The Winter Olympics

[muhammad_isa]

What I can say about is that the current changes in climate are not a process caused or accelerated by human activities..

Observations show otherwise..
There has been an increasing change since the industrial revolution.
It is fuelled by the way of life of the privilged nations .. which is all to do with the financial system.

There is change going on nowadays, with the industrialisation of asia .. China recognises
man-made climate change, for example.

 

[wil]

Then, one must also be cautious when participating in events with rituals resembling of being dedicated to idols.

Why? Aint nobody worried about Greek or Roman gods today...that it is a friendly competition

 

[TheLightWithin]

I have understood from the scriptures that the believer in the Messiah must abstain of eating what is has been dedicated to other gods or idolatry.

Isn't the overall point a little more nuanced - that one abstains in a couple of situations - one to avoid active participation in the pagan religion and the other to prevent someone with a newer or weaker faith from feeling uncertain or doubtful?

Since nobody at the modern Olympics is engaging in actual worship of Zeus...

Remember, for a long time after those religions died out, there were references to "the classics" by Christian scholars. Ancient mythology was thought to be about imaginary gods. That's where people got the idea that myth meant something untrue.

For centuries people with classical educations would quote not only philosophers but the myths, all while believing the mythology was symbolic or make believe, and not real at all, and that their own Christian religion was "true" or reality based.

 

[rocala]

For centuries people with classical educations would quote not only philosophers but the myths, all while believing the mythology was symbolic or make believe, and not real at all, and that their own Christian religion was "true" or reality based.

I would think that such education has considerable value too. I think that it was Richard Rohr was said that "God did not ignore the human race until 2,000 years ago.

It is easy to be dismissive of all but one's own faith, but imagine if your religion had arrived on a world of atheists with no history of spirituality. It quite possibly would have been dismissed as lunacy. Instead, we have a framework within which we can consider and compare what is being shown to us. In other words we needed a past to have a future.

 

[rocala]

What I can say about is that the current changes in climate are not a process caused or accelerated by human activities.

I 100% disagree. Imagine that you light a fire in a single room only. An hour later you check the temperatures of the rooms. Now if the outside temperature is rapidly dropping far below zero, there may be no detectable change where the fire is. Equally, should there be a heat wave, the temperature may be far higher in that particular room

We see two things here; Firstly, that the bigger picture cannot be ignored. Secondly that the fire did have an effect. So what we do in such cases does have an effect.

We humans have been burning millions of tons of fossil fuels for a long time. Who can seriously say that this has "no effect".

 

[Carlos]

Observations show otherwise..
There has been an increasing change since the industrial revolution.
It is fuelled by the way of life of the privilged nations .. which is all to do with the financial system.

There is change going on nowadays, with the industrialisation of asia .. China recognises
man-made climate change, for example.

You just reminded me the absurd idea that time "dilates" and atomic clocks in satellites confirms it. I can assure you with strong evidence that the whole fuss about such a flexible time is pure imagination.

Same as well with a warming climate accelerated by human action.

Climate on earth has passed for so many ups and downs in reference to temperature. The causes for it are so many, from nature of earth suffering changes by internal causes and also by external causes. Predictions saying pollution will cause the atmosphere to become cloudy and dark, and everyday when I wake up the Sun shines as it was decades ago. So many predictions and none of them have happened by the earth climate changing without solid explanation.

Fortunately the scriptures provide a sure answer, unfortunately if you can't get it, then is not for you to find it out, at least not yet.

Why did I chose the graphic from above and no others showing a different graphic favoring your position? Well, because besides of targeting an area that helps better than other to measure temperature throughout centuries, it also helps my point, right?

I pointed that planet Mars is also having a phenomenon of temperature increase. And in Mars you don't see industries and gas fueled vehicles causing pollution.

Unless with start considering the bacteria and other micro/organisms arriving to Mars carried in our spacecrafts.

 

[Carlos]

Why? Aint nobody worried about Greek or Roman gods today...that it is a friendly competition

Ouch! You just hurt me hard.

Simple and effective, I love your answer.

 

[Carlos]

Isn't the overall point a little more nuanced - that one abstains in a couple of situations - one to avoid active participation in the pagan religion and the other to prevent someone with a newer or weaker faith from feeling uncertain or doubtful?

