Simple question?

Quote: rxwine

It isn't that where someone claims possession by a spirit, and you can't use normal logic and reason on them?

Yes, it is where people possessed speak in different languages, voices, do things humanly impossible, know things they could not possibly know, and act in strange and evil ways.

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I don't get why they also take a vow of celibacy.

Oh, I get it just now. You think I am possessed. Good one. Maybe you could use reason or logic on me and see how I respond, so far you have failed to do so.

Quote: FrGamble

This is true but you sell us too short. We desire to better, more good, we desire and strive for perfection not just good.

Old manipulation tool. I get it. However good you are, you'll never be good enough. And if this naked emotional blackmail doesn't make you feel guilty, there's something wrong with you.

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Are you saying that the creation of the earth is less marvelous than a primate making a crude axe?

The primate, possibly a hominid, actually created something. the Earth was not created. The Earth accreted from some of what the Sun didn't get from the Solar accretion disk. Random matter and impersonal forces at work can form astonishing things. But there is no creation.

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Not only are you engaging in philosophy by saying this

I know what I'm doing. But in order to engage in philosophy, one must have at least a passing acquaintance with it.

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Many of these things existed long before capitalism as we know it today existed.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight! Long before the Mid-XX Century many, amny people got university degrees? Really? Wasn't higher education restricted to the elite and the clergy? Forget "higher." What was the literacy rate at the height of the Dark Ages when Christianity ruled supreme? A bit less than a tiny percentage of 99.9% maybe?

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You are also again downplaying the goodness and morality of people. You seem to be saying that if there was nothing in it for them than none of the amazing innovation we know today would never have existed. That is bullocks.

How amazing, then, that innovation crawls along slower than a snail can walk, until first the scientific revolution and then the industrial revolution open the doors of plenty and opportunity to everyone.

Why do you think there has been more progress from, oh, the 1700s til today, than all of pre-1700s human history put together? Why do you think progress has accelerated steadily?

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I know the brilliance, hard work, desire to help others, and selflessness it requires.

That might figure, perhaps, in varying amounts. I asked if you knew the sheer pride it requires? The knowledge that one is not just good enough, but so good one can come up with something that surpasses all prior intellectual achievement in that area? Some geniuses are brilliant, some are plodders, methodically moving forward one step at a time. The one thing they all have in common is the pride to know they can do it to begin with.

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Pride in its sinful form is when we put ourselves above all others and only do something if it will be a benefit to us.

Like those guys in the white vestments who so humbly style themselves "Your Holiness"?

You may have a point. I'dwant nothing to do with people like that.

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Nothing at all what you say here conflicts with my morality. In fact cooperation and community is at the heart of my morality.

I thought it was sacrifice.

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Nothing of what you say above follows. How is the vast majority of people being good mean that there is no sin or Original Sin?

It's self-evident: if people are capable of living life when they do good most of the time, they're not hobbled down with some awful something or other they inherited from two people who never existed.

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How is having a good life, family and friends, and sharing joy impossible in medieval times or with restricted trade?

For one thing because it took an unholy amount of time to do the work necessary just to stay alive. For another, because what little free time there was, would be taken by duties to the church. Or do you think medieval peasants, the vast majority of the populace, had the time, the wealth or the education to pursue a hobby or spend time with family or travel?

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You betray a false and twisted view of what you think my morality is.

Tell me that when you're not oppressing LGBT people because your imaginary god tells you to do is so is, inexplicably, "love."

Quote: FrGamble

Secular materialism is the idea that nothing is of value that cannot be seen or observed. The things you mentioned above are possible because we find value in good food, community, travel, good health, none of which can be seen or observed or understood as valuable outside of philosophy and natural reason.

The only way I can think of where a person would be incapable of observing "good food, community, travel, good health," and many other things as well, would be if this poor hypothetical person were blind, deaf, lacked a sense of smell, touch and taste, and were incredibly stupid.

I submit to you in proof the work of a genius teacher by the name of Anne Sullivan. You may not have heard of Anne Sullivan, but maybe you know her student. Her name was Helen Keller.

Quote: FrGamble

This is just not true. Science cannot explain miracles

That's because science doesn't recognize
miracles as being real. Lets go way back
to one of the modern scientists in the 17th
century, Spinoza. He said:

Miracles are violations of natural laws.
Natural laws are immutable.
It is impossible for immutable laws to be violated.
Therefore, miracles are impossible.

And nothing has changed since then,

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Old manipulation tool. I get it. However good you are, you'll never be good enough. And if this naked emotional blackmail doesn't make you feel guilty, there's something wrong with you.

