about geology, biology, chemsitry,
physics, etc.? Must be some different Bible, a Bible with a book of Genesis
about the size of a good encyclopedia!

Again, it appears that you have invented your own Bible and Christianity,
where a few comments and anecdotes are "crystal clear". I can't help you
with your perceptual situation!


6) I can't say the above concerns or bothers me much.

Except that it is anti-Christians who predominantely
beat this drum in virtually every context. Obviously it
is a big issue for them. Any analytical reading of their
writings shows considerable self-righteousness and other
hostile and anxious emotions. Look at the history of
this issue on UKRA.

No, the drum is being beaten at every possible moment by
religious retards in the USA.

The good news is that they generally don't post on UKRA.

Fortunately, as in Dover
PA, they are getting their asses handed to them by the US
legal system.

A fact that actually contradicts what you just said.

If people weren't anxious about this issue, they
wouldn't bring it up so often, and so far out of
context. I only discuss it when people try to stuff it
up my duff.

Every right minded person is anxious about religion.

Actually, the Bible contradicts that. It says "fret not". I take fretting
to be a synonym for being anxious.

Psalm 37 (New International Version)
Psalm 37 Of David.

1 [a] Do not fret because of evil men
or be envious of those who do wrong;
2 for like the grass they will soon wither,
like green plants they will soon die away.
3 Trust in the LORD and do good;
dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.
4 Delight yourself in the LORD
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
5 Commit your way to the LORD;
trust in him and he will do this:

Every day the news is covered in the latest atrocity
committed by it.

Right the problems of the world are 100% due to religion, and other
possible influences such as politics, greed, anxiety, and social mores have
absolutely nothing to do with it. That appears to be your story!

I think it would be good for people to admit that they can be pretty screwed
up without religion, and that religious issues are often just cover stories
for the real motivating issues.

Admittedly it is usually by one
religious cult on another vaguely similar - Shia upon
Sunni for example (see how the religious love each
other!).

Again, according to you, typically human issues like politics, greed,
anxiety, and social practices and habits have nothing to do with any of the
problems we observe. Religio is according to you the only source of problems
in the world! Oh, and according to you, religous divisions cause all other
divisions, and not vice-versa. According to you, the Shia and the Sunni are
otherwise identical people groups that agree about all things other than
some esoteric aspects of Islam, right? If you admit that maybe, just maybe
these people have lots of non-Islamic issues separating them, then your
whole argument flushes down the drain.

Did you know that the religious amendment to
your constitution came about because the Baptists of
Danbury Connecticut were being persecuted by the
Congregationalists of that fair town.

It was far more complex than that simplistic view.

The world seriously does not need any of this ****.

Yes, the common atheistic view that nothing but Christianity causes any
problems in this world is $#!^. This is how some atheists absolve themselves
of the need to clean up their own acts. They spew bigoted religious fillth
on audio forums. Atheism is a counter-religion, so it is actually a
religion. The many common illogical statements and well-documented
falsehoods I have pointed out above show the how and why of the intellectual
bankruptcy of atheism.

"Laurence Payne" wrote in message

On Tue, 16 Mar 2010 22:00:07 GMT, (Don
Pearce) wrote:

My view is that a belief in God can have beneficial
results.

That would be wishful thinking then. Wishing something
to be so has never yet made it true.

Any connection with the modern idea that ANYTHING can be
achieved given sufficient self-confidence?

As usual, an excluded-middle argument.

It would be more fun if I could find people who didn't flunk Rhetoric 101 to
talk with. :-(

"TonyL" wrote in message

Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

There is some truth that believing in a higher power can
be beneficial - it's the basis of both AA and NA.


Just had to delurk briefly....

I've had newsgroup discussions with quite a few US
Christians and conclude that there is actually a
difference in understanding of what "belief" actually is.
It seems that these people have the ability to believe
things by simply wanting to do so.

Well, that is one of the ways that belief works.

They can't understand
why I don't share that ability to "Just let yourself
believe and all will become clear to you"

That would be their problem. I understand your problem better than that.

Strangely, many of these people are technically highly
qualified and expert programmers/engineers. They are not
stupid. I would have expected their world view to be
reasonably rational but, in fact, several of them are
Christian fundamentalists with an absolute and unshakable
belief in the literal text and authority of the Bible.

Well, I don't get Christian fundamentalism, either. These people can make
my skin crawl.

They seem able to switch from "rational mode" to "faith
mode" at will. Almost like a bilingual person swapping
languages.

Well, look at how easy it is to deconstruct what our local atheists spew.

I simply don't understand how they can function, but they
obviously do.

Atheists are often fundamentalists of a different kind.

In article , Arny
Krueger
wrote:
"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message

In article , Arny
Krueger wrote:


A bunch of them, and right from the pollster's web site:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/21814/Evo...nt-Design.aspx

The percentage of 'god created man in his present form' is 44% in 1982
and 44% in 2008...

IOW, it was never the 50% claimed.

I haven't seen anyone claim that. Trevor did say "almost half" and then a
range of 40 - 60% was said to be the kinds of figures shown in polls.

So far as I can see, the above page also tends to support the 40 - 60
percent range. The snag being that different wordings and questions were
used at different times so it is hard to make sense of any variations in
results from one poll to another.

