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As a theist, he doesn't "worry" me at all because his ideology will never, ever catch on much as long as people are people.
Of course, we may not make it that far.
Atheism, a new look at things.
Of course, we may not make it that far.
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I'm not sure how being a crappy typist would explain using "Il" instead of "De." But regardless, I think the point, Dex, is that you seemed to be asking somewhat rhetorically. You may have meant the question in a perfectly literal, perfectly benign way, but the phrasing makes it sound a bit like a challenge.
What's incredible about this realization is that it should completely disarm any militant atheist, but it almost never does. If we evolved to need something like theism, then it has had great evolutionary benefit, which renders impotent all the standard atheist talking points about religion's dangerous effects. It doesn't really make sense to try to talk people out of something that you've conceded we have evolved to believe.
In arguing for evolution as the source of human life, an atheist simultaneously removes any properly thought-out motive for arguing against religion. Not that this seems to actually happen or anything.
Sadly, I have to agree completely. It appears the we may've evolved to need to believe in something and, until a combination of generations and education breed it out of us, we'll continue to do so. Of course, we may not make it that far.
Of course, we may not make it that far.In arguing for evolution as the source of human life, an atheist simultaneously removes any properly thought-out motive for arguing against religion. Not that this seems to actually happen or anything.
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I think i'll just stick to sports topics when i stray from movie talk.
The babysitten routine with your pet planet is tiresome.
The babysitten routine with your pet planet is tiresome.
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Yeah, you say that kinda thing a lot, and it still doesn't make any sense to me. To me, trying to explain away every such interaction this way is the tiresome thing.
I'm saying what I think, same as always. If this seems to put me at odds with something you've said fairly regularly, then it probably just means we think differently about many fundamental things.
I'm saying what I think, same as always. If this seems to put me at odds with something you've said fairly regularly, then it probably just means we think differently about many fundamental things.
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@Dexter: I not only read his book, but also his The Selfish Gene, an excellent exegesis of evolutionary theory I would continue to recommend to anybody. In addition, I also read God is not Great by Hitchens, The End of Faith by Harris and Breaking the Spell by Dennet. this was all around freshman year of high school back when these guys were really huge and all over the media. You could say that I was, back then, their biggest fan. However, it is obvious from your botching of the title that you yourself are not familiar with the book or its arguments. I would advise you to familiarize yourself with the relevant texts before engaging with me any further in your typically hostile, condescending manner. I'm happy for you and your infinite wisdom culled from decades of life experience and that you actually think you just discovered New Atheism.
What's incredible about this realization is that it should completely disarm any militant atheist, but it almost never does. If we evolved to need something like theism, then it has had great evolutionary benefit, which renders impotent all the standard atheist talking points about religion's dangerous effects. It doesn't really make sense to try to talk people out of something that you've conceded we have evolved to believe.
In arguing for evolution as the source of human life, an atheist simultaneously removes any properly thought-out motive for arguing against religion. Not that this seems to actually happen or anything.
In arguing for evolution as the source of human life, an atheist simultaneously removes any properly thought-out motive for arguing against religion. Not that this seems to actually happen or anything.
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"This is that human freedom, which all boast that they possess, and which consists solely in the fact, that men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the causes whereby that desire has been determined." -Baruch Spinoza
"This is that human freedom, which all boast that they possess, and which consists solely in the fact, that men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the causes whereby that desire has been determined." -Baruch Spinoza
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I think the argument would be moot if we simply assume that "it's not an evolutionary advantage any more" is correct, yes, but that's a massive assumption to make, and it's not really one that can be supported by anything resembling hard evidence. And it's certainly not up to rigorous scientific standard that many atheists claim as their sole ideology/test of belief.
It's more in the realm of fanciful speculation. It takes more than a little chutzpah to claim that "yeah, this major part of our collective worldview that has a dramatic effect on how we live has been beneficial to us for millions of years...but NOW it's not any more. I figured it out, and it's stopped being useful." It's an inherently ridiculous claim to make, I think.