The point of the god religions is to put
you in a box where the only exit is to
go thru them. You have to play their
game or your doomed. In the old old
days, you were literally doomed right
here and now if you didn't play. But
times changed, because of their greed
and evil all they have now is bark with
no bite. It's gotten so bad in the Church
you can never go to mass or confession
and still be considered a good Catholic.

Quote: Nareed

Old manipulation tool. I get it. However good you are, you'll never be good enough. And if this naked emotional blackmail doesn't make you feel guilty, there's something wrong with you.

I'm not telling anyone this, we feel it deeply in ourselves. It is like there is a echo of greatness that reverberates in our soul. What is wrong with telling people that they can always be better? What I think is emotional garbage is the idea that we should just strive to be good or nice and nothing more is asked of us. We are made for more, we have more potential and goodness then I think you can imagine. Your morality seems to be holding us back and maybe you should be the one to feel guilty about it.

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The primate, possibly a hominid, actually created something. the Earth was not created. The Earth accreted from some of what the Sun didn't get from the Solar accretion disk. Random matter and impersonal forces at work can form astonishing things. But there is no creation.

The earth was not created? Where did it come from? The random matter and complex forces of nature? Where did they come from? How you can see something as simple as a stone tool as creation but not the universe is beyond me. Don't you marvel at the complex balance of nature and the laws that created it? If you came upon a delicious 5 course meal in the midst of nature wouldn't you think something had created that? Why do you not think the material that make up such a meal were created?

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I know what I'm doing. But in order to engage in philosophy, one must have at least a passing acquaintance with it.

The beauty of philosophy is that you need not have any passing acquaintance with its formality. We as human beings are philosophical beings we are constantly thinking about what is right and love truth - this is all that is needed for philosophy. Make no mistake you are engaging in philosophy when you posit something like Capitalism is the source of innovation or that there is no God. Neither of which are true but an honest attempt to seek out truth.

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How amazing, then, that innovation crawls along slower than a snail can walk, until first the scientific revolution and then the industrial revolution open the doors of plenty and opportunity to everyone.

Why do you think there has been more progress from, oh, the 1700s til today, than all of pre-1700s human history put together? Why do you think progress has accelerated steadily?

I think that progress grows and builds on itself. We wouldn't be able to do anything if long before the 1700s so many fundamental achievements were not discovered. The Church's efforts to promote and establish modern science did accelerate things but it all depends on the development of the past.

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The one thing they all have in common is the pride to know they can do it to begin with.

In English we have to be careful when talking about pride. The pride you are talking about is healthy. It is a knowledge that we can do great things and a striving to be better, the very thing you condemned me for earlier.

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I thought it was sacrifice.

It is sacrificial to live in a family or a community of any kind. The heart of community is people willing to sacrifice to serve others, keep the peace, put our fires, specialize in making or growing certain things, and leading. It is a great sacrifice to raise children and love a spouse as yourself.

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It's self-evident: if people are capable of living life when they do good most of the time, they're not hobbled down with some awful something or other they inherited from two people who never existed.

I guess if you think it is fine just to do good most of the time. However, I think most people would like to do good all of the time and spare themselves the heartache and pain their sinfulness often causes when those few times they inexplicable do not do good. Is this not true? Is this not clear evidence of something that holds us back called Original Sin?

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For one thing because it took an unholy amount of time to do the work necessary just to stay alive. For another, because what little free time there was, would be taken by duties to the church. Or do you think medieval peasants, the vast majority of the populace, had the time, the wealth or the education to pursue a hobby or spend time with family or travel?

This sounds like a good answer to your question about why so much progress was made after the 1700s.

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Tell me that when you're not oppressing LGBT people because your imaginary god tells you to do is so is, inexplicably, "love."

Love is another word that can get us into trouble when it is not understood. Love does not mean just accept anything someone is doing, in fact that is pretty much the opposite of love. Love is willing to tell someone when they are doing something not reasonable, rational, or natural. Love is not just peaches and cream and being nice to someone, it is much more than that. You can tell the people who truly love you when they correct you like a loving parent.

Quote: Evenbob

That's because science doesn't recognize
miracles as being real. Lets go way back
to one of the modern scientists in the 17th
century, Spinoza. He said:

Miracles are violations of natural laws.
Natural laws are immutable.
It is impossible for immutable laws to be violated.
Therefore, miracles are impossible.

And nothing has changed since then,

What is your proof that it is impossible for immutable laws to be violated?

Quote: FrGamble

I'm not telling anyone this, we feel it deeply in ourselves.

No, we don't.

Old manipulation tool. and if you can't feel it, you're even more defective.

