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[MrWiggles]

Protestant Movement lead to a splintering, and not a reform of Catholicism.  And Cavinist don't call themselves Protestants. And there like 5? forms of Calvinist, and good knows how many form of Protestant. They didnt reform their parent religion but splinter off.

Interestingly though, most forms humanism require criticism and question of its tenets.

How to be a heretical humanist:

Humans are just dust in the wind, not worth caring about.


Dun dun dun!

I think this was meant to be light hearted, but I dont get it. oO

[i2amroy]

Protestant Movement lead to a splintering, and not a reform of Catholicism.  And Cavinist don't call themselves Protestants. And there like 5? forms of Calvinist, and good knows how many form of Protestant. They didnt reform their parent religion but splinter off.

Baptism (which I believe is the protestant religion that has carried on the idea of splitting off the most into their current practices), currently has 31 different major organizations and affiliations in the United States alone, practically all of which disagree about some point with the others. Most of the other Protestant religions have many less groups, but there are still a lot of them.

[Frumple]

Baptist. Close, heh. And yeah, church affiliation can get a little... weird, honestly, in some places in the states. I'm only tangentially aware of exactly how it all goes down, but there's probably a good dozen or so, at the least, different denominations within a good hour's drive of me. Something like four or five, iirc, just in this county. Never mind splinter issues (usually more social than theological, from what I've seen) with churches ostenitably of the same denomination. It can get pretty messy on the ground with protestant groups, at least in the states.

[lemon10]

Query for the Christians out there: Do you think god could duplicate a soul? Would they both be "you" if he did?

[G-Flex]

I'm not a Christian, but logically speaking, if an individual is defined as a single soul then a soul being duplicated would be just like duplicating a body or any other physical object, creating two that at that point become distinct and, in this case, experience distinct things and are both autonomous.

[10ebbor10]

Query for the Christians out there: Do you think god could duplicate a soul? Would they both be "you" if he did?

Wut? Why?

Seems like another case of interpreting the Bible literaly. God is no miracle person, smiting people with lightning strikes and doing miracles and such. I'm probably going to collide with some kind of fundamentalist because of this but god is no physical entinity.

The second question is a question for the ethical commision in Geneve. Technically, I'm going to say yes, but only till one of you experience something the other doesn't. Humans are shaped by the things that happen to them. The real question would be which of the two would be the real one, to which the real answer would be neither.

[MrWiggles]

Why don't Baptist baptize?

[lemon10]

I mean would they both be you at the moment of copying.
Many people have a problem with perfect duplication (eg. if it was used in teleporting), and say that the perfect copy wouldn't be you, even if they don't explicitly believe in the soul.
I wonder if people would think the same way about duplicating souls.
Also, souls are sort of supposed to be unique (although I don't know if it says it explicitly), so God being able to copy them would be a bit odd (although he IS omnipotent, so I suppose he could).

Seems like another case of interpreting the Bible literaly. God is no miracle person, smiting people with lightning strikes and doing miracles and such. I'm probably going to collide with some kind of fundamentalist because of this but god is no physical entinity.

Are you Christian (just kind of wondering, because what you are saying implies you believe in a god, but also implies that you don't believe in the bible (well believe what it says is literally true at least))?

[10ebbor10]

Christian. Roman Catholichism to be precise.

I do believe in the Bible, but not in it's literal intrepetation.(Please note that the literal intrepretation of the Bible first came in sway during the 19^the century, in America.)
It has been agreed since medieval times and before that the Bible has not one, but four meanings, of which the literal one is just one. Because, truly, if the Bible where to be taken literaly, they would have made sure that the stories inside didn't contradict each other.

Also, God omnipotentism doesn't need to need to be taken literaly, or you would end up with a paradox. (Ie, if God is omnipotent and infinitively good, then why does evil exist in the world.*) God omnipotentism manifests more in a way that he is able to act in every situation, through the good of every person(Again, not in the literal meaning).
 