Since nobody at the modern Olympics is engaging in actual worship of Zeus...

Remember, for a long time after those religions died out, there were references to "the classics" by Christian scholars. Ancient mythology was thought to be about imaginary gods. That's where people got the idea that myth meant something untrue.

For centuries people with classical educations would quote not only philosophers but the myths, all while believing the mythology was symbolic or make believe, and not real at all, and that their own Christian religion was "true" or reality based.

It is a ritual.

If you don't know what a ritual is, then I think there is nothing else to talk about.

 

[Carlos]

I 100% disagree. Imagine that you light a fire in a single room only. An hour later you check the temperatures of the rooms. Now if the outside temperature is rapidly dropping far below zero, there may be no detectable change where the fire is. Equally, should there be a heat wave, the temperature may be far higher in that particular room

We see two things here; Firstly, that the bigger picture cannot be ignored. Secondly that the fire did have an effect. So what we do in such cases does have an effect.

We humans have been burning millions of tons of fossil fuels for a long time. Who can seriously say that this has "no effect".

OK. I had a friend who was very curious.

He told me that heat always flows up is false. And his argument was at any place in the world, close to mountains or from valleys, that the higher you go up the coldest the atmospheric environment will be.

The answer to him is simple and doesn't require much scientific research but simple observation. However, it appears people is so focused to take a piece of paper and make calculations rather than observe deep and find the answer, Science has decayed so much, sigh*.

OK, the heat waves centuries ago that caused higher temperatures in climate weren't caused by burning of entire forests, chain of volcanoes erupting, and so forth, however records show the climate temperature because high, very high in certain eras.

Ta ta ta taaah!

Here i when you better discard everything you have at hand and start finding more accurate options.

 

[muhammad_isa]

You just reminded me the absurd idea that time "dilates" and atomic clocks in satellites confirms it. I can assure you with strong evidence that the whole fuss about such a flexible time is pure imagination..

..so Einstein was a nutter?

Climate on earth has passed for so many ups and downs in reference to temperature. The causes for it are so many, from nature of earth suffering changes by internal causes and also by external causes..

Yeah, if you look at it from the perspective of millions of years ago..
It is the pace of change today that is alarming, and potentially causing havoc for life
on earth.
..and human caused climate-change is widely accepted as fact by those who are educated in the sciences.

Those with an invested interest in financial affairs might deny it.

I pointed that planet Mars is also having a phenomenon of temperature increase..

We don't live on Mars .. or maybe you do.

 

[wil]

OK, the heat waves centuries ago that caused higher temperatures in climate weren't caused by burning of entire forests, chain of volcanoes erupting, and so forth, however records show the climate temperature because high, very high in certain eras.

They weren't? What caused them?

 

[Thomas]

@Thomas, you would know as well or better than anybody here:: Was there ever a time over the years where studying or honoring the classics was considered a threat to Christian theology or belief? What about the concepts of "muscular Christianity" or "civil religion" - to your knowledge, have those been considered threats to Christian belief?

Ooh, there's a big question!

I'd start with St Paul – in Acts 17 he quotes two Greek poets in quick succession, both poems addressed by their writers to the god Zeus. St Paul situates them in a Christian context. From the Fathers on, it was accepted that Christian revelation contextualised pagan practice. So the classics were studied, and to some degree venerated, but not blamed or condemned for being unaware of the Truth as proclaimed by Jesus.

St Thomas Aquinas, for example, referred to Aristotle as 'The Philosopher' in his Summa Theologiae, and married the 'Aristotelian method' (the foundation of good scholarly practice) to his theological practice. The Church founded universities and the classics were taught there. (Aquinas quoted Aristotle extensively, as he did Augustine and Dionysius the pseudoAreopagite, those two being Platonists.)

The clerical garb of today – black attire – was copied from the Greek philosophers.

Conversely, there is an ever-present 'pastoral concern' to protect the laity from 'deleterious paganism' which all too often and too easily devolved into a 'ban' on anything regarded as 'dangerous' – and so there was always the issue of Christian scholars being accused of heresy – Valentinus, for example, or the scandalous condemnation of the likes of Origen and Meister Eckhart.

This unfortunate practice is even more overt in conservative Christian circles today, with the banning of books and certain teachings, etc.

 

[Thomas]

Regarding the Easter Myths, there's a thread here