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I like it better than the last one

It's good, but I don't see the need with the discussion thread

It's not going to go anywhere good, just lock it now.

[Bohandas]

That's kind of like saying that a camel is a type of fish. Like all tetrapods the camel is ultimately descended from a paleozoic fish that lived hundreds of millions of years ago, and it shares an even more unimaginably ancient common ancestor with modern fish, but classing it as one would be ludicrous and counterproductive.

[4maskwolf]

Hey guys, I got a pm notification that something was going on here, so cool it everyone.  I don't have time to read through everything recent, so everyone please remain cool and calm here.  If I get another notification, I'm going to give the thread a 24-hour lock, so please remain calm and collected.

Edit: Also, just a note, I'll update the OP eventually, my life is... special right now.

[scrdest]

Gonna have to call bullshit on that last one: Modern medicine was all about vaccinations and such, and less about what old women brewed together.
With pharmacology it's a different story though.

That's just down to semantics; pharmacology was and is a major part of medicine and I know for a fact that my university's Faculty of Medicine had a cathedral of Herblore in the XVIIth century (and presumably later, but I got that tidbit as a random tangent to the story of one of the professors).

If Chemistry evolved from Alchemy, consider that: why the name change? Well, that's because Chemistry is a science. Alchemy... isn't. Yes, early chemists and later alchemists were often the same people, but Chemistry proper began when people started working from actual knowledge instead of mysticism (mostly Hermetism).

Newton was an alchemist, but he was also the manager of the Royal Mint. Therefore, modern Physics is based upon the principles of Economics, right? Outside of rather irrelevant pecularities of terminology, his mystical beliefs were entirely irrelevant. Anyone - an atheist, a deist, a Hindu, a Muslim - could make the same observations and derive the same basic laws, entirely independent of any religious influence whatsoever. Also, alchemy is not a religion. It's mysticism, yes, but it does not a religion alone make.

Invocations of Greco-Roman gods is mostly an artifact of the massive fanboyism over ancient culture that surfaced in the era where modern science was beginning.

[SHAD0Wdump]

I'm going to reach back a bit since I ended up forgetting about this thread.

Do animals have souls?
 Absolutely. For me? I don't even have to read up on that point about Ecclesiastes to figure as much when I just need to look at a dog and see its expressions of fear, love, playfulness, etc. I just can't figure how a person can't believe animals have souls when they exhibit these traits all the time.

What does 'Made in His image' mean?
 So people seem to believe that we are made in his image in the sense that we physically look like him. I personally don't believe that's really it...
 I think made in His image means we are either similar on the scope of the complexity of our spirits in being able to regard and explore reality, invent, and most importantly, decide for ourselves. Or that he made the first man precisely to his specifications, with all the aforementioned traits.
 Now this isn't to say God doesn't have a physical form that may resemble us, but you have to remember... Christian belief states that he created everything, right down to our very perception of reality. God comes from outside that reality he made. How could he be from it, and thus have to abide by the laws governing it? Sure he could have a body here in our reality, but that would be just that, a body, being controlled by an immensely powerful being that in and of itself I doubt could hold him.

Are animals made in his image?
Honestly? I don't know of a part in the bible where it explicitly states they are not... But I'm very likely wrong if I say that it doesn't. I'm still studying the bible and I will keep doing so, but for now I don't have a belief pinned down on this one.
 I can say this though... With such scale of personality some animals have, I would not doubt it, especially if 'Made in His image' simply means to his specifications.

[Cheeetar]

Shadow: Does the ability to express emotion define an entity having a soul? If that's the case: Would humans be able to create souls by programming sufficiently advanced artificial intelligence?

Also, I think you're going to need to PM 4maskwolf to be properly listed in the OP, Shadow.

[TD1]

One of the big 'ol questions, addressed to all Christians.

If you have your own beliefs, then these beliefs deviate only slightly from your denomination's beliefs, then your denomination's beliefs deviate significantly from another denomination's beliefs, then your branch of religion deviates considerably from other branches of religion (The differences between Muslim, Christian, Jewish etc.) and then your religion deviates hugely from another religion (Like Hindu from Christianity) and every single individual person is as devoted and faithful to an opposite view as you are to yours, how can you assume you are correct? At the very best, you may be correct. And if you do say you are correct, well, so might that person who believes the earth is balanced on a Tortoise (or somesuch)

[freeformschooler]

One of the big 'ol questions, addressed to all Christians.

