Wanna become an atheist? Just read the Bible.

[Nathan Poe]

Nothing, which is why I don't use it.

Except when you do.

You are quite correct there. Most YEC's are really not really as loud or demanding as the ones you tend to see in the lime light the most, but they are more of the minority.

But they often have little difficulty falling in step behind the louder ones. Sheep looking for a shepherd.

[QUOTE As I said note though, I do think it's funny when people pull the 'pagan origins' card since many things can be argued to be from 'pagan origins' and that, in of itself, doesn't make it false or even unchristian alike.[/QUOTE]

Agreed, but then again, that card is played by the devout but not particularly rational or educated.

A small minority, to be sure, but often the loudest one.

You are right about that, some people do press the panic button on the most absurd issues (if you ever have the chance, take a trip to Natural Science 301 and try debating with jorge or becca on this issue). That being said though, it is still a pretty small minority that hit the panic button and call foul.

Again, it's not about numbers, it's about volume -- squeaky wheels tend to get more grease than they merit in our society.

The point being that if you want to use that as evidence against Christians, the same can be said back to you.

Where I come from, tu quoque is a logical fallacy, not a legitimate argument. It does nothing to address the issue, and is often seen as a desperate attempt at deflection.

You're better than that.

Then you haven't spent much time on the web, since I have found a number of atheist groups that do quite a number in preserving and enshrining ignorance (such as The Rational Response Squad). Trust me, it's not just Christians that have institutions that preserve and enshrine ignorance, but every group, in some way or another, has a place that does.

Tu quoque. I was not aware of any such groups, and cannot imagine that even all of them together have had the same historical impact as the Christian church.

Do you have any evidence to present forward that Copernicus was declared a heretic? Yes or no?

Not officially, no -- stop being so literal!

you could say that Copernicus got a pass the hard way -- he died shortly after De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium was published (1546).

It also helped that the book was too technical for a lay audience and sold poorly, or that Andreas Osiander slipped in a preface claiming that the entire work was basically a thought experiment which was not meant to represent reality -- but all that just delayed the inevitable; the church banned it in 1616, after heliocentricism began to take off.

The fact that people ran to his defense says something.

besides "everyone gets a defense"? Don't read too much into it.

People have had far worse things happen to them for not play politics. Galileo got away pretty lightly and in fact, his house arrest wasn’t too bad, since he tended to spend lots of time in his own house anyway.

Well that's what happens when the Church plays politics with science -- all three suffer.

All of this -- ALL OF THIS -- happened because the church accepted an erronenous scientific theory whichhappened to support their scriptures. Had they accepted the possibility that perhaps they were reading too much into their sacred texts (I do believe Joshua stopping the Sun was one of the major Biblical arguments for geocentricism), none of this would've happened.

Hindsight is always 20/20 because in the early 17th century, it appeared that Ptolemy was correct that the planets and sun orbited the earth and in fact, that was one of the primary arguments used against Galileo and Copernicus, the lack of real concrete evidence to support their theory and it wasn’t until much later that the physical evidence came along that gave them the support they needed.

So it was heliocentricism and NOT being an obnoxious twerp that got Galileo in trouble after all!

Which is irrelevant to the central issue at hand, which is that it wasn’t a battle of science vs religion, but more about one interpretation of scripture vs another.

And why did the church defend Ptolemy so vigorously? because it supperted their interpretation of Scripture.

First off, Galileo didn’t get the death penalty, he got house arrest.

Ok, stop. Just... stop. Humor, friend... humor.

And yet, you keep trying to make a case as though it’s mostly a religious aspect and not a human one.

If you want to divorce religion from humanity, good luck with that.

And one that doesn’t understand history often makes ignorant statements about it. Were you aware of the origins of the term ‘atheist’ and how atheism historically developed into what it is today?

Were you aware that people living in the 21st century tend to use words as they are defined in the 21st century, unless they specify otherwise?

Then why are you here presenting things like religion and science are at war with one another if your goal wasn’t to at least show Christianity as being contrary to reason and logical thought?

Did you get the impression that THAT was my goal? How sad. All I've been saying is that Institutionalised Christianity has misinterpreted the Bible, and if they hadn't the faith would be radically different from what it currently is -- YOU'RE the one who wants to argue science vs. religion.

Have fun with your straw man.

I have and I do not believe I misunderstood what was going on.

You've been misunderstanding my intentions from the get-go, it seems -- my apologies for being so slow to realize where the problem was; at least now we can correct it.

