When is it appropriate to share your religious faith with others?

[Tao_Equus]

Freudian slip?

The evidence for the gradual evolution of increasingly complex chemistry that allowed the formation of RNA and DNA is very easy to understand. My son "got it" in full at about 10 years old. Its can never be proven that the theories are correct in every detail but to say that they do not present credible reasoning and a better explanation for the life around us than conjuring up a creator is just a sad bit of intellectual hiding in the cupboard. Creationists deliberately pick on this issue for one reason and one reason only. They know the scientists cannot present the fossils to prove it due to their being no rocks of sufficient age that have survived. There have been few lab experiments that did not give some positive results and the early Earth was one huge lab. If you take the evaporation theory of chemical concentration and apply it to an Earth with a similar geography to today on the Early Earth there were trillions upon trillions of these experiments taking place naturally.
Another thing creationists say is man is not evolved from the ape. And it is said with exactly the same ignorance by exactly the same kind of people who say "no nigger blood in me". It is supremacist xenophobia, that is the very root of the creationist argument. That God is a white man that created us in his image.

tao

[juantoo3]

Originally Posted by seattlegal

Well heck, Dream, it's June, and today's high temperature was only 56° F. I'm only trying to generate a little heat, here. I'm freezing my butt off!

So that explains why you are up at such an ung-dly hour on the left coast...

[seattlegal]

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

Freudian slip?

The evidence for the gradual evolution of increasingly complex chemistry that allowed the formation of RNA and DNA is very easy to understand. My son "got it" in full at about 10 years old.

At first blush, it seems that it might be plausible. However, upon closer examination, the less plausible it becomes. {To me, at least.}

Its can never be proven that the theories are correct in every detail...

Which is precisely why the "devil was in the details' for me, causing me to lose my faith in the whole theory.

...but to say that they do not present credible reasoning and a better explanation for the life around us than conjuring up a creator is just a sad bit of intellectual hiding in the cupboard.

Sorry Tao, but I would say that heaping scorn upon someone who lost their faith in your cherished theory is following in the same pattern of those that you despise.

Creationists deliberately pick on this issue for one reason and one reason only. They know the scientists cannot present the fossils to prove it due to their being no rocks of sufficient age that have survived.

I agree that a lack of evidence does tend to cause some people to lose their faith in a theory.

There have been few lab experiments that did not give some positive results and the early Earth was one huge lab. If you take the evaporation theory of chemical concentration and apply it to an Earth with a similar geography to today on the Early Earth there were trillions upon trillions of these experiments taking place naturally.

Well then, why can't the proposed experiment that supposedly happened by accident be recreated?

Another thing creationists say is man is not evolved from the ape. And it is said with exactly the same ignorance by exactly the same kind of people who say "no nigger blood in me". It is supremacist xenophobia, that is the very root of the creationist argument. That God is a white man that created us in his image.

tao

Spotlight fallacy.

Actually, Genesis says that people of all races share a common ancestry, so to say that supremacist xenophobia is at the very root of creationism is not true. (This would be something added by man in error.)

Here's another example of the spotlight fallacy:

[Tao_Equus]

Originally Posted by seattlegal

Sorry Tao, but I would say that heaping scorn upon someone who lost their faith in your cherished theory is following in the same pattern of those that you despise.

I am sorry you see it as scorn. I state what I state to form the most succinct and accurate portrait of my considered opinion. You are not above having a jab at me, but I do not take it as a personal assault.

I agree that a lack of evidence does tend to cause some people to lose their faith in a theory.

It is a work in progress. Seems to me you have jumped ship before even the gangplank has been withdrawn.

Well then, why can't the proposed experiment that supposedly happened by accident be recreated?

I predict that it will be. And in a lot less than the 100s of millions of years it took nature.

Spotlight fallacy.

Did someone say "heaping scorn"?

