In all truth and honesty, I have to disregard science in many cases.

[Captain Blackout]

As a spiritualist and a Taoist Christian working for greater understanding between differing beliefs, I think the original post should be shot with a flame thrower and the writer shot with a chicken chucker. Seriously, thanks to this guy I'm seeing crap in this thread from believers and non-believers. I know for a fact you can reconcile Christianity with science but nooo, let's never let that happen!

/facepalm

See now you are one step closer to your goal, I mean believers and non-believers alike are beating his online persona to a bloody pulp together, making us that much closer.

Ahahhahaha ha ha ha ha ha ha.....

That was the best response I've seen on the Escapist to something I've said in a while. Thank you for helping me renew my faith!

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

You're mad. Stark, raving, mad. And you picked one hell of a site to be mad on too.

Anything that needed to be said was said by this person here:

And what do you mean by "proven false"? Gallileo's laws were not proven false. Newton's laws were not proven false - it's just that that wasn't all there was to it. Many aspects of science have NOT been proven false, and you have no evidence that they will be (although I'll concede that they might later on). You're just saying that it will be proven false - and yet, the modern theories of science grow stronger every day, they become more powerful, more accurate, more capable.

All the technology around you is produced by science. Go on. Say it does work. And no one will believe you. Because science WORKS. At the end of the day, the pure power of science triumphs over any religion. I don't care how you pray to your god, how you tout your bible - if you get a nuke dropped on you, you're dead.

I remember a case in Malaysia - a religious sect (not an islamic sect, a local, indigenous religion) in which some members decided that they were being oppressed by the powers that be and wanted to stage an attack. They drank some "holy water" which they said would protect them from bullets. And they also tied their hair together, also believing that this would provide some sort of magic charm.

Well they got shot. Their beliefs didn't count for jack against technology - notably, GUN TECHNOLOGY.

Religion will probably never die because of human race's bizarre insistence that "no this can't be all there is". Whatever. They ignore reality at their own peril.

Take the native American indians. Now, what happened to them was truly dreadful and undeserved. Yet it was inevitable. Instead of spending time developing metal-works and guns and cities, they put all their faith in wolf-spirits and magic tailsmen. Did it work? Of course not - the Europeans steamrolled all over them. Unfair? Yes. Brutal? Horribly so. A tragedy in human history? Damn straight. Inevitable? Of course. If it wasn't the british it would have been someone else.

If we deny reality, if we start to neglect science in favor of religion, homeopathy, "naturalism" and "alternative science", you know what will happen? The West will lose its technological advantage. And which point the chinese, who are mostly athiests and are very capable scientists (most of the best scientists I work with in the lab are either Chinese/Japanese/Korean or Indian) will leap ahead of the west and eat the west up.

Judging by the number of science graduates coming out of chinese universities compared to western universities, this has already started to happen.

If the West starts becoming muddle-headed and romantic, the hard-nosed, practically-minded Chinese and Indian people will eat the West up. And if that happens, it deserved to happen, because power would be on their side. If the west wants to give up its power, so be it. Someone else will pick up it.

The only little quibble I have is that it wasn't just the british who ahilated the native americans.

But yeah, seek help.

 

[Dancingman]

Annoying thread is annoying.

 

[A Weary Exile]

Nice to see someone who just doesn't say "You're wrong!" outright and actually gives reasons, I applaud you.

I'm not saying I know the absolute truth I'm saying I refuse to believe what others have said is the secret of life based on no facts, just on the argument that I can't DISPROVE it. I can say that the universe was created by a giant lobster named Steven and say it's true because you can't disprove it. You know in school when you take a test and the teacher says "If you don't know a question just leave it blank and come back to it later." that's what I'm doing, religion is just filling that answer in with whatever crazy notion enters your brain.

I don't see why there has to be a "Why" life exists, there is certainly a "How" life came about but I don't believe in a higher purpose or "Grand Scheme" it's just another way to make people feel like death isn't the final destination and that they're more important than they actually are.

Which is fair enough, religion in general does have some huge gaps. I can understand why people would not believe in God or anything like that, I was an atheist since around 8 (I am seriously not kidding) and only in the last few years realised that for all the evidence to say God/the afterlife or whatever doesn't exist, I cannot possible know which is why I am agnostic.

For some reason, no matter how hard I try I can't convince myself absolutely that there is nothing more to life than what science claims. Partly because of what I said before, and partly because science also has some huge gaps in it as well.

I agree. When thinking logically I must always leave that one tiny iota of doubt on the off-chance that everything I percieve to know is false I can't claim to be logical if I don't consider all possiblities, but it's not enough to make me agnostic. Thanks for the discussion, it's hard to find un-dogmatic people on these forums (And I don't just mean religion, i.e. "Halo is the best game ever and anyone who thinks otherwise is stupid!") Isn't it nice to hae opinions considered instead of automatically refuted?

 

[RagnorakTres]

...*headdesk* yurhhhhhhhhhhhhhg...

That was literally my reaction to that post. It made my pre-frontal cortex threaten to go on strike and make me flame you into ash. Fortunately, I have slightly more self-control than that...I think...