In a text debate, it can be almost impossible to find out who is being serious or not since you don’t have the voice clues nor the body language clues you got in physical speech.

Nor did I include a Winking Smiley -- it would appear that we have both run afoul of a certain eponymous Law.

How ironic.

[lilpixieofterror]

Except when you do.

And I have only used it just in showing how easy and fruitless this line of argument is.

But they often have little difficulty falling in step behind the louder ones. Sheep looking for a shepherd.

Humans tend to do that quite a bit and if you don’t believe me, why do we elect people to represent us in our government and often many people do that. Again, not just a religious trait.

Agreed, but then again, that card is played by the devout but not particularly rational or educated.

A small minority, to be sure, but often the loudest one.

That is correct.

Again, it's not about numbers, it's about volume -- squeaky wheels tend to get more grease than they merit in our society.

Whatever in the world that proves or means.

Where I come from, tu quoque is a logical fallacy, not a legitimate argument. It does nothing to address the issue, and is often seen as a desperate attempt at deflection.

You're better than that.

Hummm I don’t recall denying that there are stupid Christians in the world and I even agreed with you that they exist, so sorry no to quoque fallacy going on at all, I just pointed out that the same can be said about ANY group of people, so what? Every group as their dumb elements and it’s up to the accuser to show that those dumb elements are a fair rep of a belief system as a whole, which I don’t believe it is.

Tu quoque. I was not aware of any such groups, and cannot imagine that even all of them together have had the same historical impact as the Christian church.

Sorry, but Tu quoque would only be going on if I denied that stupid groups of Christians exist, but since I have not denied it, no to quoque going on at all. I just pointed out that just as you accuse some Christian groups of preserving and enshrining ignorance, there are atheist groups and many groups out there that can be said to do the same thing that do have historical impacts on the modern day. Now it is your job, not mine, to show how strong these historical impacts are because last I checked, The Rational Response Squad made quite a few in modern history when it comes to some of their projects (IE the Blaspheme challenge of a few years back, that even made some headlines) and Richard Dawkins and his group also have made historical impacts on modern history too. Sorry, but I’m afraid that isn’t just a Christian or even a religious thing, but pretty much a human thing.

Not officially, no -- stop being so literal!

Why? You seem to be declaring that people were declaring him some sort of heretic, when I can find nothing to indicate anything of the sort. People disagreed with him and pointed out several lines of evidence against his theory (only one had a thing to do with scripture, the rest had to do with the total lack of observation and hard evidence to prove his theory).

you could say that Copernicus got a pass the hard way -- he died shortly after De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium was published (1546).

I wasn’t aware that being dead was grounds for not declaring people heretics since I know that the church has declared dead people heretics before. (One example was that a dead man was declared a heretic, but that didn’t stop the authorities from digging him up and burning him anyway)

It also helped that the book was too technical for a lay audience and sold poorly, or that Andreas Osiander slipped in a preface claiming that the entire work was basically a thought experiment which was not meant to represent reality -- but all that just delayed the inevitable; the church banned it in 1616, after heliocentricism began to take off.

First off, people went on to refute it and make arguments against it long before 1616. Second, it was only a banned book because of the link to Galileo. Third, no where do I recall reading any history Galileo’s trial of Copernicus being declared a heretic, do you?

besides "everyone gets a defense"? Don't read too much into it.

But Galileo had bishops and even Cardinals defending him.

Well that's what happens when the Church plays politics with science -- all three suffer.

All of this -- ALL OF THIS -- happened because the church accepted an erronenous scientific theory whichhappened to support their scriptures. Had they accepted the possibility that perhaps they were reading too much into their sacred texts (I do believe Joshua stopping the Sun was one of the major Biblical arguments for geocentricism), none of this would've happened.

First off, the church took the common position held by the majority of scientist in its era, so how is the church ‘anti science’ or how is this an example of a war of science vs religion when the church was agreeing with the majority of the scientist of the era and declaring heliocentricism as false? Second, those interpretations were accepted because at the time, the thought was that the sun and planets orbited the earth; so naturally, why not take a geocentric approach to scripture verses that appear to coincide with modern scientific understand of the era? Third, as I said before, hindsight is always 20/20 because yeah, today we think of geocentricism as being false, but step back into the early 17th century and do you see anything conclusive, with what Galileo had at the time, as being firm evidence against geocentricism?