The Christian brothers in my current avatar are today's creationists. Oh yeh they try to water it down and keep it all PC, but it slips out often that their beliefs are based on a supremacist ideology.

tao

[seattlegal]

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

I am sorry you see it as scorn. I state what I state to form the most succinct and accurate portrait of my considered opinion. You are not above having a jab at me, but I do not take it as a personal assault.

Let's see, how is calling someone intellectually dishonest for disbelieving something due to a lack of evidence that is represented "as fact" rather than "as faith" not heaping scorn upon them? I would say that calling something a matter of faith due to a lack of evidence would be the more intellectually honest way to go.

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

It is a work in progress. Seems to me you have jumped ship before even the gangplank has been withdrawn.

I see it as a matter of faith rather than as a matter of fact.

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

Did someone say "heaping scorn"?

The Christian brothers in my current avatar are today's creationists. Oh yeh they try to water it down and keep it all PC, but it slips out often that their beliefs are based on a supremacist ideology.

tao

Let's see, according to the bible, mankind has a common ancestry. How is that supremacist? According to the bible, mankind was created from dust/dirt/clay. How is that supremacist, especially when abiogenesis says basically the same thing, sans creator?

[Alex P]

nm... was going to comment on the KKK but SG beat me to the punch.

[Nick the Pilot]

SG,

We discussed,

"How do you figure Prakriti is a confused Purusha? → That's the impression I get from my (by no means complete) study of Samkhya philosophy. (It seems that part of the interaction involves a struggle over the identity or mind...)"

→ One way to look at it is to use the Buddhist analogy that everything is consciousness. According to this idea, a brick wall is nothing more than solidified consciousness. (That is certainly the way I see it.) Even spirit and matter are nothing more than forms of consciousness.

You used the phrase, "a struggle over the identity or mind." The way I see it, technically, that is what happens. However, I see the struggle as being positive, not negative. Compare this to a person raising a child — sure, it is a hassle, but it is worth it. In the same way, it was a hassle for pure consciousness to 'create' our universe, but it was worth it.

[China Cat Sunflower]

Originally Posted by seattlegal

I would say that there is ample evidence of madness and vexation being brought to the people in this very thread who are conjecturing about these things. It reminds me somewhat of someone wrestling with really difficult and emotionally disturbing koan.

Well, first, I'm sorry I got pissy with you. I can handle a fair amount of vexation, and I do think that there's great value in tethering one's mind to thorny issues.

Chris out

[Paladin]

Originally Posted by Dondi

Stories like this are not the primary motivation for going door knocking. I do it because I happen to believe that a relationship with Jesus Christ changes lives, because I've seen the evidence in my own life and the lives of others I know. I happen to believe that the message is the most important thing in the world, why wouldn't I share it. Sharing the message of badmitton isn't going to change or save a life, but a relationship with God will. And I'm doing so because I believe it to be a command from the Lord Jesus Christ to go spread the gospel to every creature.

I'm not gullible enough to believe every story that comes by me. But I do tend to give a story the benefit of the doubt until proven othe
wise, particularly on these kinds of matters. I beleive it, because I've heard similar kinds of 'divine appointmenst' from people close to me. There are people in my church whose lives have seen radical changes. So it's no small step to believe that the elderly lady's story isn't true.

If you wish to believe it's bull****, that is your perogative. I respect your opinion of it, but when you start deriding others for believing it, then you have taken the offensive. Do I have an agenda? Damn right, I do. I'm looking to give people hope who have no hope, in the way that I know I've been given the same.

Jesus went looking for the lost sheep, they didn't come to Him.

Dondi,

Sorry you took offense at my explanation, since it wasn't intended to dis anyone who believes in and loves stories like you mention. I have always been fascinated with what linguistics can accomplish and their role in rhetoric (and here I mean rhetoric in the classic sense)
I had hoped to post a dispassionate look at the story and how it can be used, not to denigrate the story itself or those who have a sentimental attraction to such as these.
So again, quite sorry to have caused offense.

