Krazy, do you happen to a liberal? Because this is just the sort of lie/subterfuge that liberals use all the time when they are "called" on their previous statements.

By way of reference, this IS what YOU said, and you did NOT say "MOST movies," you did indeed say "ALL movies," as anyone can see simply by reading what you actual wrote:




Okay. That's clearer know. You DO support the taking of innocent lives then and, like Barak Obama, support the taking of babies lives in or out of the womb if the INTENT was to kill the baby prior to birth. I understand better now.




Maher doesn't bother me one bit. But that wasn't your argument. You were arguing that no one who hadn't SEEN his movie had any right to an opinion about what he was presenting in his movie. Are you simply afraid of any protest against "God-bashing" that Maher likes to do? And surrounding himself with "like-minded" folks so that he can get along with them doesn't surprise me much at all either.

Whether Maher's movie is funny, cruel or thought provoking, I have no idea. If in a comical manner the movie exposes stupidity, masquerading as piety is that wrong? Neither secularist nor theist holds a monopoly on ignorance.

What I find troubling is the reticence by some modern theists to acknowledge that faith may be subject to critical analysis. The influence of Aristoteleanism upon Christian rationalism and the works of the great Christian thinkers of the Scholastic movement were very much focused on the tension between reason and faith. When a theist takes the position that faith itself is not subject to critical exploration I think that diminishes the belief as a whole.

Your post has so many holes in it, I hardly know where to begin.

I'll tear into it after lunch.

Nothing "irrational" there, Krazy. They've already done it and are trying to expand it even further.

When's the last time you hear prayer in schools?

How about the attempts to get "under God" taken out of the Pledge of Allegiance?

How about Christmas trees for cryin' out loud?!

MANY examples.

And to substitute it with what?

Secular Humanism?

The faith in evolution and that life began from non-life?




Krazy, while I don't wish the "joys" of infidelity on anyone, there is inherent in your statement here the makings of a troubled "unequally yoked marriage," that your wife should have considered before marrying you.

Brix, this thread is not suited to a discussion as you were attempting. If you'd like to discuss that sort of thing, why don't you start a thread for that sort of religious discussion and I wouldn't mind contributing a few posts to such a discussion.

If you want to do so, you might start by defining what you mean by a "critical exploration of faith," as you were using the phrase. Were you referring to "Higher Criticism" sorts of things or did you have something different in mind?

I can hardly wait, Krazy.

Which "holes" were you referring to? The one where you said a person was required to see a movie before offering an opinion or the one where you tried to "amend" that declaritive to "most movies?" and change the clear meaning of your first statement as you "dove for cover?"

Um, we are formed from the dust of the earth. Nonliving material.

Living things received the breath of life into this nonliving material.

So in a matter of speaking, life did begin from non life or else there would be two different contradicting systems and God don't allow those sort of things.

Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.

Aloha MrsZ,

The way I hold onto faith? I know what I believe and I know why I believe it. I don't believe scripture just because someone up in a pulpit said it is so. When I hear a message preached, I go back and look at the scripture myself and see if Scripture confirms what the pastor said. I wrestle with it myself; and with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, I learn the truth.

Am I always at peace with what I learn? No. Because sometimes I am lead to change something in my life that I don't want to change (because it's not easy). Even though it is not easy, I still do my best to make the change because God blesses obedience. He doesn't bless having the knowledge; and his blessings aren't based on my success of being obedient.

I don't let strangers tear down my friends that I know intimately and I don't let strangers tear down my faith in a God I know intimately.

Hope that helps.

Blessings.

S&C

You are right, Pariah.

But the key point is formed by God, by direct purpose, design, and intent. GIVEN life by God. God created ALL things from nothing (ex nihilo), and began with the inanimate and only progressed to the animate when the material world was suitable and ready.

versus

Random chance wherein the Laws of Science PROHIBIT the beginning of life and there is not enough time in all the universe to come close to allowing for "random chance" to actually have resulted in life, let alone sustainable and reproduceable life.

Without having seen the movie I imagine reason and faith are integral to the film.

As for critical exploration, I will give you an example. If a theist states that their faith is supported by Aquinas' "Five Ways to prove that G-d Exists" I may disagree with them but respectfully, b/c they have considered their faith in an estimable manner.

On the other hand, if a zealot comes to my front door brandishing a pancake upon which he claims has appeared the face of Jesus I may take his faith a little less seriously.

Should the former and latter beliefs be afforded the same weight--is not one superior and the other inferior?

My first post on this thread:


Lying and subterfuge, huh? It's also a standard conservative tactic to blame others for what you are guilty of.

Anyone with an I.Q. above that of Forest Gump would assume that I wasn't including movies from the pornography industry. Duh!

I support the right of mothers to determine what happens in their uterus. Of course, the way you say it sounds more creepy and sinister.

Of course, it's not nearly as sinister as thinking a raped teenager should have to carry the baby in front of her family, friends, and classmates, then either raise it or put it up for adoption. That is punishing the victim for being raped. See India, Pakistan, and various parts of the Middle East for examples of countries where rape victims are punished for being raped.

Oh, and Bill Maher didn't surround himself with like-minded individuals, unless he's a gay Muslim fundamentalist AND a Mormon AND a Catholic, etc. They couldn't have been more different...they were just more tolerant than you.

Surrounding yourself with like-minded individuals happens all the time, especially on Sunday mornings.

SC,
Thank you for your post, that is exactly the kind of feedback I'm looking for. I love debate and discussion, but right now I'm looking for inspiration!

But on the other hand... Brix, your posts are very interesting. I need to think about what you wrote, you make excellent points.

