quote:Originally posted by Lisa: I can live and let live. But no, I'm not even a little open to Christian or Muslim or or Hindu or Shinto ideas.
So you couldn't, for example, find some common ground with the Shinto idea that we should be grateful for what we receive or concepts of ritual purity or even that killing should be done only when necessary?
Whether Shinto has that idea or not is utterly irrelevant to me. Judaism does, so why do I care if Shinto does?
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quote:Originally posted by The White Whale: If it were anyone but you Lisa, I would find that shocking. It's people like you that give my friend nervous breakdowns.
That says more about you and your friend than it does about me, I think.
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quote:Originally posted by Lisa: I can live and let live. But no, I'm not even a little open to Christian or Muslim or or Hindu or Shinto ideas.
So you couldn't, for example, find some common ground with the Shinto idea that we should be grateful for what we receive or concepts of ritual purity or even that killing should be done only when necessary?
Whether Shinto has that idea or not is utterly irrelevant to me. Judaism does, so why do I care if Shinto does?
Because, since we don't actually live on separate little islands, you might, someday, have or even want to interact with someone of that faith and it might be good to not see that person as entirely other and it might be good for that person to see you as not entirely other. You being sympathetic to their beliefs - not sharing them - and their being sympathetic to yours could be a good thing. You might give each other some accommodation.
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Sorry, crushed for time so I did a bad post.
The enemy is the Secularists. These are people who don't go to church regularly and promote things like Evolution, Global Warming, and other Secularistic non-denominational ideas.
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quote:Originally posted by Darth_Mauve: Sorry, crushed for time so I did a bad post.
The enemy is the Secularists. These are people who don't go to church regularly and promote things like Evolution, Global Warming, and other Secularistic non-denominational ideas.
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Specifically, your use of the word "enemy" makes everything after it suspect, and then the rest of the post is even more nonsense.
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I may be being optimistic. He hasn't seemed particularly thick or unreasonable before, though, to my recollection.
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Certainly there are people of faith that would soon be verbally battling each other if more convenient targets such as biologists who discuss evolution were not there.
But that is not why inter-faith organizations exist, nor have I ever even heard about such things being on any agendas.
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There are so many outrageous and wrong statements made about religion here that my conclusion was reasonable.
Otherwise, I would have to assume that Lisa and KoM are walking, talking, antisocial parodies. I half-suspect it anyway.
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I don't dislike them, and I even agree with them both on a number of things, but I totally understand what you're getting at.
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There are so many outrageous and wrong statements made about religion here that my conclusion was reasonable.
Last week, would you have thought it was outrageous and wrong for someone to claim that some religious people think that meteors might hit the US if it legalizes gay marraige?
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quote:Originally posted by Lisa: Believe it or not, I usually bite my tongue a bit when posting anything here about Judaism. I'm just not in the mood to do so today.
Maybe you should not have taken today off...
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: One problem that interfaith dialogue can address is the assumption that the loudest and most extreme voices are representative of any particular faith. We find out things like the fact that not all Christians believe that Jews burn in hell.
Lisa, do you really think that I don't have a father? What definition of father are you using? Or would explaining that be too much dialogue and you would prefer that I just think you odd?
Thank God I know a lot of other Jews.
Is it wrong for me to be offended by this? It's like saying "Thank God I know other black people."
Because if you didn't know other Jews - you would be silly enough to generalize to all other Jews?
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quote:Originally posted by Armoth: ... Because if you didn't know other Jews - you would be silly enough to generalize to all other Jews?
quote:Originally posted by Occasional: I just want to interject that for Mormons the idea of the United States as a "Christian Nation" is close to a theological absolute ... Much like Ron, the de-Christianizing of the United States represents the sign of the end of the world and the beginning of the Wrath of God.
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Lyrhawn, the dinosaurs did not all die out until the beginning of the Christian era. The T-Rexs whose bones have been found still containing soft tissue in the American west probably only died a thousand years or so ago. They were hunted to extinction in Europe--where they were called "dragons." Representative pairs (or sevens if not predators)--or their eggs--were probably preserved on the Ark.