Alright, point 1...actually, nearly everything I want to say has been said. I'd just like to say that I've been a Universalist Agnostic for very nearly my entire sentient life and I only go to the Protestant church I go to because 1) it's a good point of contact with many of my good friends and 2) some of the music is very pretty. There are very few things in the Bible I buy into and I hate the ritualization of EATING and DRINKING. Y'know, two of the things we have to do to survive. Know what passage in the Bible I absolutely detest? "I am the Way and the Truth and the Life, the only way to the Father is through me." (John 14:6) I flat refuse to believe that Mahatma Gandhi, the man who helped free two whole nations from oppression, is "burning in hell" because he refused to believe a flawed and contradictory religion based around the claim of monotheism in the face of tri-theism. Sorry, I'm not buying what you're selling.

 

[cleverlymadeup]

i recomend tat you look up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_Invictus and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithras to see where christians got the dates for there festivals from

Um, would you really rely on the "encyclopedia that anyone can edit" on a subject of intense religious controversy? I wouldn't! Think about all those pages where Greeks and Yugoslav-Macedonians fight each other...

No, it's best to seek out the primary sources. It's not that hard; most are online in English.

I'm not quite sure which of the rather fanciful myths you are alluding to here. Some comments:

No festival of Mithras is recorded as being at any set time; and the cult probably came into existence later than Christianity anyway.

The late Roman state sun cult Sol Invictus came into being in 274 AD, when the emperor Aurelian founded it. The Chronography of 354 AD records a state festival of the anniversary of the consecration of the temple of Sol Invictus on 25 Dec. By about 400 AD people in the East presume that Christmas is celebrated on 25 Dec. to replace this festival. There isn't actually any evidence.

We need to be sceptical; there's a lot of rubbish out there around these sorts of "pagan christs" stuff, and it does no-one any good, surely, to get the raw facts wrong? Opinions we can roll for ourselves, of course, whatever they are; but this stuff can be looked up.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

actually wikipedia IS a good source but other than Mithras, there is Egyptian and Greek Myths about this. it is also a good start to learn something, you can explore things from there, so please don't dismiss an easy to use resource, that is probly more accurate than some crackpot's website

also Mythras was about 600 BC or so

also Sol Invictus is important because of when the celebration of his birthday happens, which is dec 25 and this happened a couple hundred years before Jesus was voted on whether or not he was resurrected

also the whole "pagan christ" things hold a lot of water cause we have proof of how much the Bible and the story of Jesus has been changed over the years by the church.

 

[roger_pearse]

i recomend tat you look up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_Invictus and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithras to see where christians got the dates for there festivals from

Um, would you really rely on the "encyclopedia that anyone can edit" on a subject of intense religious controversy? I wouldn't! Think about all those pages where Greeks and Yugoslav-Macedonians fight each other...

No, it's best to seek out the primary sources. It's not that hard; most are online in English.

I'm not quite sure which of the rather fanciful myths you are alluding to here. Some comments:

No festival of Mithras is recorded as being at any set time; and the cult probably came into existence later than Christianity anyway.

The late Roman state sun cult Sol Invictus came into being in 274 AD, when the emperor Aurelian founded it. The Chronography of 354 AD records a state festival of the anniversary of the consecration of the temple of Sol Invictus on 25 Dec. By about 400 AD people in the East presume that Christmas is celebrated on 25 Dec. to replace this festival. There isn't actually any evidence.

We need to be sceptical; there's a lot of rubbish out there around these sorts of "pagan christs" stuff, and it does no-one any good, surely, to get the raw facts wrong? Opinions we can roll for ourselves, of course, whatever they are; but this stuff can be looked up.

actually wikipedia IS a good source ...

Not on any subject where people get excited. Read up about edit wars.

but other than Mithras, there is Egyptian and Greek Myths about this. it is also a good start to learn something, you can explore things from there, so please don't dismiss an easy to use resource, that is probly more accurate than some crackpot's website

I agree about crackpot websites. But primary sources are better than either. After all, either the statement can be found in the ancient sources, or it's bunk. So why not go to the source?

also Mythras was about 600 BC or so

Well, I've told you otherwise; so you get to produce some ancient source for this. NB: bear in mind that Persian Mitra and Roman Mithras are not the same deity.

also Sol Invictus is important because of when the celebration of his birthday happens, which is dec 25

No ancient source records a birthday for Sol Invictus.

I'm slightly concerned that you've ignored my post in favour of just posting this hearsay. Please read what I write, hmm?

and this happened a couple hundred years before Jesus was voted on whether or not he was resurrected

Hint: the "Da Vinci Code" is fiction. No-one ever voted on whether Jesus rose from the dead, which I think comes from the DVC. If you wish to disagree, you get to specify who voted, when, and produce ancient evidence for it.

Sol Invictus was invented in 274, as I already told you. No record of any festival of Sol Invictus exists prior to 354 AD. Again, if you want to disagree, produce your ancient evidence prior to those dates.

I'm not being funny about ancient evidence; this stuff really is mostly online, and asking to see it really does dispose of most of these myths.

also the whole "pagan christ" things hold a lot of water cause we have proof of how much the Bible and the story of Jesus has been changed over the years by the church.

I think you mean "I heard this somewhere." Be advised that it is crap.

All the best,

Roger Pearse