So it was heliocentricism and NOT being an obnoxious twerp that got Galileo in trouble after all!

I see a good old avoidance going on here instead of dealing with the point. Being obnoxious and calling the pope and those that disagreed with him as being dumb is the major thing that got him into trouble, which lead to other things being brought to the table (such as heliocentricism vs geocentrism) or his attempts to interpret scripture (which in the early 17th century, was reserved for the Church and in peculiar, the Pope). Now perhaps you should try to understand this? Several factors went into this, very much of it having to do with politics and Galileo being an obnoxious jerk, didn’t help his case out much.

And why did the church defend Ptolemy so vigorously? because it supperted their interpretation of Scripture.

Never mind the fact that in the early 17th century, it was the accepted scientific theory that was accepted din the scientific world. You keep forgetting and/or ignoring the fact that the Scientist of the era condemned Galileo and his theory right along with the church. I hear atheist always say that Christians should accept modern science, so why throw a huge fit when the Church did just that, in the 17th century?

Ok, stop. Just... stop. Humor, friend... humor.

As I said before, no visual clues = not knowing what is humor and what isn’t.

If you want to divorce religion from humanity, good luck with that.

Didn’t say that, did I? No, what

Were you aware that people living in the 21st century tend to use words as they are defined in the 21st century, unless they specify otherwise?

You said something so I thought I would have a bit of fun and introduce the history of the term ‘atheist’ and how it developed into our modern view of the atheist.

Did you get the impression that THAT was my goal? How sad. All I've been saying is that Institutionalised Christianity has misinterpreted the Bible, and if they hadn't the faith would be radically different from what it currently is -- YOU'RE the one who wants to argue science vs. religion.

Have fun with your straw man.

Let me see, who brought up the Galileo affair? Was that you or me? Who seems to act as though the church was trying to condemn science and had a war with science? Was that you or me? The church has misinterpreted the Bible, duh I would agree with you that it has, the problem is though there are usually more than one interpretations and we must study those views and come to a conclusion.

You've been misunderstanding my intentions from the get-go, it seems -- my apologies for being so slow to realize where the problem was; at least now we can correct it.

Sounds fair to me.

Nor did I include a Winking Smiley -- it would appear that we have both run afoul of a certain eponymous Law.

How ironic.

That it does. Now have fun and talk soon!

[lilpixieofterror]

I wasn't aware that being dead was grounds for not declaring people heretics since I know that the church has declared dead people heretics before. (One example was that a dead man was declared a heretic, but that didn't stop the authorities from digging him up and burning him anyway)

It took a little bit of time, but I found that this man was John Wycliffe and in short, in 1415, the council of Constance declared him a heretic and in 1428, his body was dug up and burned. I should note he died in 1384, so this therefore proves that being dead didn't stop the church from declaring people heretics.

[Nathan Poe]

[QUOTE=lilpixieofterror;3316159]

Humans tend to do that quite a bit and if you don’t believe me, why do we elect people to represent us in our government and often many people do that. Again, not just a religious trait.

Never claimed otherwise -- once again, tu quoque does not make the issue go away.

Hummm I don’t recall denying that there are stupid Christians in the world and I even agreed with you that they exist, so sorry no to quoque fallacy going on at all, I just pointed out that the same can be said about ANY group of people, so what?

So, we're taling about this group of people -- that other groups have similar issues does not excuse them.

Sorry, but Tu quoque would only be going on if I denied that stupid groups of Christians exist, but since I have not denied it, no to quoque going on at all.

I'm afraid you're misunderstanding what tu quoque means:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque

You-too version
This form of the argument is as follows:
A makes criticism P.
A is also guilty of P.
Therefore, P is dismissed.
Examples:
"He cannot accuse me of libel because he was just successfully sued for libel."
Person 1: It should be illegal to make clothing out of animals.
Person 2: But, you are wearing a leather jacket.
Person 1: People shouldn't drink. It's a very damaging habit.
Person 2: But you're drunk.

The fact that you agree that stupid Christians exist is irrelevant -- as irrelevant as the existence of stupid atheists.

This discussion is about Christianity -- simply stating "Atheists do it too!" changes nothing.

Why? You seem to be declaring that people were declaring him some sort of heretic, when I can find nothing to indicate anything of the sort. People disagreed with him and pointed out several lines of evidence against his theory (only one had a thing to do with scripture, the rest had to do with the total lack of observation and hard evidence to prove his theory).