Mark

[Tao_Equus]

Originally Posted by seattlegal

Let's see, how is calling someone intellectually dishonest for disbelieving something due to a lack of evidence that is represented "as fact" rather than "as faith" not heaping scorn upon them? I would say that calling something a matter of faith due to a lack of evidence would be the more intellectually honest way to go.

Continually re-evaluating the facts as they emerge surely is the only way to be honest.

I see it as a matter of faith rather than as a matter of fact.

Faith is a suspension of 'reason'.

Let's see, according to the bible, mankind has a common ancestry. How is that supremacist? According to the bible, mankind was created from dust/dirt/clay. How is that supremacist, especially when abiogenesis says basically the same thing, sans creator?

You really want me to start quoting the nasty bits of the bible?

Tao

[seattlegal]

Originally Posted by China Cat Sunflower

Well, first, I'm sorry I got pissy with you. I can handle a fair amount of vexation, and I do think that there's great value in tethering one's mind to thorny issues.

Chris out

Hey, it's all kewl. I don't mind thorny issues, either.

[path_of_one]

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

Continually re-evaluating the facts as they emerge surely is the only way to be honest.

Yes, but as the facts thus far do not fully provide the evidence for a Creator-less universe (and, I would posit, will never be able to), then an evaluation of these facts still leaves room for a Creator.

I've been in science a decade- from the inside- and I will say, honestly, there is as much faith the individual has in whatever their worldview is, and the ways they believe are valid in obtaining information. The more I read modern physics, the more this is confirmed for me. People see what they want to see, and as we only have access to the reality in our head and not the reality that actually exists (if it does, indeed, on its own), we really can know nothing for sure and must always remember that when we look at the facts, the conclusion is that we know very little and can know very little. In the social sciences, this came with the wave of postmodernism; in physics, it is coming with the realization that the experiment cannot be separated from the observer. We create the reality we wish to see.

Now, the imbalanced position is to say (either as a religious person or as a scientist): "I have the answer!" or, "I am confident I will have the answer!" But this is a fallacy on either count, because we have already come to know in science that we create our answers. That is, human cognition is such that we are automatically biased by both our culture/worldview, by our experiences, and by our personalities and the way the brain works to see things as we will see them. So others' rational conclusions and bases for evidence will differ from our own, but there is no real reason why we should priviledge ours over another's. It is ethnocentrism and arrogance.

The balanced position is to understand that however I see the world is the way I see it, and it is no more or less valid than any other's way. The only measure of validity, at the end of the day, is usefulness. Science has been useful for some things and utterly useless for others, as has the "irrational" ways of obtaining information and processing it, like shamanism. I've looked at the data, cross-culturally, on various things from cosmology to medicine and concluded that there are a wide variety of ways to obtain and process information and each are useful in different contexts. If the human species could quit with the arrogance and the feeling of primacy of self, it would learn that the best and most useful way would be to keep a tool-kit of worldviews and ways of processing information, and intuit the correct context for each of these, rather than bickering with each other about the "correctness" of any of them.

There is no correct way to gather and interpret information. There are only ways that are useful and ways that are not, and this is a shifting and subjective ground.

As for a Creator being, if scientists proved that abiogensis occurred, and got life to spring from zapping this goop with that electricity, and it evolved all the way to a human being, etc.-- what does that prove? Think about it, as a scientist. What is proven here? The process. How it happened. Says absolutely nothing about why. God is in the why. The Creator is in the process, not separate from it.

Science is a limited way (as any way is) of investigating the universe. It simply cannot answer the question about God. In fact, it is limited automatically by its methodology, as a scientist must define what it is investigating before it investigates. As all mystics and shamans nearly universally agree that the Great Spirit or what have you is beyond humann comprehension, we can only experience the Creator. We cannot define It. So once we define what it is we are investigating as a scientist- God- we have already mucked up our methodology and doomed ourselves to failure.