-Mrs Z

I grew up in Kansas and attended public schools. I never saw or heard a kid pray, ever. Not one time. Besides, prayer doesn't have to take more than a few seconds, and can be done in silence, without hand gestures, and nobody would ever know.

Or, they could simply pray before or after school, or both, but that's beside the point.

School is for learning. Pray somewhere else.


It wasn't in the original...and that's so petty. You're using that as an example of your religion being threatened?


What about them? They're only (barely) a Christian symbol because someone arbitrarily decided they should be...unless Israel had a thriving evergreen market that I'm unaware of.

Last I checked, you could still buy them at Wal Mart...not exactly a sign of the end of Christianity.


How about self-reliance, instead of a mythical crutch?

Evolution, and science in general, is always open to critical thinking, further study, and modifcation if/when new data is acquired. Religious beliefs as a whole are not.

As far as life from non-life: What did God supposedly create Adam from?


And the real Christian comes out!

1. "Unequally yoked marriage", as far as religious beliefs, is a garbage statement. Fodder for the religious.

2. My wife should've considered MY beliefs before marrying ME? You should call Dr. Harley, because you're apparently found the one thing that could justify cheating: Lack of faith. :RollieEyes: If anything, I should've seen her for the typical, hypocritical "Christian" that she is.

Then refused to do HER the favor of marrying HER. I managed to stay faithful with no faith at all. Shouldn't that be impossible, without God, Inc. to guide me?


I assume you are a BS? Then that last statement was completely ignorant.

If you were a WS, then you have no right to speak of faith to anyone.

Brix, according to several people on MB, the answer to your question is "yes, they should be afforded the same weight" and "no, no judgment is allowed regarding one person's beliefs being more or less superior to another."

That's the basis "relativism," that is ascribed to by many on MB.

I disagree.

But to carry your thought along a little further, substitute Bill Maher and his "pancake" opinion versus 2000 years of committed followers of Jesus Christ, and ask yourself the same sort of question.

As for whatever "weight" you want to assign to Jesus Christ, since I speak as a Christian and not as any other faith system, that is up to you. Ultimately, the judge of "right or wrong" will be God and His "opinion" will be the only one that counts.

No one comes to a belief in Jesus Christ without the Father first drawing them.

Thank God for one Constitutional right that still exists.




Okay, I'll grant you this "exception." Now will you join me in abolishing all other abortions? Perhaps you'd like to toss into the "exception" list rape (any age) and incest too? I'd be okay with that too. Then let's ban all the "other" reasons for aborting a healthy, innocent, baby. Let's return this to a MEDICAL procedure and not a money making enterprise that Planned Parenthood has turned it into.

Most believers I know believe primarily because their parents did.

Nonsense. I have a degree in Biology. School may be for learning, but it's not for learning about ALL theories of where things came from.

Evolution refuses to deal with the question of origins of life because the Biogenetic Law and the Laws of Thermodynamics PROHIBIT life from forming by accident, as required by the whole concept of Evolution.

Furthermore, try as evolutionist try, there is NO evidence of any macroevolution. There IS an "explosion" of diversity of life. There IS the "rethinking" and "modification" of things that were taught as FACT, when...oops, it was shown the facts were wrong and the taught "proof" was invalidated. Phylogeny recapitulates Ontogeny, is one example that I was taught by the learned Doctors of Science while studying for my degree. Guess what? That's now debunked and discarded, yet it was taught as truth.

Then there's the issue of Scientists (of the evolutionary stripe) refusing to consider any other theories or hypothesis because they will NOT entertain the possibility that God DID CREATE, despite their elevation of nature and natural process to a level of unproven faith as if they were "god."




Krazy, if I thought your was half-way serious, I'd take some time to try to give you an answer to that question. You might be surprised to learn that you are not the first person to ask that sort of question.

But let me give you hint anyway. God created by design and with a purpose, unlike the concept of evolution that requires no purpose and no design. God created Adam from the same elements He previously created, and ordered the resulting "product" to be Adam rather than a rock, a fish, or any other living creature.

So, to continue in your vein of question, just WHERE did the required INCREASE in INFORMATION come from in order to "evolve" from some lower form of life into a completely new and more "informationally" advanced form of life in order for your theory of evolution to have ANY chance of being correct?

And remember, you must account for that new and more complex information strictly by using nature and random chance, "inventing" if you will information that did not exist at the preceding level of complexity.

Hey, we've still got other rights...Bush didn't manage to take them all. Thank goodness for term limits on Presidents.



I think a compromise is called for.

Sex Ed needs to be taught in every public school, in every grade. There should be no "opt-out" policy. It should be age appropriate and uniform across the country. No local school boards should be allowed to modify what is or is not taught. Abstinance is not an acceptable form of sex education, because it is not realistic.

Special exceptions aside, I think all abortions should be performed in the 1st trimester. Obviously, the embryo becomes a full-fleged human in the womb at some point, but I don't believe it's the moment my...stuff...meets the egg.

Each person should get one first-trimester "oops" abortion in a lifetime. That wouldn't count against them in cases of rape, incest, or the mother's survival.

It's not an ideal compromise, but there is no ideal compromise.

Great post!


He sure gave it the ol' "college try," though.



Exactly!

Charlotte

The problem with establishing "when" the embryo becomes a human. Is i when it can survive outside the womb on its own because technically it would be a parasite before that point. I believe that is somewhere around 35-36 weeks (w/o support from hospital)? Or is it when doctors have a reasonable chance of delivering and saving it (25-26 weeks I believe)? Or is it at the end of the first trimester (13-14 weeks)? Or is it when conception takes place since the process is in motion and the baby is on its way to being created? I have no answers to this dilemma just food for thought.