http://www.monergism.com/systematic.html.
http://www.rtrc.net/documents/wcf/hodge/wcftoc.htm.
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/institutes.htmlhttp://www.lgmarshall.org/reformed/berkhof_summary.html.
"We all end up in some dismal cemetry with drunken kids urinating on our tombstones anyway. The atheist next to the fundamentalist, the good with the bad and ugly"
Nope! Not me! I've reserved a 10th floor crypyt in a high-rise mausoleum for beautiful atheists......
several weeks ago the issue of god's 'perfect nature' came up on a thread.
the concept of "perfection" is a persistent in vitually all faith traditions and theological constructs.. jws in particular, have an obsession with the concept of perfection and use it regularly in their propaganda: "live forever in a perfect paradise earth"; "live forever in perfect health"; "humans and animals will live together in perfect harmony", etc etc...... the point was raised about the possibility or impossibility of god being perfect.
if we begin with the basic judaeo-christian tenet that god created the universe from nothingness, then he is the designer and creator of every single entity, sentient or non-sentient, and object within reality.
Several weeks ago the issue of God's 'perfect nature' came up on a thread. The concept of "Perfection" is a persistent in vitually all faith traditions and theological constructs.
JWs in particular, have an obsession with the concept of perfection and use it regularly in their propaganda: "Live forever in a perfect paradise earth"; "Live forever in perfect health"; "Humans and animals will live together in perfect harmony", etc etc.....
The point was raised about the possibility or impossibility of God being perfect.
If we begin with the basic Judaeo-Christian tenet that God created the Universe from nothingness, then he is the designer and creator of every single entity, sentient or non-sentient, and object within reality. This begs the question: Where did evil come from? Where did "imperfection" come from? For the sake of argument, we can use the Judaeo-Christian standards of good and evil when considering them as actions, events or objects....(e.g. 10 commandments, etc)
The usual response is: God did not CREATE evil, but gave all beings the "Free-Will" to CHOOSE to do evil, or good.
The logical problem with this premise is that God would STILL by necessity, have to be the architect of Evil, if for no other reason that "man was created in his image"....Indeed, if God did not "create" evil as a behavioural and moral "Option", then NEITHER man, NOR the devil would have had the CHOICE to do evil.....
The point is, if ALL within the universal reality came from God, then God, by logical necessity MUST contain evil...Even if he does not "contain" evil as a "personal trait", he at the very least must be capable of evil, and therefore, IMPERFECT.....
Assuming the definition of "perfection" to be: "The state of being without a flaw of defect"....How can "imperfection" derive from "perfection"? It is a logical contradiction.
There is another option....that God had absolutely nothing to do with "Evil" and it existed BEFORE God created the universe. However, again, this by logical extension demonstrates that God is not responsible for the contents of the universe, or at the very least, chose not to do anything about "imperfection" and "evil" as constructs within the Universe. Indeed, the universe and at least certain components of it, existed BEFORE God.....thus implying that God, is finite.
Yet another option: Gods "evil" is "perfect".....since it derives from a "perfect being"?
Are there any rational, theological alternatives to these conclusions?
i dare to say science and religion are two different animals.
they may try to explain similar things but in different ways.
i don't believe man will ever live without either religion or science nor would i want us too.
James Thomas, I am sure you did not intend to insult me with your previous comment about what is 'fluttering around in my little mind.' I am sure that you are far above that. And since you are so interested in genuine reality - at least in your personal interpretation of it without using any "filters"
I think JT usually means well, however I too find him exasperating at times with his cryptic mysticism and cleverly crafted put-downs. I think what JT needs is a primer course in fundamental neuroscience, which would clarify for him, once and for all, that there IS no reality beyond the universe created within our cortex and therefore, no possibility of perceiving an object in its true, unfiltered essence. We are nothing more than the sum total of our neuronal networks which can distort or accurately encode incoming sensory information depending upon the emotional and/or motivational context of said event. I would challenge JT to provide one example of this unfiltered, pure reality he purports to have access to.
However, if JT can demonstrate to me that he has mastered some perceptual technique to perceive and think in the absence of neurochemical transmission, I would be delighted to arrange some fMRI scans, and have the findings published in Nature....
i think i replied to too many threads yesterday about demons and jehovah.
must have been in the back of my mind when i went to sleep.. i was dreaming that this ugly demon with a pointy hairy chin was after me.
i dont remember alot, but the end part.
"Well in my dream Mr C was doing a movie of him having sex with a Thai girl"
I have the same dream every time I eat Pad Thai or Thom Gai soup after 9 pm....
i'm speechless.
apparently britney has had a complete meltdown: shaved her head bald and getting tattooed.
i fear we are headed for another anna nicole smith situation..... somebody get those babies away from her before she eats them!