If you have your own beliefs, then these beliefs deviate only slightly from your denomination's beliefs, then your denomination's beliefs deviate significantly from another denomination's beliefs, then your branch of religion deviates considerably from other branches of religion (The differences between Muslim, Christian, Jewish etc.) and then your religion deviates hugely from another religion (Like Hindu from Christianity) and every single individual person is as devoted and faithful to an opposite view as you are to yours, how can you assume you are correct? At the very best, you may be correct. And if you do say you are correct, well, so might that person who believes the earth is balanced on a Tortoise (or somesuch)

Just piping in to say I think that this is an uncharitable question, as there is much, much more interdemoninational and even interreligious agreement going than you seem to believe. It automatically assumes that each person in each denomination is denouncing the validity all others, which I know to be untrue even about some very devoted members of this forum that may materialize, somewhat confused, to answer your question. You are making too many generalizations and presuppositions is what I'm saying.

You may now resume religioning.

[TD1]

Freeform: are you saying there isn't a huge amount of religious variance? And that, even in the same faith, people can hold radically different views such as "God is physical" compared to "God is transcendent and metaphysical."

It's not an unfair question, it's a genuine issue with religion.

[freeformschooler]

Freeform: are you saying there isn't a huge amount of religious variance? And that, even in the same faith, people can hold radically different views such as "God is physical" compared to "God is transcendent and metaphysical."

It's not an unfair question, it's a genuine issue with religion.

Yes, but that's not the question you asked. The question you asked was this:

how can you assume you are correct?

Even if there is a huge amount of variance between religion, there is also a huge amount of subtlety and even agreements surrounding these thoughts. Ultimately the primary disagreement always seems to come down to the escape hatch: do you get out by Good Works, by Good Faith, by Achieving Nirvana, or is there no escape hatch, and we are all fucked? But I am saying that there is much less variance about those especially important questions than your question seems to presuppose, and FAR more variance about the things that don't actually matter that much to your average person living an average life on earth - such as is God a dude or a lady, and is God Three or One, and is God actually floating up smiling or in some otherworldly plane difficult to comprehend - and which, if pressed, would be unlikely to make people punch each other unless they're St. Nicholas at the Council of Nicaea.

One example. It seems to me that there is a lot of disagreement between Catholic and Baptist churches, but if you questioned your average Catholic or Baptist person about things that seem really important, like what should you do with your life or how do you get to heaven, you'd likely hear similar answers ("do all you do with the intent of serving God," "by accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.")

You also enter into an extremely lopsided scenario that I think is very funny where Protestants seem much more intent on denouncing Catholics to Hell than Catholics do regarding Protestants. This may be due to varying degrees of universalism between them. I think this is a different territory than your question, but it is similar.

[SHAD0Wdump]

Shadow: Does the ability to express emotion define an entity having a soul? If that's the case: Would humans be able to create souls by programming sufficiently advanced artificial intelligence?

Also, I think you're going to need to PM 4maskwolf to be properly listed in the OP, Shadow.

I personally believe that emotion is the strongest evidence of a soul we can possibly have. Though you do have the interesting premise of the artifical intelligence, in which a person would argue that it is merely simulating emotion. This is why we have the Turing test to begin with really.
 The ability for us to create a soul... Is very hard for me to determine. I do have the belief that there is a certain quality to the soul that gives it a non-physical quality, if you read into near-death experiences you'll see where I'm coming from.
 I believe that animals do have that quality as well, so for a proper soul to be made, it would have to supposedly transcend physical form as well in some fashion. I do not remotely know if we can or can not, and I have absolutely no idea if anything hints either way in the bible.

One of the big 'ol questions, addressed to all Christians.

If you have your own beliefs, then these beliefs deviate only slightly from your denomination's beliefs, then your denomination's beliefs deviate significantly from another denomination's beliefs, then your branch of religion deviates considerably from other branches of religion (The differences between Muslim, Christian, Jewish etc.) and then your religion deviates hugely from another religion (Like Hindu from Christianity) and every single individual person is as devoted and faithful to an opposite view as you are to yours, how can you assume you are correct? At the very best, you may be correct. And if you do say you are correct, well, so might that person who believes the earth is balanced on a Tortoise (or somesuch)

Such argument is pretty much impossible to argue against. We can't have a 100% understanding of what is truly reality because to claim so would be to shut off all other ideas, and that is a shallow way of thinking.
 So what we have left is our best educated guess and either a little bit or a lot of faith. It is in our best interests to study as much as we can to try to come as close to an accurate assumption as possible, until we go over the threshold of truly believing in something. Just... Once you go beyond that point, try not to push your belief on another like some have by waving hell in front of people's faces... That's asking people to just blindly believe in something without learning WHY they should believe.

 As for me, I feel I've seen plenty of evidence and more coming every day that I believe Christianity is correct.

[TD1]

Freeform: are you saying there isn't a huge amount of religious variance? And that, even in the same faith, people can hold radically different views such as "God is physical" compared to "God is transcendent and metaphysical."

It's not an unfair question, it's a genuine issue with religion.

Yes, but that's not the question you asked. The question you asked was this:

how can you assume you are correct?

