Melody,Melody...this was said tongue-in-cheek. I was NEVER presenting this as fact or said I adopted it as a fact, nor anywhere near that. Just saying that we didn't know what happened back then....
..or what may have been beneficial, when we weren't around to experience it.

WAT - Don't go there.

This seems to be getting out-of-hand. And Melody, I was kidding about the "certifiable" thing... <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

"Somewhere, he thought, on the long backtrack of history, the human race had accepted an insanity for a principle and had persisted in it until today that insanity-turned-principle stood ready to wipe out, if not the race itself, at least all of those things, both material and immaterial, that had been fashioned as symbols of humanity through many hard-won centuries."

-Clifford Simak "Way Station" 1963

Mel - we'll have to agree to disagree regarding what I said in my previous post about expectations, standards, etc. I believe my argument is logically constructed, holds together well, and easily will survive reasoned rebuttal.


I can't resist.

Cow jumped over the moon.

Immaculate conception.

Parting of the Red Sea.

All creatures on the Ark.

6000 year old Earth. Or is it 4000?

Need I go on?

Evidence? (Hint: hearsay doesn't count.)

WAT

Actually, not to TJ or jump in here, but my H was watching a program on tbn about this. Seems experts found what appeared to be pieces of a chariot towards the bottom. I didn't see it so I don't know how detailed they got about it, but from what H said, it was quite interesting.

Personally, I just think they haven't found all the evidence yet. Doesn't mean it's not there.

The red sea is a rift valley, home to earthquakes as it gets wider (or tries 2 - Africa just doesn't seem 2 want 2 stay out of the way). Violent earthquakes could affect lake levels, similar to tsunamis along ocean coastlines, but on a far smaller scale (obviously, since the Red Sea isn't ocean-size).

Chariot found in the Red Sea = proof, or even 'evidence' that it parted? You'd need a lot more than that 2 convince an archaeologist that it was caught by a parting unparting. A far more "expedient" explanation (a more viable hypothesis) would be that someone threw it overboard from a boat. ...assuming it's really even a chariot and not some inexplicable fragment of junk.

-ol' 2long

But, you couldn't refute a single thing I said, WAT, even though I gave you several opportunities.


I can't resist.

Cow jumped over the moon.

Immaculate conception.

Parting of the Red Sea.

All creatures on the Ark.

6000 year old Earth. Or is it 4000?

Need I go on?

Evidence? (Hint: hearsay doesn't count.)

WAT [/quote]

sorry, WAT, but there is a big difference between making stuff up on the fly and forming conclusions based on EVIDENCE. We might disagree on what that evidence means, but I never "imagined" that Jesus Christ existed, I never "manufactured" Christianity out of my imagination. It is not a "fantasy" that I just imagined and I am frankly insulted that you have such a low opinion of my intelligence. I can point to the evidence and the reasoning that brought me to that conclusion, jlseagull cannot. Again, we might disagree on what evidence means, but to put my beliefs in the same category as some nut who believes the cow jumped over the moon is very insulting.

jl, and it wasn't taken as "fact," so I am glad to see you say that you didn't expect to be taken seriously, because I certainly didn't.

Mel - I apologize if you feel insulted. That was not my intent. I wouldn't ask you a question if I didn't believe you had the intelligence to answer it.
OK, point away.

FWIW, I think jls's statements about the origin of the Golden Rule were intentionally speculative. It wasn't presented as "evidence." Pure conjecture of a possible story line that was not meant to represent a definitive conclusion.

I propose that the Golden Rule had numerous independent sources because it's an intuitive moral position that reasonably could be expected from any compassionate mind. It's probably been stated in one form or another by hundreds of people over thoussands of years. Do I have evidence of that? Of course not. But hasn't everyone's Mom scolded us, "How would you like it if someone did that do you???"
I disagree - perhaps I didn't refute. Doesn't mean I couldn't. Like I said earlier, I didn't read all the posts and maybe I missed some challenges.

