One reason it's hard to believe in prayer...

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Agreed.

Natty Boh:

Regarding El Rey:

Given age and arguably location, it need not be that surprising. My path up the Episcopalian ladder did not get quite that high, but it wass shaping up to have the same outcome.

Frequently observed pgenomenon in education and elsewhere, a variant of lead the horse to water, is the Gehazi principle - Emmaus if you prefer. Something has to hit the switch that opens the eyes, turns on the ears, and starts the brain warming up.

About 2/3 of the way through 9th grade, I suddenly woke up, looked around, and started NOTICING school. It was a very marked change from where I sat.

Like the marvelous axolotl [one of my favorite beasts and very handy for analogy based discussion], many can live an entire by no means fruiitful life without waking up, turning on, tuning in, growing up.

Talking with de Koning I get the strong impression that he was sleepwalking past a lot of stuff, though he appears to be activating a number of crcuits now.

O RLY? I've heard it used often enough, for every little thing that can't explain. It was used to explain the entire science of biology, and still has some reign over the science of neurobiology. The bible was even believed to describe our literal creation for years, until the powers that be realise the Science against that notion was too compelling, and shifted Genesis into the category of "metaphor". God of the Gaps in action.

"For every gap you bisect you create two more"

More questions are raised, but Science still drives God out of major aspects of our life; people are more concerned with questions like "What is Life?" than "Why did god choose to use seretonin as a major intestinal neurotransmitter."

You are - not about to debate at you - focussing on far too small a segment of space and time.

That would be like me talking up the Binker of the gaps, because when something was found broken with no clear culprit my father used to say Binker did it. Your time - space segment is a little bigger, but you need to look at the big picture.

That fact that in certain places and times people have - for reasons of politics far more than anything like faith - talked up literal Bible Creation Science does not change the fact that the Gap bit cannot adequately explain why men see gods.

I'm not claiming that people only believe in god to fill gaps. It just happens that the Gaps that they attribute to God end up being perfectly explainable by non-superstition means in a few years. That's why miraculous cures aren't; they are generally expected probabilistically, and even for the strangest cases of MS and Cancer remission I'm sure that a Physiological mechanism will be found. It always has been.

If I might speak in for just one thought ...

I used to have some kind of "gap" in my "gut" that only alcohol could seem to fill;
Today I see that "gap" as a "God-sized hole" only he could really "fill".

Question: How many years might yet pass before all of that might yet be explained "by non-superstition means"?

A bit circular, mon ami, to say that these are God of Gaps explanations because a gap got filled.

There are an awful lot, yes, ruveyn, even today of wholly holey, arguably not holy gaps and cracks and Black Holes in the worldview of materialist science, and a lot of scientific theories [remember phlogiston, boys and girls] have turned out to be stopgaps.

Until science can adequately account for everything - AND I AM GOING TO GO OUT ON A LIMB AND SHOUT THAT THAT IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN - no consistently scidentific mind dare say there is nothing that God can explain that science can't.

I do NOT - I repeat - concur with nor defend some of the statements that some theists [a sore trial to the rest of us theists] and some scientists [a sore trial to the rest of us scientists] have made in their hissy fit hair pulling battles.

Nor do I deny that SOME have talked themselves into God or Ether of the Gaps. But that is no more the principal activity of theism than it is of science. Thank God.

i usually generalize about christianity as a whole its easier than going into the God knows how many different sects of it

every sect seems to disagree with each other about everything i once heard that the only thing that the christian sects agree on is that they dont agree on a thing

and in general why God is known as the God of the Gaps is because in every holy book there is a story of creation. humans, being as arrogant as we are, like to believe we have a significance in this world and that we are some part of some Grand Plan(or design), that we are somehow the lords of the earth because some God-Figure says we are, the Superiority Complex brought about by religion, and mankind in general, is blatantly obvious nearly every religious person i have had the greatest pleasure of meeting has has always been Sanctimonious Holier-Than-Thou asses thinking that being in a religion all of a sudden makes them the "Master Race" so to speak(they of different races i just cant think of a better way to put it ATM) and that because im atheist they automatically think that im just a piece of dirt that needs their pity because i havent "Seen the Light" and in my experience the Born-Again Christians are the worst of the sanctimonious Holier-Than-Thou asses. i dont know for sure but im assuming my grandma might be a born again because according to my mom she was a bit of a s l u t when she was much younger and now she is unbearable to be around for any length of time