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Lisa, can you possibly accept the idea that God might have asked the Jews to regard keeping the Sabbath as a special covenant duty for them, without that excluding the fact that the Sabbath was intended as a memorial of Creation for everyone? The commandment begins with the words, "REMEMBER the Sabbath day, to KEEP it holy." (Exodus 20:8) That does not sound like something new that only then was being instituted. The fact that the Sabbath was not only then being instituted is also born out by the fact that for many months prior to Sinai, manna only fell six days a week, and never on the Sabbath, and a double portion fell on the day before the Sabbath. See Ex. 16:22, 23, 25, 26, 29, 30.
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Careful, Mucus. "For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God." (1 Cor. 3:19) Also, "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." (1 Cor. 2:14)
Lisa, notice how many times God refers to the Sabbath as "My Sabbaths." (Ex. 31:13; Lev. 19:3; and 13 more.) Also before Sinai they are called "a sabbath unto the Lord" (Ex. 16:23, 25)
Thus the Scripture plainly declares the Sabbath to be the Lord's, not the Jews'. He may have given the Sabbaths to the Jews to be a special sign that He is the Lord who sanctifies them (Ex. 31:13), but they are still His Sabbaths.
Lisa, do not the Jews wish for all humanity to worship God? How then can you object if others besides Jews honor His Sabbaths?
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Lyrhawn, the dinosaurs did not all die out until the beginning of the Christian era. The T-Rexs whose bones have been found still containing soft tissue in the American west probably only died a thousand years or so ago. They were hunted to extinction in Europe--where they were called "dragons." Representative pairs (or sevens if not predators)--or their eggs--were probably preserved on the Ark.
It is like this forum is actually a game show where various competitors attempt to be the greatest parody of their faith/ideology/worldview.
It's okay, Ron. You don't have to pad your score. You won. You are the most ridiculous poster. You keep squaring off against Lisa as if you're worried she could hold a torch to you. Hell, you don't even have to worry about Occasional. You win.Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Last week, would you have thought it was outrageous and wrong for someone to claim that some religious people think that meteors might hit the US if it legalizes gay marraige?
No, because you can find someone who believes just about any kind of crazy thing.
The difference between your statement and Darth's was the generalization. Your says "some", and that's probably true. Darth's said "religious people" or whatever, which was meant to apply to all or at least a strong majority, and it wasn't true.
That's the difference.
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quote:In all the examples I can think of, I think that would be a good result, but I fully recognize that others will strongly disagree with me. I was wondering if there might be an example where I could agree it was a bad result. The ones I have in mind, with sound-bite rationale:
SSM and other protections based on sexual orientation - I think they'd be a net benefit to the nation. Abortion - I think the right to have one should be limited by viability of handing off the fetus to another caretaker; this is not a religiously founded point of view. Drugs - I think we should legalize most of them, and anti-drug sentiment seems a bit stronger among the religious. War, taxes, almost everything else: Absolutely must have secular justification
Since I already know people won't agree with the first three, I wonder if religious people think I'm right about war and taxes, and what other examples they can think of where religiously founded concerns should be recognized by the government, rather than being ignored.
I'd think education is a particularly tricky issue where religious concerns can't fairly be ignored. Children learn a lot about right and wrong from school, as well as a great deal about how to view the world. An atheist-only approach to this would leave kids with an approach to viewing the world and morality that does not include religion. This would conflict directly with how religious parents want their kids to be raised, and what the kids are hearing outside school. Inevitably this undermines the credibility of the school in both the parent's and the child's minds, or potentially undermines the credibility of the parent in the child's mind, on those issues. That's going to make teaching moral reasoning very difficult, among other things.
More generally, to an atheist I'm sure a government that acts as if it were atheist seems to make more sense. But consider how the religious public responds to that. If the people are religious and the government is atheist, then that's going to place the people in a war with the government over religious issues. That's almost certainly going to break down trust in the government. It's going to cause many religious people to reject the government, or at least the concept of Separation of Church and State, to some degree or another. And it's going to promote extremism and ideas like "we need to make America an officially Christian nation". So, even if you think atheism is the way to go on every issue, I think you'd still need to recognize that not assuming atheism is better, if only because otherwise the largely religious majority is not going to have reason to accept the wall between church and state - and eventually it may get torn down.
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Hmm, yes I can see public education as one tricky area. You wouldn't want teachers actually teaching that atheism is correct, which is presumably what would happen if all governmental agencies acted as if atheism is correct. There probably is a difference, there, between acting in a neutral secularist fashion and an atheist fashion. I think that's a good example.
