by KateWild 110 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Monsieur said-
before i respond to the rest of your post, i'm making note of the fact that you are assuming that MY example is based purely on Bible -based theological concepts.
I don't care WHERE you found it: it could be from Hindu holy books, for all I care. It's flat-out WRONG, just the same, as it represents an attempt to mix theology into the philosophy of science, which only "dummy downs" science.
I don't care WHERE you found it: it could be from Hindu holy books, for all I care. It's flat-out WRONG, just the same, as it represents an attempt to mix theology into the philosophy of science, which only "dummy downs" science
lol adam,
now you are an expert on ALL theology reference books! here is proof that you are most definetely NOT an expert -
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article is about the general term, particularly as it refers to experimental sciences. For other uses, see Science (disambiguation). 
Science (from Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge" [ 1 ] ) is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] In an older and closely related meaning, "science" also refers to a body of knowledge itself, of the type that can be rationally explained and reliably applied. A practitioner of science is known as a scientist.
Since classical antiquity, science as a type of knowledge has been closely linked to philosophy. In the early modern period the words "science" and "philosophy of nature" were sometimes used interchangeably. [ 4 ] By the 17th century, natural philosophy (which is today called "natural science") was considered a separate branch of philosophy. [ 5 ]
so it appears adam,
that science and philosophy were in fact one and the same at some point in early human history.
Yeah, no kidding, Monsieur.
Take a history of science/medicine course sometime and you'd learn on Day One of the course that in ancient cultures (eg Egyptian, Mesopotamian) there was no differentiation between theology and medicine: both roles were played by the same individual (typically a priest), since the two were deeply intertwined to be indistinguishable. Fact is, belief in Gods (Ra, Azuru Mazda, Jehovah, etc) once WAS the best-available science of the day!
Eventually though, Greek thinkers like Aristotle soon began to tease out medicine from theology, where eg Aristotle's heretical suggestion (circa 300BC) was that epilepsy wasn't caused by angry Gods, but by a organic process occurring in the brain.
However, unenlightened thinking still persisted in vast parts of the World, such that even in Jesus' day he travelled amongst largely-illiterate and uneducated people in Palestine who still believed illness resulted from sins, which was the basis for performing miracles of healing: Jesus claimed to be authorized by God to be able to forgive sins, so THAT was how he healed, resurrected the dead, etc. Even in 30CE, the priests in the rebuilt 2nd Temple in Jerusalem were STILL curing leprosy, which is why Jesus cured a leper, but told the person to go to the Temple and report to the priests and present the required offering, per the Law of Moses.
From "The Religious Spirit of Science." Published in Mein Weltbild(1934),18; reprinted in Ideas and Opinions,40
"You will hardly find one among the profounder sort of scientific minds without a religious feeling of his own. But it is different from the religiosity of the naive man. For the latter, God is a being from whose care one hopes to benefit and whose punishment one fears; a sublimation of a feeling similar to that of a child for its father.
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The scientist is posessed by a sense of universal causation....His religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systemic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection....It is beyond question closely akin to that which has possessed the religious geniuses of all ages."
Ibid.
Science and nature can be your god if you put it in the terms: What are you looking to for answers to questions based on the facts at hand.
That's all a god really is, it's not an ACTUAL being (even the Bible says it's a thing made of clay or wood, has eyes but cannot see etc), it's an idealized being you look at for guidance. If your guidance is based on the wrong assumptions (such as in science eg. frenology) then you will be guided wrong.
The religions of this world unilaterally guide you wrong because they want to be the ones that give you the answers (and collect your money in the process), facts be damned. That's why science and religion/superstitions are opposed to each other - one is based on an extensive and progressive amount of facts, the other is based on a very limited amount of static facts of a people that existed about 2-6000 years ago.
The difference between religion and science is that religion doesn't allow you to challenge the idealized being at hand while science promotes it.
I still think it is pointless and misleading to use the word god outside the broadest sense of theism. If somebody doesn't believe in a personal, immanent god then they would do us all a favour by not using the word at all.
Theism is a discredited concept but people want to salvage something from the wreckage.
How about awe?
I think awe is awesome.
jgnat said-
How about awe?
You mean, using 'awe' as a noun? As in, "I believe in awe"?
What's wrong with "I believe in the scientific method"?
Why waste any energy talking about Gods, just as we don't spend alot of energy worrying about the hidden meanings revealed in some ancient Chinese mythology? Aside from any possible historical interest and some people's fears of Hell, etc, why the need for the concept of Gods?
Oops, forgot to attach the author's name with my previous post.
Albert Einstein. vvvvvv
From "The Religious Spirit of Science." Published in Mein Weltbild(1934),18; reprinted in Ideas and Opinions,40
"You will hardly find one among the profounder sort of scientific minds without a religious feeling of his own. But it is different from the religiosity of the naive man. For the latter, God is a being from whose care one hopes to benefit and whose punishment one fears; a sublimation of a feeling similar to that of a child for its father.
------ -----------
The scientist is posessed by a sense of universal causation....His religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systemic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection....It is beyond question closely akin to that which has possessed the religious geniuses of all ages."
Ibid.
