Original Sin?

Control people how? By making them live good, happy, and holy lives? By asking them not to lie, cheat, steal, or sleep around? The first thing that happens when you join a Church is you are welcomed. There are no set of rules to join my Church at all. By the way I love hearing a good sermon?

by the way I forgot what was all this evidence you say points exclusively to reincarnation?

Quote: FrGamble

Control people how?

Every church has things you can and cannot
do to be a member there. Try getting a divorce
as a Catholic and see what happens. I even felt
it in the small Christian group I was in. They
were constantly correcting me and telling me
how to live. Look at the Catholics in Hawaii.
They took total control of the native population
right down to forbidding their language be taught
in the schools. Control is what the Church is
all about, always has been. Look at it's history.
Forced conversions? If that's not control, what
is.

Look at the reincarnation thread, I'm not going
over all that again because you've forgotten.

More interesting stuff at Neurologica:

http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/new-science-and-religion-survey/

Though I disagree with Novella on one point: science can be applied to religious claims.

Quote: Nareed

More interesting stuff at Neurologica:

http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/new-science-and-religion-survey/
.

I like what he says about how 60% of religious
people think miracles should be included in
science. The author replied:

"This notion stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of how science works. Science cannot consider miracles – because by definition miracles are not falsifiable. They are not subject to hypothesis testing, and so don’t meet the first criterion of science. Science is like a structure built brick-by-brick. Each brick has to sit on top of bricks below it. You cannot have structures floating in mid air, but that is what a “miracle” is."

Most religious people seem not to understand
that science, unlike religion, is not based on
opinion and speculation. It's based on provable
facts that can be demonstrated over and over
again. It's the polar opposite of religion. In fact,
whenever science is applied to religion, the study
of prayer, for instance, religion always comes up
with a score of zero. As they should..

Carl Sagen said:

"We wish to find the truth, no matter where it lies. But to find the truth we need imagination and skepticism both. We will not be afraid to speculate, but we will be careful to distinguish speculation from fact."

This is where religion fails. They don't separate
speculation from fact. For them, unproved
speculation is fact. For instance, in the Catholic
Church, they totally invent the concept of saints
and then pronounce it a fact. Even though the idea
of sainthood is not described in either the Jewish
or Christian scriptures. It sounds good, it fits in
with their goal, so of course it must be true.

This is why science and religion will never get along.
Truth is all that matters to science, and truth is
irrelevant to religion. In fact, truth is the enemy of
religion.

I really like the quote from Carl Sagan.

However, your idea that religion doesn't separate speculation from fact is incorrect. Take for example the concept of Saints. Some type of honoring ancestors who have been examples and models of holiness goes back to the very beginning of human society. In Judaism and throughout the Hebrew Scriptures God is referred to as the "God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." Jesus Himself points to this fact as evidence that God is not the God of the dead, but the living. Abraham our Father in Faith, Isaac, and Jacob are all very much alive. The concept of the afterlife or Heaven was not fully developed until Christ but there was the abode of the dead or Sheol. So the concept of sainthood is not invented by Christians it develops from the beginning through Judaism and then in Christianity.

Certain types of truth are all that matter to science and other types of truth is what matters to religion. As long as these conceptions of truth, one reached through observation the other reached through revelation and faith are respected science and religion get along great.

Quote: FrGamble

Take for example the concept of Saints.

So if the idea is old, it's valid? That really
doesn't work. You can't declare some
dead person a saint and think it has any
meaning outside of your little ceremony.
There isn't a shred of evidence the dead
person hears your prayers or could do
anything for you if he did hear them.
It's like when children anthropomorphize
a tree and talk it it like it can hear them.
That doesn't work either.

Quote:

Certain types of truth are all that matter to science and other types of truth is what matters to religion.

Yes. Provable and repeatable truth matters
to science, unprovable speculation, hearsay,
and superstition matters to religion. The
two paths never converge.

Quote: Evenbob

So if the idea is old, it's valid?

No, not necessarily so. I'm just glad you no longer think the concept of sainthood was something made up. Let me ask you if an idea is time tested and ancient does that automatically make it invalid or wrong?

Quote:

There isn't a shred of evidence the dead
person hears your prayers or could do
anything for you if he did hear them.

Obviously you are again discounting the personal experience of billions of people, but I am used to that from you and I understand why such evidence carries no weight with you. Maybe you should then turn to the millions and millions of miracles and stories of intercession. Many of which are documented by doctors, non-believers, eye-witnesses, scientists, etc.

Quote:

Yes. Provable and repeatable truth matters
to science, unprovable speculation, hearsay,
and superstition matters to religion. The
two paths never converge.

What is your proof for such a stupid assertion? There is obviously truth that does not come from provable and repeatable tests or else you wouldn't be able to say such poor things about religion or you would not be able to say there is no God. I will grant you that religion does not deal in the certitudes of the observable sciences or mathematics in order to reach its conclusions. Does that mean it is hearsay or superstition? Is all philosophy or the arts worthless? Are there truths that you believe without having mathematical certitude about? The paths don't converge they are parallel.

Quote: FrGamble

No, not necessarily so. I'm just glad you no longer think the concept of sainthood was something made up.

LOL, nice try. Of course it's a myth, what
else would it be. Talking to the dead is
one of the oldest myths there is, fails the
science test completely.

Quote:

Obviously you are again discounting the personal experience of billions of people

It's still superstition if trillions believed
it for millions of years. You know what,
superstition doesn't get grandfathered
in as fact just because they believed it
4000 years ago. Oh that it were so, but
it's not. Epic fail on the science test..

Quote:

I will grant you that religion does not deal in the certitudes of the observable sciences or mathematics in order to reach its conclusions..

Correct. It deals in emotion, in feelings, in
words written by men (it's always always
men) who wanted to control the masses.
Who wanted to elevate themselves into
positions where they were in charge, where
they were god's spokesmen on earth. And
it's still working, congrats. But your heyday
is long gone, and is disappearing faster and
faster. The more educated the masses get,
the more they reject being controlled by
superstition and myth.

Everyone rejects being controlled by superstition and myth. The more educated people become the more they realize that there is more to life than could ever pass the science test, whatever that is?!?