I'm speechless. Apparently Britney has had a complete meltdown: shaved her head bald and getting tattooed. I fear we are headed for another Anna Nicole Smith situation....
Somebody get those babies away from her before she eats them!
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Britney Spears appeared in a tattoo parlor in the San Fernando Valley with her head shaved completely bald. Video on KABC-TV showed the newly shorn Spears with tiny tattoos on the back of her neck as she sits Friday night for a new tattoo -- a pair of red and pink lips. "She just wanted something real small on her wrist, something dainty," Max Gott, the tattoo artist at Body and Soul in Sherman Oaks, told the TV station. "She got some cute little lips on her wrist." Derrik Snell, who works at the tattoo parlor, said Spears showed up without notice and stayed for about 90 minutes as about 60 fans, photographers and gawkers gathered outside. "She seemed fine," Snell said. "I didn't really notice [the hairdo] at first, she had a hood on when she showed up." The appearance came the same day as reports on TV and Web sites that Spears, who has drawn criticism for her recent partying and sloppy behavior, had briefly checked into rehab. ( Watch as Us Magazine's Bradley Jacobs reveals what Britney said before the shave 
)
Larry Rudolph, Spears' manager, couldn't be reached for comment.Syndicated entertainment TV show "Extra" first reported that Spears had entered a treatment facility. Celebrity Web site TMZ.com then said the singer had entered a treatment center but had checked out one day later. Neither revealed their sources.People magazine's Web site, citing "a source," said Spears had gone in and out of rehab, and identified the facility as Eric Clapton's Crossroads center in Antigua, in the Caribbean. "Access Hollywood" then said the reports weren't true, but didn't cite a source. A woman who answered the phone at Crossroads told The Associated Press that she couldn't confirm or deny anyone's presence at the facility. Angelique Uram, a Spears fan who stood on the tattoo parlor's sidewalk for Friday night's spectacle, was aghast at the singer's new look. "We could see her in the mirror, and her head is completely shaved," she told KABC. "It looks terrible."
Police arrived to control the crowd and helped Spears' bodyguards guide her into a waiting SUV, her head covered by a hooded sweatshirt.
From This:
To THIS:
i dare to say science and religion are two different animals.
they may try to explain similar things but in different ways.
i don't believe man will ever live without either religion or science nor would i want us too.
"Absolutely not. Many in science would love to promote their atheistic religion by denying religion any validity."
Atheistic religion? LMAO....get real Qcmbr...I'm assuming english is your first language so I will remind you what a "religion" constitutes: A collection of individuals sharing a common faith in a supernatural framework...given the obvious fact that atheism is the ABSENCE of this "belief" not to mention the fact that atheism does NOT constitute a "collective" philosophical framework, your use of the term is absurd. I do find it amusing however that you consider the term "religion" to be a slur! LOL...
"Many in Science"? Hmmmmm, do you have list of names? Funny most of my colleagues dont give a sh*t about religion in any sense of the term. I am aware, however, of your horror over the fact that the scientific method has most certainly invalidated YOUR religion and its mythology....LOL....
"Religion and science are not mutually exclusive as long as both allow mutability and play by the same rules."
Play by the same rules? Hey good idea! Next time I run an experiment I will gather all my grad students around the monitor so we can "pray" for the result we want! LOL....Its stunning that you could be so utterly ignorant of the complete chasm that exists between the scientific method and "religious" modes of thinking. Do they have no science curriculum at all in your education system? Scary indeed.....
does the belief that there is no all-loving diety in which to be accountable to make it easier or harder to treat and judge others they way that you want to be treated and judged?.
since evolution supposes that life and ultimately man who is at the top of the chain got here through a process of the fittest dominating and killing off the weaker, and since most modern evolutionists in democracies no longer think that this is good to practice, how do you deal with the fact that you are a living contradiction of your own belief since you pronounce the same thing both good and bad?
.
From the gospel of Saint Perry:
"They would be forced to conclude:
(1) The human species cannot know of their own what is good and bad."
> You dont even know how to DEFINE good and bad. If you understood the evolution of human social psychology, you would realize that each individual human culture defines for its own particular utility and environmental pressures what "behavioural" actions shall be deemed "good" or "bad". In and of themselves, these are meaningless words...
"(2) Even when they do "know", they cannot do it and thus avoid the hypocrisy of meteing out punishment to others guilty of the same moral lapses. "
> More evidence of your black and white mindset. What is good is entirely CONTEXT DEPENDENT, as is "bad"....Again, you dont even have a definition of "good" OR "bad" so the statement is rather meaningless, isnt it?
"(3) Freedom is relative, and we will always need a source for moral knowledge."
