Atheism

Agreed. But its strength is also its weakness. There are those who use science as an absolute to refute the supernatural, though as you just pointed out, science is constantly in a state of flux as learning and discovery continue.

Having the ability to supercede physical rules I agree with -- it's the very definition of 'supernatural'. But why do you think all religions and supernatural beliefs are also disassociated with logic? Logic was (and continues to be) a key factor in developing my own beliefs.

 

Sorry, I don't consider correcting errors in thinking and expanding knowledge as a weakness. As knowlege is gained, errors decrease. It's a beautiful process.

I don't doubt that you've used reason in your searching. That searching has brought you to your own understanding of Christianity. Somewhere, however, you have to put logic and reason aside to accept the supernatural aspects. Religion is full of not just improbabilites, but impossibilities that can only be explained by the supernatural. I'm not comfortable with that leap, but the vast majority of people are.

 

religiOWNED

 

I've always wanted to make up one of those 'OWNED' things.

 

I'm just fine with it until it comes into science class.

 

That too.

When I talk about not being comfortable with that leap, I mean for myself. It feels wrong for me. Your mileage may vary.

 

Time for a joke I was gonna make back @ #51.

You know you didn't have to toss the whole thing. You could've just become a Holiday Christian like a lot of other folks.

 

Don't tell anyone but I'm going to Church Sunday. It's a UU Church that I'm technically still a member of. The minster is retiring after 35 years of service as a reverant agnostic. We're all gonna laugh and sing and probably pray to about 72 different gods. May Gaia keeps us warm.



EDIT: Whoops. That's next Sunday.

 

you contrast humans with animals and say we'd be more like animals if we didn't have morals. how much more like them would we be? and which ones? certainly if you say humans have morals and animals don't then losing our morals would by definition make us more like animals, but i don't think that's the extent of what you had meant.

considering that all humans have the same basic genetics, it's pretty easy to figure they'd share traits like an internal sense of morality.

and you logic seems a bit circular -- human morality can't be a result of social and biological evolution because it results in behavior that goes against what biology and society tells them they should do? humans are different from animals, no doubt, but many of the differences actually fly in the face of the morality we supposedly have that they lack.

ack. circles is right. we've been imparted with some objective moral code that says murder is wrong. okay, so what's murder? well, it's the thing we know is wrong. hmmm...

so which societies would we be like? cuz, really, there aren't that many truly social animals. and in what ways would we be like them?

humans are way more advanced than any other creature on the planet. we lead very complex lives. our interactions with each other are similarly complex, so any internal sense of how to act with other people would need to be complex as well. i don't see how complexity would disqualify an evolved morality considering that all the rest of the complexities of being human are also assumed to be evolved. if you don't accept that something so complex can simply evolve, then okay, but i do.

and right and wrong are purely window dressing. you believe they have some deeper significance. i don't really.

so wait. i thought you said it was evidence of divide morality that people would over-ride their basic instincts for survival and act to save a child in jeopardy. not that they'd save their own ass then feel bad about it.

if a bus came barreling down at a man standing next to a little child and he jumped out of the way and the child died, i would not think poorly of that man. if he died pushing the child out of the way, i would think very highly of him. if he saved them both, i'd also think very highly of him. so the question is, what does a person consider when faced with a bus barreling down on them and a child standing next to them? i suspect it's the same thing people think when going into their burning house trying to save their cat -- that they can rescue the cat (girl) and also survive the incident themselves.

no objective right and wrong doesn't mean they don't exist, it means they are subjective. there is no objective beauty and yet people debate the subject constantly.

guilt is internal as are people's personal sense of right and wrong.

would society be the same without morality? could civilizations flourish without a strong sense of society? would humans be masters of the world without civilizations? i think you can see that having morals makes us more "fit" for better survivability. people make the mistake of thinking survival of the fittest means every man for himself. it doesn't.

it kind of depends on how you define morals. if you define them based on contemplation, then they'd be pretty human since i don't know animals really contemplate things. if you define morals as a code of conduct, then you'd have to look at how things behave. i think analogs to pretty much every human action can be found in nature.

humans without empathy or a conscience exist. they are typically classified as psychopaths or sociopaths. they tend to do things the rest of us don't like, so we deal with them harshly.

 

I agree. I used the term 'weakness' as sort of a reciprocative act to show that while some (not you) assert that religion in general has holes, they claim science is bulletproof. I was only trying to point out that anything that is still going through processes of discovery and refinement is incomplete and imperfect, and therefore is no more bulletproof than the ideas and philosophies they protest as weak.