It's more in the realm of fanciful speculation. It takes more than a little chutzpah to claim that "yeah, this major part of our collective worldview that has a dramatic effect on how we live has been beneficial to us for millions of years...but NOW it's not any more. I figured it out, and it's stopped being useful." It's an inherently ridiculous claim to make, I think.
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millions of years?
i thought the bible is 5000 yrs old max?
Collective folklore is very similar throughout cultures from all over the globe though. This is true.
I like the ancient astronaut theory myself.
i thought the bible is 5000 yrs old max?
Collective folklore is very similar throughout cultures from all over the globe though. This is true.
I like the ancient astronaut theory myself.
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millions of years?
i thought the bible is 5000 yrs old max?
i thought the bible is 5000 yrs old max?
I like the ancient astronaut theory myself.
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Oh, i'm not arrogant enough to be Aetheist. I call myself an Agnostic. I don't believe in God in so far as an existing entity that has a plan for us all, and answers prayers and such, while at the same time think its plausible that primitive man got a push from beings away back when.
The old testament details it somewhat. Some refer to it as the Fallen Angel Interpretation.
From Bible.org
the missing link if you will.
I got the paperback of Chariots of the Gods for my birthday or Christmas i can't recall, but yeah that def. planted the seed.
The old testament details it somewhat. Some refer to it as the Fallen Angel Interpretation.
From Bible.org
View 3: The Fallen Angel Interpretation
According to this view, the ‘sons of God’ of verses 2 and 4 are fallen angels, which have taken the form of masculine human-like creatures. These angels married women of the human race (either Cainites or Sethites) and the resulting offspring were the Nephilim. The Nephilim were giants with physical superiority and therefore established themselves as men of renown for their physical prowess and military might. This race of half human creatures was wiped out by the flood, along with mankind in general, who were sinners in their own right (verse 6:11,12).
My basic presupposition in approaching our text is that we should let the Bible define its own terms. If biblical definitions are not to be found then we must look at the language and culture of contemporary peoples. But the Bible does define the term ‘the sons of God’ for us.
Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, Satan also came among them (Job 1:6).
Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came among them to present himself before the Lord (Job 2:1).
When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? (Job 38:7, cf. Psalm 89:6; Daniel 3:25).
Scholars who reject this view readily acknowledge the fact that the precise term is clearly defined in Scripture.87 The reason for rejecting the fallen angel interpretation is that such a view is said to be in violation of both reason and Scripture.
The primary passage which is said to be problematical is that found in Matthew’s gospel, where our Lord said, “You are mistaken, not understanding the Scriptures, or the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven” (Matthew 22:29-30).
We are told that here our Lord said that angels are sexless, but is this really true? Jesus compared men in heaven to angels in heaven. Neither men nor angels are said to be sexless in heaven but we are told that in heaven there will be no marriage. There are no female angels with whom angels can generate offspring. Angels were never told to ‘be fruitful and multiply’ as was man.
When we find angels described in the book of Genesis, it is clear that they can assume a human-like form, and that their sex is masculine. The writer to the Hebrews mentions that angels can be entertained without man’s knowing it (Hebrews 13:2). Surely angels must be convincingly like men. The homosexual men of Sodom were very capable of judging sexuality. They were attracted by the ‘male’ angels who came to destroy the city (cf. Genesis 19:1ff, especially verse 5).
In the New Testament, two passages seem to refer to this incident in Genesis 6, and to support the angel view:
For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment; (II Peter 2:4).
And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day (Jude 6).
These verses would indicate that some of the angels who fell with Satan were not content with their ‘proper abode’ and therefore began to live among men (and women) as men. God’s judgment upon them was to place them in bonds88 so that they can no longer promote Satan’s purposes on earth as do the unbound fallen angels who continue to do his bidding.
The result of the union between fallen angels and women is rather clearly implied to be the Nephilim. While word studies have produced numerous suggestions for the meaning of this term, the biblical definition of this word comes from its only other instance in Scripture, Numbers 13:33:
There also we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim); and we became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.