Whatever, it does strike me as concerning if 40 percent or more of the
population of a country as (allegedly) educated as the USA believes in
creationism or intelligent design, or that man appeared as he is 'now' with
no evolution or development influenced by environment, etc.

Although I am not personally a fan of the way Dawkins tends to 'go for'
religeon I was surprised and concerned by what one of his recent TV
programmes showed about the state of education in the UK, though.

This seemed to show that at least some science teachers were avoiding
challenging daft ideas about the (absence of) biological development of
mankind for fear of being seen to 'attack' the religeous views of pupils
and their parents.

Yet the whole point of science *is* to 'challenge' ideas by seeing if they
can be found to conflict with the observational evidence. Deciding not to
show pupils evidence on developments of biological species, geological
time, etc for fear it might cause them to think their 'religion' was 'under
attack' struck me as woefully misguided.

Interesting that both religious conservatives and anti-Christians
believe that the means that God used to create man could not have
possibly been anything like evolution...

There's only a conflict here between Science and the Bible if you're
spoiling for a fight.

I agree with both the above paragraphs.

Unfortunately some who claim their ideas stem from the "Bible" pick such a
fight when they start pushing ideas like 'creationism' and present a
'Flintstones' view of biological development. Those who don't accept such
daft ideas then either have to point out the evidence, etc, or allow such
people to misguide their followers and children and spread such weak
thinking to others.

It is my (unreliable) impression that there are many more people like that
then there are 'fanatic' anti-religeous types. At least in terms of the
general population. But I don't know of any poll data on this for the UK.
Would not surprise me to find the situation here is different in detail
than the USA.

As I said in an earlier posting, issues (using the word in both old and new
senses :-) ) like 'creationism' would in my view best be dealt with by
*Christians* because the promilgation of such ideas under a banner of
'Christian belief' does them a dis-service from within their own ranks. If
they were seen to be doing that effectively then perhaps we would not have
cases like the one I mention about where science teachers avoid presenting
the documented evidence, etc, for fear of upsetting a 'religious belief'.

Slainte,

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

In article ,
Arny Krueger wrote:
There's only a conflict here between Science and the Bible if you're
spoiling for a fight.

So which bits of the bible are you to regard as true and which bits just
stories? There's the rub...

--
*Why do we say something is out of whack? What is a whack?

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Wed, 17 Mar 2010 09:35:25 +0000 (GMT), Jim Lesurf
wrote:

In article , Don Pearce
wrote:
On Mon, 15 Mar 2010 17:25:47 -0400, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:

"Don Pearce" wrote in message

On Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:06:47 -0000, "David Looser"


There are perhaps a few hundred actual Christians in the world, to
be found in the murderous armies of central Africa.

Obviously, an excluded-middle argument.


There is no middle to exclude. If you are a Christian, you believe in
the bible. If you reject large parts of the bible, you are not a
Christian. This is simple.

I don't really agree with that, nor with some of the other comments you
have made wrt "The Bible" for the following reasons.

As I previously mentioned a friend of mine for many years was (is) a
preacher in the URC and studied theology, etc. He often found he had to
consider a lot of the source material in various languages, and try to make
some coherent sense of the varying things they all said. And then to try
and work out which interpretations and translations appeared in which
various 'versions' of "The Bible" was most likely to be most accurate in
his view.

The point is that, perhaps unlike Islam, "The Bible" is only seen as a
single work with a single set of words and meanings by those who haven't
appreciated how it has come to be collated from source materials and
'interpreted' by the people who produced the version in front of you.

Accordingly, although I am sure there are some 'Christians' who put their
faith in a version like the King James as being "The Bible" and take that
as the literal "Word of God", I know of other 'Christians' who do no such
thing and who use the various versions, sources, etc, to try and form a
less dogmatic idea of what 'Christ' said, did, etc.

So, no, I don't think this is as "simple" as you said. :-)

However for me - as I explained earlier - the above is essentially an
irrelevance to the more basic question of the existence (or not) of a
deity. Neither of the above approaches to 'being a Christian' seem to me to
shed any light at all on that basic point.

Slainte,

Jim

Well, the revelation was made 2000 years ago, and none has been made
since, so I don't see that interpretations are anything more than
money for lawyers (or the religious equivalent). But as you say all
this is irrelevant since there is not the slightest reason to believe
in the existence of any kind of supernatural being (notwithstanding Mr
Krueger's attempt to make me define exactly what it is I'm not
believing in - the answer is of course "anything supernatural").

d

"Don Pearce" wrote in message

On Mon, 15 Mar 2010 17:25:47 -0400, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:

"Don Pearce" wrote in message


Almost nobody believes in Christianity, including
Krueger.

True if one learns to write proper polite rhetoric and
throws in a strategically-placed "all", and if one is
sufficiently broad in what one considers to be
Christianity.

What I say is perfectly accurate,

At the very best you lack the ability to write accurately, at the worst you
are a meglomaniac who actually believes that his judgements are perfect.

Nothing any of us think is perfect, and better, saner men than you have the
ability to admit it.

Absent any admission from you that you did not write what you mean, I feel
no need to waste time with a meglomaniac.