WAT

It would make sense to me to expect a greater respect for marriage among Christians than atheists, and I believed this as well. Thus I was very disappointed to find the following data when I was preparing for a Bible study last year:

Variation in divorce rates among faith groups:

Christian Non-denominational (independents) 34%
Jews 30%
Baptists 29%
Born-again Christians 27%
Mainline Protestants 25%
Mormons 24%
Catholics 21%
Lutherans 21%
Atheists, Agnostics 21%

This data comes from a Barna Research Group (1999), a Christian-oriented research organization (www.barna.org).

Note that I could not tell if Barna’s poll was properly controlled (did it control for factors such as income and education, for example, which tend to be higher among atheists than the general population) However, Barna’s results apparently do jive with earlier polls as well as US Census Bureau and National Center for Health data.

George Barna (president of BRG): “While it may be alarming to discover that born again Christians are more likely than others to experience a divorce, that pattern has been in place for quite some time.”

And worse, he says: "we rarely find substantial differences" between the moral behavior of Christians and non-Christians.

Barna Project Director Meg Flammang said: "We would love to be able to report that Christians are living very distinct lives and impacting the community...”

Very disappointing, though I personally think that there are significant factors that may have not been accounted for that explain these results (such as income and education, for example). Factoring these other parameters out, if they haven’t been already, might completely reverse the trend. At least, I think it might even out the numbers, although this is only speculation on my part.

D

OK, Mel - trying to catch with my "rebuttals". <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

"Of course, one would hope to persuade others, but there is nothing wrong with that. If you think you are right, of course you want to persuade others."

Not necessarily for me. There is something wrong, though, when attempts are made to persuade others when those attemps include falsehoods.

"I agree that bad science should not be taught in school, which is why I am against evolution."

Evolution is actually a very good demonstration of the scientific process. Religion has it's own explanation, but that's not science.

What seems to get lost frequently in discussions such as this is that faith and science live by different rules. Faith requires belief; science requires evidence. In faith, certainty is necessary; in science, it is impossible. Because faith and science live by different rules, one cannot be judged by the criteria of the other.

Some aspects of evolution are yet to be confirmed and gaps exist in the fossil record - but there's a lot of digging to be done. Considerable scientific evidence exists for evolution, and none exists for intelligent design or creationism.

All people are entitled to free practice of their faith; they are not entitled to distort science in the name of faith.

WAT

And I only wish evolutionists followed your advice. But in principle, I do agree with what you said.

My question would be this, what are those percentages taken FROM? Are they taken as a percentage of ALL marriages or are they taken as a percentage of divorces only in their specific groups of marriages? Because if there are LESS marriages in the atheist group, or any other group, then the result would be irrelevent if it were taken from the gen. pop.

It would stand to reason that less athiests even enter into the institution of marriage since it is largely viewed as a religious practice. That would mean LESS atheists are married, which would result, naturally, in LESS divorces.

And since religious people very much believe in the institution of marriage, it stands to reason that more of them would marry, resulting in a higher # of divorces.

So, unless the percentage is taken out of each specific group, broken out by marriages of athiests, catholics, etc, then taking a percentage from the general group would give a completely false picture.

And even if it did, no one would deny that religious people do get too many divorces. But it is no surprise to anyone that religious people are not perfect, nor do they claim to be.

ie: p

So you agree that creationism is not science. Thanks. That resolves a lot of meaningless debate.

In what why do evolutionists distort science?

WAT

I think I subsequently addressed the salient points here, but maybe not sufficiently enough.

Let's just consider the N. Ireland sitch for a moment between the Prostetants and Catholics - and perhaps bOb or another Brit friend can help out. What exactly is the conflict? Here are two branchs of Christianity - or is that "limbs", as in "out on a...." that have been at each others throats for decades if not centuries. Do they not have the same Christian morals? I admit I don't really understand. Where are the morals? Are they not both arguing that their partucular sub-division of faith is better than the other's? That one set of morals is superior to the other? If not morals, what? What the heck is going on? Whatever it is, why don't the authoritative "morals" reign supreme? And how does the "standard" come into play here? Or should I ask, why doesn't the supreme Christian "standard" come into play here? What good is having a "standard" doing?