I therefore understand the Nephilim to be a race of super-humans who are the product of this angelic invasion of the earth.89
This view not only conforms to the biblical use of the expression ‘sons of God,’ it also best fits the context of the passage. The effects of the fall were seen in the godly offspring of Cain (chapter 4). While Cain and his descendants were ‘in Satan’s pocket,’ Satan knew from God’s words in Genesis 3:15 that through the seed of the woman God was going to bring forth a Messiah who would destroy him. We do not know that the entire line of Seth was God-fearing. In fact we would assume otherwise. Noah and his immediate family alone seem to be righteous at the time of the flood.
Genesis 6 describes a desperate attempt on the part of Satan to attack the godly remnant that is named in chapter 5. So long as a righteous seed is preserved, God’s promise of salvation hangs over the head of Satan, threatening of his impending doom.
The daughters of men were not raped or seduced as such. They simply chose their husbands on the same basis that the angels selected them—physical appeal. Now if you were an eligible woman in those days, who would you choose? Would you select a handsome, muscle-bulging specimen of a man, who had a reputation for his strength and accomplishments, or what seemed to be in comparison a ninety-pound weakling?
Women looked for the hope of being the mother of the Savior. Who would be the most likely father of such a child? Would it not be a ‘mighty man of renown,’ who would also be able to boast of immortality? Some of the godly Sethites did live to be nearly 1000 years old, but the Nephilim did not die, if they were angels. And so the new race began.
According to this view, the ‘sons of God’ of verses 2 and 4 are fallen angels, which have taken the form of masculine human-like creatures. These angels married women of the human race (either Cainites or Sethites) and the resulting offspring were the Nephilim. The Nephilim were giants with physical superiority and therefore established themselves as men of renown for their physical prowess and military might. This race of half human creatures was wiped out by the flood, along with mankind in general, who were sinners in their own right (verse 6:11,12).
My basic presupposition in approaching our text is that we should let the Bible define its own terms. If biblical definitions are not to be found then we must look at the language and culture of contemporary peoples. But the Bible does define the term ‘the sons of God’ for us.
Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, Satan also came among them (Job 1:6).
Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came among them to present himself before the Lord (Job 2:1).
When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? (Job 38:7, cf. Psalm 89:6; Daniel 3:25).
Scholars who reject this view readily acknowledge the fact that the precise term is clearly defined in Scripture.87 The reason for rejecting the fallen angel interpretation is that such a view is said to be in violation of both reason and Scripture.
The primary passage which is said to be problematical is that found in Matthew’s gospel, where our Lord said, “You are mistaken, not understanding the Scriptures, or the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven” (Matthew 22:29-30).
We are told that here our Lord said that angels are sexless, but is this really true? Jesus compared men in heaven to angels in heaven. Neither men nor angels are said to be sexless in heaven but we are told that in heaven there will be no marriage. There are no female angels with whom angels can generate offspring. Angels were never told to ‘be fruitful and multiply’ as was man.
When we find angels described in the book of Genesis, it is clear that they can assume a human-like form, and that their sex is masculine. The writer to the Hebrews mentions that angels can be entertained without man’s knowing it (Hebrews 13:2). Surely angels must be convincingly like men. The homosexual men of Sodom were very capable of judging sexuality. They were attracted by the ‘male’ angels who came to destroy the city (cf. Genesis 19:1ff, especially verse 5).
In the New Testament, two passages seem to refer to this incident in Genesis 6, and to support the angel view:
For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment; (II Peter 2:4).
And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day (Jude 6).
These verses would indicate that some of the angels who fell with Satan were not content with their ‘proper abode’ and therefore began to live among men (and women) as men. God’s judgment upon them was to place them in bonds88 so that they can no longer promote Satan’s purposes on earth as do the unbound fallen angels who continue to do his bidding.
The result of the union between fallen angels and women is rather clearly implied to be the Nephilim. While word studies have produced numerous suggestions for the meaning of this term, the biblical definition of this word comes from its only other instance in Scripture, Numbers 13:33:
There also we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim); and we became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.