*And beware of the Gods ways are unintelligible for us mortals argument. That way you're actually saying that nobody is responsible for his deeds, and that nothing bad exists, and that therefore you don't need to do anything about it.

[Leafsnail]

I do believe in the Bible, but not in it's literal intrepetation.(Please note that the literal intrepretation of the Bible first came in sway during the 19^the century, in America.)
It has been agreed since medieval times and before that the Bible has not one, but four meanings, of which the literal one is just one. Because, truly, if the Bible where to be taken literaly, they would have made sure that the stories inside didn't contradict each other.

Or maybe it's just wrong.  I don't get to retroactively say that parts of what I said were metaphorical if they're shown to be untrue or contradictory, and I'm not sure why we give the Bible that privilege.

[Osmosis Jones]

Actually, I've got a few question for any Christians (specifically) out there;

Do you believe God is a perfect entity?

[Frumple]

Riding on that is exactly what perfection means. It's not actually a particularly easy concept to pin down, and there's some pretty heavy implications in the field of the theology based on exactly what perfection entails.

S'actually the basis for a couple of arguments regarding divine omnipresence and monotheism that I've seen, which holds that the essence of perfection is indivisibility (and, along with that, incomparability) and goes from there to holding that perfection entails that the divine (held to necessarily be perfect, i.e. perfect is part of the base definition for God) must be singular and consequently omnipresent (for to be maximally singular there must be nothing that stands at the borders, so to speak, by th'postion being presented), because in order to be singular, there must be nothing 'outside' the entity, so to speak.

A different conception of perfection, such as holding that to be a perfect X one must be maximally X, has very different implications -- maximally doesn't necessarily entail infinitely. That's a much weaker, so to speak, position, that doesn't entail quite so many logically necessary capabilities (especially if a softer form of omnipotence is also being considered).

[Osmosis Jones]

Okay, true, that's an ambiguous term.

Let's rephrase it; do you think that Jehovah changes over time? Now physically, as a non-corporeal being that is both the alpha and the omega, I doubt you would hold that he changes much (although I would be interested if you felt that he did, and would love to hear it ).

Rather, I ask more in the sense of knowledge or mentality. Do you hold that god can learn? Or do you think that, as he has literal omniscience, he cannot be surprised, discover new knowledge, or change his mind (or more accurately, ever have reason to)?

[Frumple]

That... might actually hinge on something else. One of the fairly major conceptions of th'christian/monotheist god I've seen in theological discussion is that it's... more or less atemporal (or more accurately, I guess, outside temporality), or perhaps omnitemporal (at all times simultaneously).

Change wouldn't be possible for that sort of being in the sense it is for a human, or at the very least wouldn't occur in a means we'd recognize. Vagueing it up a bit, it's hard to see exactly how change would work for a entity for whom all time is one time, its (more or less) present. Would that sort of thing even have a framework for past/future/change? From our perspective, though, almost definitely not -- all interactions with the divine would be with the exact same entity, regardless of temporal positioning from our side of things.

Alternatively, there may be no guarantee you're ever dealing with a sequentially aligned entity -- the god of the old testament might actually be a future entity, from the perspective of the God, and there would be no particular assurance that the entity you interacted with tomorrow wouldn't be radically different from the one today. I've not actually seen that put forward by a religiously aligned theologian, but it'd definitely be a possibility. S'interesting stuff, really.

E: That said, I imagine the more lay understanding would be that god could learn, but has no need to, as you mentioned. No reason, as all the decisions or knowledge god could wish to make or have is already known to god, so the general stuff that prompts humans toward learning or changing opinion simply isn't there.

As for change... maybe. From what I understand, that's somewhat underpinning the difference between new and old testament. Though it might be arguable that god did not change, merely the covenant god has with man, or whatever that is. Exactly where a person falls on it probably differs between denominations and religions, assuming they've ever really thought about it at all.

[MrWiggles]

Why does it matter when Biblical literalism came around?
And if in the mediaeval ages someone decided the meaning of the bible, then doesnt that mean that Biblical Literalism is before 19th century america?