Even if there is a huge amount of variance between religion, there is also a huge amount of subtlety and even agreements surrounding these thoughts. Ultimately the primary disagreement always seems to come down to the escape hatch: do you get out by Good Works, by Good Faith, by Achieving Nirvana, or is there no escape hatch, and we are all fucked? But I am saying that there is much less variance about those especially important questions than your question seems to presuppose, and FAR more variance about the things that don't actually matter that much to your average person living an average life on earth - such as is God a dude or a lady, and is God Three or One, and is God actually floating up smiling or in some otherworldly plane difficult to comprehend - and which, if pressed, would be unlikely to make people punch each other unless they're St. Nicholas at the Council of Nicaea.

One example. It seems to me that there is a lot of disagreement between Catholic and Baptist churches, but if you questioned your average Catholic or Baptist person about things that seem really important, like what should you do with your life or how do you get to heaven, you'd likely hear similar answers ("do all you do with the intent of serving God," "by accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.")

You also enter into an extremely lopsided scenario that I think is very funny where Protestants seem much more intent on denouncing Catholics to Hell than Catholics do regarding Protestants. This may be due to varying degrees of universalism between them. I think this is a different territory than your question, but it is similar.

Everybody has a unique blend of opinion. This opinion revolves around a central religious concept that is always changing. Not only are the views of the past different from the views of today, but the views of today are hugely varied. On the nature of God, whether God is on Earth, whether he's all loving or all powerful...the previous Christianity thread showed a large and diverse differing of opinion on the entire nature of God, and he's the central being in their belief system.

Yes. Religions can keep the same general, vague assertions. But when it comes to specifics? Nuh uh.

As for me, I feel I've seen plenty of evidence and more coming every day that I believe Christianity is correct.

Such as?

[freeformschooler]

Everybody has a unique blend of opinion. This opinion revolves around a central religious concept that is always changing. Not only are the views of the past different from the views of today, but the views of today are hugely varied. On the nature of God, whether God is on Earth, whether he's all loving or all powerful...the previous Christianity thread showed a large and diverse differing of opinion on the entire nature of God, and he's the central being in their belief system.

Yes. Religions can keep the same general, vague assertions. But when it comes to specifics? Nuh uh.

I think you do not understand how you do not understand what I am saying, or possibly vica versa, and it is tricky to explain all without flying through each of our respective pasts, Christmas Carol Ghosts style, and arguing about things along the way.

The central thing is you seem to be assuming believers have a different hierarchy of values, and importance of the truth of those values (versus other denominations/religions), than most actually do. Since this hierarchy underpins your question, I find it uncharitable. The hierarchy you are assuming is extremely common for atheists to assume, but I have rarely found it in Christians. (Much like the old bit about Christians rarely using the word "religion")

[SHAD0Wdump]

As for me, I feel I've seen plenty of evidence and more coming every day that I believe Christianity is correct.

Such as?

I find there are some pretty good arguments for a creator of some sort, such as certain creatures exhibiting physiology that is incredibly advanced(Read up on the flaggelum for something mind blowing if you have not already), to apparant evidence against evolution actually being the driving force for creatures existing(I read up on something called the 'Cambrian Explosion', where most relevant species just appear in the course of a far shorter period of time compared to the requirements for evolution), If anything I look at the big bang as a sign of 'something powerful did this and the fact we can't chart before it says it doesn't come from our reality', and then there's a smattering of personal experiences to reinforce the faith like getting trapped outside and praying for help... Then my dad at that very moment coming down from the second floor of our house to let me in.

 I could go on. But those would be the ones that seem to most reinforce it for me while staying relevant to today.
 If there's anything speaking against some of those things I mentioned, I would like to hear them.

[TD1]

Well, for the personal experience thing, that's just coincidence. They happen to everyone. I daresay that these answers to prayers are far from regular, even if you are in the exact same circumstance? I'm glad when someone turns up and lets me in too, but I don't believe God somehow made them do it.

As for the Cambrian explosion, I know next to nothing other than it was a period of large diversification. It doesn't disprove evolution, which we know is happening, it just shows it happened faster for a period of time- why, we don't know. It could be because predator and prey went all out on killing each other, and after they'd both evolved as far as they could to plateau the rate of change, that's what happened.

It's just a period of faster evolution for whatever reason, as far as I know. Open to counter proposals, however.

[SHAD0Wdump]

Well, for the personal experience thing, that's just coincidence. They happen to everyone. I daresay that these answers to prayers are far from regular, even if you are in the exact same circumstance? I'm glad when someone turns up and lets me in too, but I don't believe God somehow made them do it.

Well I did mention it was a 'smattering', I've had quite a few such coincidences occur to the point where it's very hard to believe mere random chance could be responsible. Again, at least for me.