I therefore understand the Nephilim to be a race of super-humans who are the product of this angelic invasion of the earth.89
This view not only conforms to the biblical use of the expression ‘sons of God,’ it also best fits the context of the passage. The effects of the fall were seen in the godly offspring of Cain (chapter 4). While Cain and his descendants were ‘in Satan’s pocket,’ Satan knew from God’s words in Genesis 3:15 that through the seed of the woman God was going to bring forth a Messiah who would destroy him. We do not know that the entire line of Seth was God-fearing. In fact we would assume otherwise. Noah and his immediate family alone seem to be righteous at the time of the flood.
Genesis 6 describes a desperate attempt on the part of Satan to attack the godly remnant that is named in chapter 5. So long as a righteous seed is preserved, God’s promise of salvation hangs over the head of Satan, threatening of his impending doom.
The daughters of men were not raped or seduced as such. They simply chose their husbands on the same basis that the angels selected them—physical appeal. Now if you were an eligible woman in those days, who would you choose? Would you select a handsome, muscle-bulging specimen of a man, who had a reputation for his strength and accomplishments, or what seemed to be in comparison a ninety-pound weakling?
Women looked for the hope of being the mother of the Savior. Who would be the most likely father of such a child? Would it not be a ‘mighty man of renown,’ who would also be able to boast of immortality? Some of the godly Sethites did live to be nearly 1000 years old, but the Nephilim did not die, if they were angels. And so the new race began.
the missing link if you will.
I got the paperback of Chariots of the Gods for my birthday or Christmas i can't recall, but yeah that def. planted the seed.
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I read that Chariot of Gods book in high school. A lot of hooey. The "evidence" to support the theory has all been discredited.
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World religions are so totally different I can't see how the "evolutionary advantage" thing makes any sense.
Most religions seem like rather straightforward efforts of attempting to explain things through common sensical type models.
It relies on evidence just as much as anything. The earliest spirit-type religions are basically personifications of natural forces. We merely "personify" these natural forces through mathematics today.
We just have a lot of more kinds of evidence and ways of knowing today that allow us to both falsify those much less powerful models and hypothesize new, more comprehensive, more consistent models that work a lot of better at explaining phenonema and enable the creation of technologies and such.
Modern religions however, especially Christianity, have an interesting constituent irrationality about them that sets them apart from the models of the past. In this sense Christianity, the religion Dawkins comes from likes to attack the most, is probably the least suitable religion to be "debunked" by science. And, since Dawkins likes to put God as a "hypothesis", I'd agree with you that he'll never win, at least against Christianity's logic.
What is even more interesting though is how the kind of anti-common sense ontology of Christianity is mysteriously paralleled by the equally modern anti-common sense ontologies of quantum physics or relativity. In some way, you could even say that Christianity opened up the path to thinking in this irrationalist way. Christianity itself opened up the space for modern science's grand theories which, amazingly, depend on astounding feats of---experimentally successful, of course---anti-intuitive mathematical expression (phenomenologically identical with the impossible itself).
Still, as always, I think Chesterton himself put it best:
Most religions seem like rather straightforward efforts of attempting to explain things through common sensical type models.
It relies on evidence just as much as anything. The earliest spirit-type religions are basically personifications of natural forces. We merely "personify" these natural forces through mathematics today.
We just have a lot of more kinds of evidence and ways of knowing today that allow us to both falsify those much less powerful models and hypothesize new, more comprehensive, more consistent models that work a lot of better at explaining phenonema and enable the creation of technologies and such.
Modern religions however, especially Christianity, have an interesting constituent irrationality about them that sets them apart from the models of the past. In this sense Christianity, the religion Dawkins comes from likes to attack the most, is probably the least suitable religion to be "debunked" by science. And, since Dawkins likes to put God as a "hypothesis", I'd agree with you that he'll never win, at least against Christianity's logic.