It is far more honest to simply say- we do not know. Not everything in the universe is suitable for scientific inquiry. Recognize the limitations-- some things are meant for an artistic inquiry, or a mystical inquiry, and so forth. Just as I wouldn't turn to religion for inquiring how to invent a hydrogen-powered car, I wouldn't turn to science for answers about God. In either case, it is pointless, and my irrationality shows most clearly in my clinging to a single method of inquiry if I do so. Rationality and reason are in part recognizing our limitations and appropriate tools for the context. Science is only rational when applied rationally.

Faith is a suspension of 'reason'.

No, it isn't.

Definition:
(1): firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2): complete trust (3): something that is believed especially with strong conviction;

1. There is proof for both evolution and for God. In both cases, proof is dependent on one's definition and methodology. To ignore either side is to invalidate another's method of inquiry without any rational reason to do so, except that you perceive yourself to be the most priviledged in the world in your intellectual capacity. You define what is proof based on your preconceived assumptions about what should be proof. You define the world you accept (your reality) by your own thought. Which is, of course, irrational and unreasonable. Especially in science!

2. I rest my case. Seems the only way to get around #2 for both the Creator-less scientists and the Creator folks is to sit on the fence and admit you can't ever know. Which is a position that both sides get annoyed with.

3. I rest my case further. Both sides do this.

So... definition proves the point. Both sides are based on faith. Why is that such a bad thing?

Every person, in order to keep from being immobilized by the possibilities, chooses a worldview and method(s) of inquiry about their reality. Some are more open than others, more context-based, but everyone does this. It is part of being human. What makes us uncomfortable with it is that we want to be right. Other people's realities threaten our own. If I am a skeptical sciency kind of gal, and a shaman's reality is an intuitive spirit-filled one... am I wrong? Or is the other gal's wrong? That another lives in a world that is so different from my own makes me worry that my world is not really what the world is. Am I then crazy? Am I limited? Am I missing something important? Suddenly, the other's worldview and method(s) of inquiry are so threatening. And so we defend "our" world from this attack.

Oh, it is so laughable once you really "get" it in your own self.

People... we are all equally right. Or, more aptly, we are all equally wrong.

[Tao_Equus]

Path,

Nice post but of course I disagree on several points. I'm about to go out tho so do not have time to reply. See you next time


tao

[seattlegal]

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

Continually re-evaluating the facts as they emerge surely is the only way to be honest.

Re-evaluating the facts would include admitting whether a theory has proof or not, would it not?

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

Faith is a suspension of 'reason'.

Where does it say anywhere that faith is a suspension of reason?

From dictionary.com

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) -
faith
1. confidence or trust in a person or thing: faith in another's ability.
2. belief that is not based on proof: He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact.
3. belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion: the firm faith of the Pilgrims.
4. belief in anything, as a code of ethics, standards of merit, etc.: to be of the same faith with someone concerning honesty.
5. a system of religious belief: the Christian faith; the Jewish faith.
6. the obligation of loyalty or fidelity to a person, promise, engagement, etc.: Failure to appear would be breaking faith.
7. the observance of this obligation; fidelity to one's promise, oath, allegiance, etc.: He was the only one who proved his faith during our recent troubles.
8. Christian Theology. the trust in God and in His promises as made through Christ and the Scriptures by which humans are justified or saved.
—Idiom
9. in faith, in truth; indeed: In faith, he is a fine lad.
[Origin: 1200–50; ME feith < AF fed, OF feid, feit < L fidem, acc. of fidés trust, akin to fīdere to trust. See confide]

So, confidence and trust is a suspension of reason? Belief in a code of ethics is a suspension of reason?

You really want me to start quoting the nasty bits of the bible?

Tao

Hey, feel free, but I don't see how you will find any evidence there to support your theory of abiogenesis.

[seattlegal]

Hey, sorry, Path, for reposting the definition of faith. I was cooking lunch while composing my post, and didn't see your definition at the time.