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quote:Originally posted by scifibum: Hmm, yes I can see public education as one tricky area. You wouldn't want teachers actually teaching that atheism is correct, which is presumably what would happen if all governmental agencies acted as if atheism is correct. There probably is a difference, there, between acting in a neutral secularist fashion and an atheist fashion. I think that's a good example.
Tres has yet to say plainly "I think that schools should teach that drinking poison will kill you, even if some families for religious reasons believe otherwise". It's just too atheist for him.
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School should avoid the topic as much as possible. If it DOES come up, "Some people believe and some don't" should be a sufficient answer.
Science text books should teach science, not religion.
Government should be completely neutral on religion. Every law should have strictly secular rational in order to avoid conflicts between the religions or conflicts between religions and atheists.
It's simple really.. you know.. until people get involved...
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quote:Originally posted by scifibum: Hmm, yes I can see public education as one tricky area. You wouldn't want teachers actually teaching that atheism is correct, which is presumably what would happen if all governmental agencies acted as if atheism is correct. There probably is a difference, there, between acting in a neutral secularist fashion and an atheist fashion. I think that's a good example.
Tres has yet to say plainly "I think that schools should teach that drinking poison will kill you, even if some families for religious reasons believe otherwise". It's just too atheist for him.
Eh, find a more subtle gotcha. I'm going to assume that everybody I know is reasonable enough to believe that teaching poison will kill you is a good idea, unless they actually explicitly say otherwise. No need to try to make them say so plainly.
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I think that schools should teach that drinking poison will kill you, even if some families for religious reasons believe otherwise.
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Me too! Let's take a poll. This is an important question, to know who can get behind such a controversial position statement.
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quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: I think that schools should teach that drinking poison will kill you, even if some families for religious reasons believe otherwise.
We had pages of discussion on the point, why did it take you so much prodding to make a simple statement like that?
But it's good that you are now on record as beliving that schools should teach that some religious beliefs are false.
Of course, it's easy to say this in the abstract, but aren't you also on record as saying that everyone must use their own personal judgment when deciding if religious beliefs trump reason and evidence?
It's nice to say that schools should teach what reason and evidence show, but what about the teachers whose personal judgement tells them that this is one of thsoe times when religious beliefs trump the reason and evidence?
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quote:Originally posted by swbarnes2: It's nice to say that schools should teach what reason and evidence show, but what about the teachers whose personal judgement tells them that this is one of thsoe times when religious beliefs trump the reason and evidence?
In the 1800s, Linnean concepts of scientific racism claimed that blacks were inherently inferior. It was largely due to the to teachers refusing to teach what "reason and evidence showed" that the abolition movement took hold. Was that wrong of the schools, in your opinion?
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" It was largely due to the to teachers refusing to teach what "reason and evidence showed" that the abolition movement took hold."
When the abolition movement took hold, in like the 1840's if not earlier, how many schools were public? And what percentage of those schools were teaching that blacks were inherently inferior? How are you making the determination that abolition was the result of teaching racism?
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You can come up with a long list (17,000 hits) by entering into the Yahoo search engine: "T-Rex dinosaur soft tissue found in bones" (Leave out the quote marks)
Truly committed devotees of Evolutionism of course are trying to come up with all kinds of convoluted ways to explain away the implications of soft tissue surviving in dinosaur bones, from a species claimed to be exinct for 65 million years or more.
It seems to me that the most reasonable conclusion is that the T-Rex died only a few hundred years ago, maybe a thousand or so. Sooner or later, in some remote location on earth, someone is going to come across a still-living dinosaur. This should surprise no one. After all, living specimens of Coelecanths were found only a few decades ago, proving that they did not become extinct 80 million years ago (or more), as had been confidently claimed by evolutionists.
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quote:Originally posted by SenojRetep: In the 1800s, Linnean concepts of scientific racism claimed that blacks were inherently inferior. It was largely due to the to teachers refusing to teach what "reason and evidence showed" that the abolition movement took hold. Was that wrong of the schools, in your opinion?
Teachers should teach what the evidence shows, according to what the best-educated experts in the field believe are the best evidecned and soundest conclusions.
Of course there will be the occasional error, knowledge is human endeavor, and humans make mistakes. But 999 times out of a thousand, going with the evidence and experts is the right thing.
What do you suggest...that teachers should ignore the experts when they find the expert conclusion distasteful? Do you really think that on the whole, that's going to yield a more factual education than sticking to the evidence and expert consensus?