What is even more interesting though is how the kind of anti-common sense ontology of Christianity is mysteriously paralleled by the equally modern anti-common sense ontologies of quantum physics or relativity. In some way, you could even say that Christianity opened up the path to thinking in this irrationalist way. Christianity itself opened up the space for modern science's grand theories which, amazingly, depend on astounding feats of---experimentally successful, of course---anti-intuitive mathematical expression (phenomenologically identical with the impossible itself).
Still, as always, I think Chesterton himself put it best:
Originally Posted by Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton
Mysticism keeps men sane. As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity. The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has always been a mystic. He has permitted the twilight. He has always had one foot in earth and the other in fairyland. He has always left himself free to doubt his gods; but (unlike the agnostic of to-day) free also to believe in them. He has always cared more for truth than for consistency. If he saw two truths that seemed to contradict each other, he would take the two truths and contradiction along with them. His spiritual sight is stereoscopic, like his physical sight: he sees two different pictures at once and yet sees all the better for that. Thus, he has always believed that there was such a thing as fate, but such a thing as free will also. Thus, he believes that children were indeed the kingdom of heaven, but nevertheless ought to be obedient to the kingdom of earth. He admired youth because it was young and age because it was not. It is exactly this balance of apparent contradictions that has been the whole buoyancy of the healthy man. The whole secret of mysticism is this: that man can understand everything by the help of what he does not understand. The morbid logician seeks to make everything lucid, and succeeds in making everything mysterious. The mystic allows one thing to be mysterious, and everything else becomes lucid.
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Last edited by planet news; 03-15-11 at 08:19 PM.
I read that Chariot of Gods book in high school. A lot of hooey. The "evidence" to support the theory has all been discredited.
links to source plz.
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Great quote, planet news.
And you answered your very own objection over how world religions could be an evolutionary advantage. Explanation of the modern world, sanity, etc.
And you answered your very own objection over how world religions could be an evolutionary advantage. Explanation of the modern world, sanity, etc.
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it has? when was that?
links to source plz.
links to source plz.
http://www.ufoevidence.org/documents/doc131.htm
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And you answered your very own objection over how world religions could be an evolutionary advantage. Explanation of the modern world, sanity, etc.
There is also the road where you can simply not attempt to represent anything at all and remain in a state of pure being without representing anything as anything, fulling embracing what Deleuze would call the pure difference of the world.
There is quite a bit on the web that discusses the evidence. The most damning was the Nova documentary I saw many years ago with a squirming Von Daniken admitting he faked a photo, mentioned in this link. The rest of the documentary also did a good job refuting his evidence.
http://www.ufoevidence.org/documents/doc131.htm
http://www.ufoevidence.org/documents/doc131.htm
you said all the evidence had been refuted, and posted a blog as your source?
lol
Anyway, as an non theist i accept i may be pre-disposed to seeking out alternate archeology and such.
I read Sitchin for a while, the Summerian stuff was really neat, now i'm hooked on Graham Hancock.
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I have no problem with anybody believing anything. Believing in ancient astronauts is as credible as believing in God.
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What's incredible about this realization is that it should completely disarm any militant atheist, but it almost never does. If we evolved to need something like theism, then it has had great evolutionary benefit, which renders impotent all the standard atheist talking points about religion's dangerous effects. It doesn't really make sense to try to talk people out of something that you've conceded we have evolved to believe.
In arguing for evolution as the source of human life, an atheist simultaneously removes any properly thought-out motive for arguing against religion. Not that this seems to actually happen or anything.
In arguing for evolution as the source of human life, an atheist simultaneously removes any properly thought-out motive for arguing against religion. Not that this seems to actually happen or anything.
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If the theory's right, then, through science and education, we're now passed needing it, which we either have or are close to doing (personally I think we have), then as this continues and our knowledge builds and spreads throughout the population, we'll evolve to no longer need it. Much like the appendix, it's going to take a long time and there may always be a small number, but eventually we'll be done with it.
And, again, it strikes me as kind of absurd to say "oh yeah, useful for millions and years across the overwhelming majority of history AND humanity...but I'm sure that NOW it's not useful." That's exactly the kind of purely speculative hubris that atheists usually rail on religion for.
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