@Natty_Boh
you are very devoted to your faith but i have yet to see you act that just because you christian that automatically makes you better than me because your "saved" while i rot in "hell" and despite our disagreements i kinda enjoy talking to you because of the fact i mentioned above even though i do feel like you are trying to convert me half the time i dont particularly feel too judged and/or condemned or anything thats typical of most religious people

it takes me so long to reply to these at times in this area because 7-3 California time(its 10:04am right now) im at school and can only reply when a computer is nearby im a TA for English 11(officially known as English 3 but we been taking english for 11 years) this period so i can use a computer all period unless im grading work

claiming God did it is the easy way out example for hundreds of years religion assumed Earth was the center of the Universe and everything else revolved around it(again Supieriority Complex) and when Galileo decided to prove them wrong they arrested him, threatened to kill him, anything to shut up the truth because they wanted to remain in their bubble of ignorance

when you go out of religion into science you learn a lot more about the universe then before

and that is why science has proved religion wrong time and time again fromt he world being flat all the way to the earth being billions of years old instead of 6000-12000 as the bible sets it at

religion and science cannot co exist in peace, if you want peace you can only have one or the other and if you only have religion then their still wouldnt be peace because despite everyone saying their God is the most peaceful people gladly kill each other over religious beliefs

it is mainly through science NOT religion that we are as advanced as we are today because religion is a primitive thing(as shown by the middle eastern countries where Islam is the official religion) i have already explained how the Koran and Bible are extremely similar and that the difference is that Muslims follow their religion to the letter and Christians dont. if they did we would not have all the freedoms in America we have now, or well we used to have before we became a PseudoBenevolent Dictatorship.

@ TheKing

Just because things may be able to be done with modern science now or science in the future does not disprove or invalidate miracles in the past.

Key reason, the miracles occurred without said scientific advancement that would have been necessary for it to happen through science.

Superiority Complex?

Come on.

Sure, saying that we are more highly evolved than hagfish is a rather egoistic and baseless judgement of superiority, rather like saying we are better than CroMagnon bozos because we have iPods and know about atoms [who is up for a flint chipping bee followed by some cave painting?]. Or figuring we are the only intelligent beings on earth because where is their technology?

But surely you do not have to be TOO superior to see that when you live by the sea and look out and there is nothing but water, you do not have to have a complex to think maybe there is nothing out there but water. Kind of like how you do not need a superiority complex to assume that on the other side of the furthest into the universe we can see there could be something completely different.

And surely if you are on earth looking up and you see the sun going across the sky every day and then all those puny twinkles, it does not take a superiority complex to figure this is the only place like that, with a sun going round.

All of that stuff is not Superiority Complex - it is just applying Occam's Razor, and waiting for more data and what SEEMS a better understanding.

im just saying nearly every argument mainstream religion has proposed has been disproven once you apply science to it

Oh so true. We do manage to agree that there is a God...of some sort...and that Christ was the Son...no, a son...no, specially related...yeah, just like we all are...



Possibly. But the Christian creation story - which I do not take for literal historical fact - rubs it into our faces just how badly we screwed everything up, and continued on doing so. Genesis 1/2 might make us pat ourself on the back; Genesis 3 sends all of that crashing back down into the dirt we were formed from.



I've met that sort, both in Catholicism and in Protestantism (with me as the unsaved target); the whole attitude is repellent to me. I'm still resentful of the implications of one particular encounter from six years ago - God forbid I turn around and treat anyone else that way! It's more in the way of - my interests lie in the area of Catholic theology and spirituality; and from what I gather you didn't receive the best of education in those areas when you were Catholic. As much as anything, I wonder what you would have done given better information, or a better environment in which to receive it - but none of that is intended as a judgement of you, in any way. You are as you are (with your own set of intriguing ideas); and at the end of the day, faith is not a collection of doctrines and the set of rituals. It's an encounter with Christ; and it's completely between the two of you as to how and if it takes place. All I or any Christian can ever do is attempt to make the introductions.

Last edited by Natty_Boh on 25 Feb 2011, 1:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I recently found myself trying to convince a co-worker - educated man, but from an unnamed 3rd world country - that the sun was indeed a star just like all those little twinkles. 1st-grade science to me; beyond the pale for him.

Thanks - that is what I was wondering; what their own experience is. From the outside it still sounds horrible to contemplate.

I know someone who believes in heliocentrism but is convinced the rest of the universe & galaxy orbits the sun