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Teachers had not then bought into the evolution dogma hook, line and sinker. They still believed that the Biblical concept that all humans are descended from Adam and Eve was the truth, and therefore was true science.
Had everyone believed in evolution then as devotedly as they do now, there never would have been an Abolitionist Movement. Just consider the original title of Charles Darwin's seminal book: The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. The obvious implication, of course, is that some races of humans should be expected to be superior to others, and the way that we prove we are superior is by subjugating those races we think are inferior.
But the final, absolute truth is that in fact we are all children of Adam and Eve.
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quote:Originally posted by swbarnes2: What do you suggest...that teachers should ignore the experts when they find the expert conclusion distasteful? Do you really think that on the whole, that's going to yield a more factual education than sticking to the evidence and expert consensus?
I think you're presenting a false dichotomy. It's not necessary to either exclude all non-scientific opinions or allow whatever crazy idea any teacher decides to teach. There's room for moderation and compromise worked out through local school boards, elections, courts, civil society, and more. The richness of individual experience, coupled with efficient institutions for drawing on it, is a better way to guide educational policy than enforcing rigid hewing to any ideological line.
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quote:We had pages of discussion on the point, why did it take you so much prodding to make a simple statement like that?
I made statements like that multiples times in the discussion you are talking about. For instance, on Feb. 14th you said "And if my kid gets your kid to drink Draino, while the teacher watches, the teacher is right to stand by and do nothing, because my kid's convinced your kid that the religious evidence trumps the scientific evidence, and the teacher has to respect that choice?" to which I replied "No, again I didn't say that either." I thought that was a fairly clear and direct response.
The reason it went on for multiple pages is because you would not accept my response, and insisted that what I really meant was something that I didn't think I meant.
quote:Of course, it's easy to say this in the abstract, but aren't you also on record as saying that everyone must use their own personal judgment when deciding if religious beliefs trump reason and evidence?
It's nice to say that schools should teach what reason and evidence show, but what about the teachers whose personal judgement tells them that this is one of thsoe times when religious beliefs trump the reason and evidence?
I am on record saying that religion is based on reason and evidence. I am also on record saying that religious evidence could sometimes trump scientific evidence, and that people use their personal judgement to decide when that is the case. I'll now add to the record that I think schools can, should, and certainly do place some limitations on how far the school's employees can go in teaching what they personally believe to be true when that contradicts what the school considers true. If the teacher personally judges that poison is a healthy thing to drink, and the school decides teaching that is dangerously counterproductive for the students (which I'd hope it would), the school should not allow it.
quote:Originally posted by swbarnes2: [qb]What do you suggest...that teachers should ignore the experts when they find the expert conclusion distasteful? Do you really think that on the whole, that's going to yield a more factual education than sticking to the evidence and expert consensus?
I think you're presenting a false dichotomy. It's not necessary to either exclude all non-scientific opinions or allow whatever crazy idea any teacher decides to teach.
We're talking about religion. There's no limit to how unfounded and illogical people will get.
The reason I picked snake-handlers is that there are a heck of a lot of Americans who believe it. You think it's crazy, and I agree. But they don't. They think a lot of what I beleive is crazy. Why is one person's personal opinion of crazy superior to anothers?
quote:There's room for moderation and compromise worked out through local school boards, elections, courts, civil society, and more.
Without a secular underpinning, that's just majority rules. If the snake-handlers outnumber the non-snake handlers, they win. Just like when Creationists outnumber other people, evolution gets deeply distorted, or dropped.
quote:The richness of individual experience, coupled with efficient institutions for drawing on it, is a better way to guide educational policy than enforcing rigid hewing to any ideological line.
If you think that sticking to reason and evidence is just one of many ideological lines, then I can't convince you otherwise.
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quote:We're talking about religion. There's no limit to how unfounded and illogical people will get.
This is an example of the crappy, unpleasant tone on this board nowadays, that you wrote something so nasty without blinking an eye.
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I think a valid criticism of religious thinking, Katie, is that there is literally no way to put any limit on how unfounded or illogical someone might get when using a religious epistemology. That there's no possible external check on a given person's religious rationalizations is -- I think -- one of the biggest dangers. If somebody thinks God wants him to toss around venomous snakes, that's what he thinks; it's not like you can convince him otherwise.
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This is an example of the crappy, unpleasant tone on this board nowadays, that you wrote something so nasty without blinking an eye.