It goes without saying that you won't find two limbs of "secularists" killing each other over some division of belief.

So, again my only point - it appears that having a "standard" is a noble attribute. But if that standard isn't followed, is followed once in a while, or even most of the time, but not always, how is that better than having no standard at all? Looks like a wash to me. As I already said - I also expect "standard" organizations to practice what they preach. If you don't, they can really be embarrassed, which may often be the driving force. Let's face it - infidelity exposure is exploitation of shame. But there is clearly no monopoly on morals in "standard" entities.

As least being a secularist, I'm comfortable claiming I can't be a hypocrit. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

WAT

Neither of them are science, so that is a fruitless debate that I have no interest in engaging in. Neither were observable events and neither cause can be replicated, so they are not "science." They are matters of faith.

Why? What is so specifically Christian about marriage. I thought it was a union between two people who have vowed to love, honor and cherish one another until death.

Why would Christians put more meaning in those vows than non-Christians, athiests or others?

And Mel as far as Secularists having no verifiable standards this doesn't make sense to me. The definition of a Secularist is one who believes reliegion should be kept out of school and state. I believe in God but believe very strongly in separation of religion from school and state.

It is my understanding that even Humanist Seculars have standards in that although they do not believe in a God or Gods and that devine intervention is impossible, they do believe in people upholding the standards of common human decency.

I can look up the definitions to be more concise but I think that to say that secularists have no verifiable standards, even if you were referring to Humanists Secularist is not true. They look within for their authority (the golden rule, do onto others, do no harm) instead of an authority outside of themselves.

Honest to God, I can't believe you said that. How you can say such an inane thing in an era where "secularists" have committed more mass murders than all World Wars combined is beyond me. Have you never heard of Stalin? Chairman Mao? Pol Pot? Castro?

Surely you jest, WAT.


And again, we are back to the point that you cannot seem to refute. You can not legitimately judge a group by the exception because there is no such thing as a group whose adherents are 100% perfect 100% of the time. Exceptions do not NEGATE the rule, WAT. And that brings us back to my original point, which is that with secularists, there is NO RULE; there is no standard by which to gage an expectation of any moral standard. At least with a Christian or other religious person there is an expectation of a standard.

But, if we use your standard of judging the group by the lowest common denominator, then I would have to suggest we judge the secularists by the examples of the greatest mass murderers in the 21st century, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and the ever lovable butcher down in Cuba. You sure that's the standard you want to use, WAT? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />


Why? Because you HAVE NO expressed standards? Thanks for making my point for me! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Weaver, seperation of church and state is a political belief. Secular means not specifically relating to any religious belief. There is no universal standard of morality for secularists, by definition.

Well I did find many different definitions of Secularism on the net just now. I was under the impression that Secularism differs dramatically from Humanist Secularism as far as personal belief systems goes. The first having to do with separation of religion and the second having to do with denouncing religion.


From wordreference.com -

secularist
A noun
1 secularist
an advocate of secularism; someone who believes that religion should be excluded from government and education

But you are saying that Secularism and Humanist Secularism are one and the same.

A difference in understanding of the terms perhaps. But Humanists Secularism believe that people are beholden to uphold common human decency. This IS a standard.

Weaver, I haven't said anything about humanists. The discussion is not about humanists, it is about secularists, which by definition means :

sec·u·lar ( P ) Pronunciation Key (sky-lr)
adj.
Worldly rather than spiritual.
Not specifically relating to religion or to a religious body: secular music.
Relating to or advocating secularism.
Not bound by monastic restrictions, especially not belonging to a religious order. Used of the clergy.
Occurring or observed once in an age or century.
Lasting from century to century.

And again, a belief in seperation of church and state is not a set of moral standards, but a political belief. Even if one were to accept that this belief is universal amongst secularists, it still doesn't tell me anything about his moral standards.