> So what? This is completely irrelevant to the self-referential state of "atheism" or "christian" or "muslim" or whatever label you care to adopt. Freedom is relative...yes....and so is MORALITY. Case in point, I am certain your belief that I will burn in hell for eternity is a perfectly "moral" retribution that your cute little sky-god will mete out to me and my fellow evil atheists? LOL!!! In ANY case, ones "source" of "moral knowledge" comes from the combination of our human genome and our environmental and cultural surroundings. Humans have EVOLVED as social creatures, and our natural propensity for utilitarian actions is genetically determined, having NOTHING to do with belief in some silly ancient text written thousands of years ago.
(4) The sources that we erect are highly subject to manipulation.
> Yup! Glad you admitted this Saint Perry, its not easy for someone with a messiah complex such as yourself! LOL...However, you are 100% correct. THE GOD YOU HAVE ERECTED is completely subject to MANIPULATION for the simple reason that you can use his anthropomorphic, self-righteous arrogance to JUSTIFY your own judgemental moralizing of everyone who rejects your tiny little sky-god and his little messengers....
"(5) We will always be in servitude to the source we choose. "
> Hmmmm, in servitude to my own evolutionary history? Yup, probably true, and so what? Its called being a human being and accepting the constraints of ones own biological limits. Again, this has no relationship at all to whether one is atheist (and accepts a biological explanation for morality) or a believer (who needs to go running to his imaginary daddy in the sky everytime he needs some moral direction!)
"(6) We need Someone with enough authority to pronounce "absolvo" on our behalf and releive us of our guilt."
Sorry Perry, it just aint that simple. First, if someone commits a heinous act, those feelings of guilt are serving a very useful function....they are the psychological constructs built into the human brain that attempt to PREVENT us from doing these acts AGAIN. Do you think getting some imaginary "absolution" is really going to benefit the perpetrator? I doubt it. And thats why we have a penal and legal system in our society. To prevent and protect individuals from those amongst us that WOULD do us harm. The concept of "absolvo" is just psychological anesthesia that benefits the perpetrator, NOT the victim, which, IMHO, makes it an inherently immoral and unethical concept.
"(7) Even if we are pronounced "not guilty" we need an instrument that can bridge the utilitarian gap between what we choose as good and what we do."
Yes, obviously. Again, what possible relevance could this have to the issue of atheism/evolution? As I have stated ad infinitum, we have EVOLVED as inherently social beings for the simple reason that humans survive much more efficiently and therefore re-produce and pass on their DNA much more effectively when we belong and are protected by a social group. Virtually ALL primate species and most vertebrate species display the exact same social bonding as humans and intimately depend upon one another for survival and protection. Its really not complicated: scratch my back and I'll scratch yours pretty much sums up the whole evolution of morality but if you want more information, I suggest you seriously study "game theory" in the context of evolutionary "morality".....
i know a lot of posters are not religious and others feel no need to attend a church.
but, for those that do attend somewhere, i was curious as to what type of church they chose after leaving the jws and what attracted them to that particular church or religion?
if you were not raised as a jw, did you return to the church you were raised in?
Atheist, but I have recently joined the Reformed Church of Spongebob...
I encourage all of you to examine our faith and teachings....
i scored 80% !
and little toe said we atheists dont know anything about theology !!!!
http://www.landoverbaptist.org/news0505/biblepoopquiz.html.
I scored 80% !
And Little Toe said we atheists dont know anything about theology !!!!
http://www.monergism.com/systematic.html.
http://www.rtrc.net/documents/wcf/hodge/wcftoc.htm.
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/institutes.htmlhttp://www.lgmarshall.org/reformed/berkhof_summary.html.
"It has been my experience that because folks have been part of one religion (i.e. JWs) they often have the misguided belief that they are experts in theology or the Christian faith."
I certainly would not consider myself an "expert" in theology, and to my knowledge there is not a single person on this board that could make such a claim. Perhaps someone with a Doctorate in Divinity would pass muster, but beyond that, NOBODY here is qualified as an "expert" in theology, christian or otherwise. Its immaterial in any case since as I stated previously, this is a debate between supporters of a specific "pre-christian" creation myth, and those promoting a scientific approach to human origins.
I would also add, no matter how whacked out I consider the JWs, they are still a sect of Christianity and share many, many beliefs, attitudes and social policies with other Christian fundamentalist sects, including the 7th Day Adventists, Baptists, Mormons, even some Pentecostal movements, including but not limited to: homophobia, an anti-science agenda, anti-abortion, right-wing political leanings, a belief that "they alone" have the "truth", and the list goes on and on.....indeed, I am consistently reminded of this fact when quite a few of our regular Christian Fundies right here on JWD make statements that I previously would have believed only a JW elder would be capable of......