I'm much reminded of the Two-minute Hate in 1984.

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The earth was not created?

The Earth was not created. It was accreted. granted the words "created" and "accreted" use the same letters and phonemes, but that's just an incident of the language.

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Where did it come from?

To paraphrase Sherry Bobbins "I'm not a bloody astronomy textbook."

To summarize: I'm not convinced the universe needs a creator because you think it does.

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The beauty of philosophy is that you need not have any passing acquaintance with its formality.

I nearly flunked Intro to Philosophy I and ][ both in high school and college, because I disliked my teachers and was too lazy to do much of the homework. What's your excuse?

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We as human beings are philosophical beings we are constantly thinking about what is right and love truth

Oh, if only that were so.

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- this is all that is needed for philosophy.

That is only a first step.

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I think that progress grows and builds on itself.

Yeah? Well, I think gravity is inversely proportional to the square of the distance!

How do you like that?

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We wouldn't be able to do anything if long before the 1700s so many fundamental achievements were not discovered.

There was no reason why the printing press could not have been invented in any ancient civilization which employed coinage. All the requisite knowledge was there. Why did it finally happen in the mid 1400s? Was it a coincidence that it happened in the early part of the Renaissance?

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The Church's efforts to promote and establish modern science did accelerate things but it all depends on the development of the past.

Tell that to the Dark Ages, when Christianity reigned supreme.

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It is a knowledge that we can do great things and a striving to be better, the very thing you condemned me for earlier.

I said the knowledge that one is good, not that one can do better. There's a gulf about the size of the Pacific Ocean between the two.

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It is sacrificial to live in a family or a community of any kind.

I suppose it is if you're emotional and spiritual cannibals.

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I guess if you think it is fine just to do good most of the time.

You think it's terrible?

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Love is another word that can get us into trouble when it is not understood.

You wouldn't know love if she came to you and kissed you.

Quote: FrGamble

Love is another word that can get us into trouble when it is not understood. .

You mean like it's not understood by the
Church. Do you know that when they
tortured people in the Inquisitions, they
did it out of love? That's what they told
these poor people as they writhed and
screamed, that these were acts of love.
'Gods higher love', is how they explained
it. They were the messengers delivering
the love of a caring god.

This is the same 'love' we see expressed
today towards anybody the Church
doesn't agree with, like those that practice
Gay sex. Gods love is really the blind ego
and ambition of men with too much power.
Who don't know how to mind their own
business and let others mind theirs.

Quote: Nareed

Old manipulation tool. and if you can't feel it, you're even more defective.

Do you not have the desire to be even better, more good, and more who you are meant to be?

Please tell me what is manipulative about reminding people that they were made for more?

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The Earth was not created. It was accreted. granted the words "created" and "accreted" use the same letters and phonemes, but that's just an incident of the language.

Okay the Earth was accreted by already existing star stuff and according to the laws of nature into the amazing and complicated world we live on. Please tell me what the difference is between this reality and the taking of already existing material and accreting them in such a way as to form a simple stone tool?

You also fail to realize that the stuff that accreted into the Earth came from somewhere as well, where did it come from and where did the molecules and atoms that accreted to form this stuff come from? You don't need to have passed Philosophy or Logic 101 to realize that eventually you have to arrive at a creator.

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Oh, if only that were so.

So you both acknowledge what a good thing it would be if we as human beings loved truth and thought about what is right, but recognize we struggle to do so. This is the reality of Original Sin.

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That is only a first step.

You really did almost flunk Philosophy in school didn't you.

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There was no reason why the printing press could not have been invented in any ancient civilization which employed coinage. All the requisite knowledge was there. Why did it finally happen in the mid 1400s? Was it a coincidence that it happened in the early part of the Renaissance?

No, the technology we had already discovered met an need and human ingenuity and creative took over.

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Tell that to the Dark Ages, when Christianity reigned supreme.

Christianity reigned supreme over the whole world did it? Also go back and read about the so called "dark ages". Historians today recognize that even that terminology is outdated and based on myth.

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I said the knowledge that one is good, not that one can do better. There's a gulf about the size of the Pacific Ocean between the two.

That is true. One is what inspired human beings to cross the ocean the other encourages the status quo. Thank God that there is in us an ever present desire to do better and cross that ocean.

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I suppose it is if you're emotional and spiritual cannibals.

You'll have to explain this.

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You think it's terrible?

As they say, good is the enemy of great.

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You wouldn't know love if she came to you and kissed you.

I guess a stranger coming to kiss someone is to me foreign to the nature of love. Love is much more than that. It is truly caring for another and not about just giving someone whatever they want or providing nothing but pleasure.