I never mentioned an official declaration of heresy -- his death made that moot. I merely wanted to point out that his being a catholic priest means nothing. Had he lived lone enough to see his works take off, his status as a man of the cloth would not have protected him in the slightest. Indeed, it possibly would've made things worse for him.

I wasn’t aware that being dead was grounds for not declaring people heretics since I know that the church has declared dead people heretics before. (One example was that a dead man was declared a heretic, but that didn’t stop the authorities from digging him up and burning him anyway)

Generally speaking, neither religious nor civil authorities are in the habit of putting corpses on trial.

(sure, there's Pope Steven's infamous cadaver synod, but that's the exception, not the rule -- agreed? ;) )

First off, people went on to refute it and make arguments against it long before 1616. Second, it was only a banned book because of the link to Galileo.

Guilt by association? I thought you said Galileo was tried for being obnoxious.

What does Copernicus have to do with that?

Third, no where do I recall reading any history Galileo’s trial of Copernicus being declared a heretic, do you?

You know, I say this not to flame, but to educate -- you tend to literalize everything to death. Your habit of fixating on the most trivial and least meaningful of non-issues is actually a suitable microcosm of what's wrong with a lot of religious thinking today.

You really should look into that, and learn to differentiate the literal from the figurative -- it'll go a long way towards helping you.

But Galileo had bishops and even Cardinals defending him.

So he did -- which might means that he had a few supporters within the church.

Or perhaps this was just standard procedeure:

"Witnesses for the defence hardly ever appeared, as they would almost infallibly be suspected of being heretics or favourable to heresy. For the same reason those impeached rarely secured legal advisers, and were therefore obliged to make personal response to the main points of a charge. This, however, was also no innovation, for in 1205 Innocent III, by the Bull "Si adversus vos" forbade any legal help for heretics: "We strictly prohibit you, lawyers and notaries, from assisting in any way, by council or support, all heretics and such as believe in them, adhere to them, render them any assistance or defend them in any way." But this severity soon relaxed, and even in Eymeric's day it seems to have been the universal custom to grant heretics a legal adviser, who, however, had to be in every way beyond suspicion, "upright, of undoubted loyalty, skilled in civil and canon law, and zealous for the faith.""

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08026a.htm (emphasis mine)

Who else but a bishop or a cardinal would fit the bill?

First off, the church took the common position held by the majority of scientist in its era, so how is the church ‘anti science’ or how is this an example of a war of science vs religion when the church was agreeing with the majority of the scientist of the era and declaring heliocentricism as false?

Did I say the church was anti science? No. I say the church was (and to a lesser extent still is) so fixated on it's own erroneous interpretations that it would not let truth from any source, be it science or anything, interfere with its own proclamations.

Whatever war of science vs. religion that occurred or is occurring is tangential. But if you'd rather argue against the things you'd like me to say as opposed to the things I actually say, this discussion is quickly going to turn equal parts fruitless or pointless.

Second, those interpretations were accepted because at the time, the thought was that the sun and planets orbited the earth; so naturally, why not take a geocentric approach to scripture verses that appear to coincide with modern scientific understand of the era?

And once that geocentric approach became wedded to the interpretation of scripture, what happens when it is challenged?

If this wasn't an issue of Biblical interpretation and/or faith, why would the church be involved at all?

Third, as I said before, hindsight is always 20/20 because yeah, today we think of geocentricism as being false, but step back into the early 17th century and do you see anything conclusive, with what Galileo had at the time, as being firm evidence against geocentricism?

So why was the church stepping up to defend geocentricism with the power of the Inquisition to back them up?

Clearly, they thought they had a stake in this -- their faith was being attacked.

I see a good old avoidance going on here instead of dealing with the point.

I see some creative reimagining of history -- but I'll let it slide.

Being obnoxious and calling the pope and those that disagreed with him as being dumb is the major thing that got him into trouble, which lead to other things being brought to the table (such as heliocentricism vs geocentrism) or his attempts to interpret scripture (which in the early 17th century, was reserved for the Church and in peculiar, the Pope). Now perhaps you should try to understand this? Several factors went into this, very much of it having to do with politics and Galileo being an obnoxious jerk, didn’t help his case out much.

But being an obnoxious jerk was not the main charge. Galileo was never called upon to apologize to the Pope; only to recant his scientific position -- the one that disagreed with the Church's "official" interpretation of Scripture.

Never mind the fact that in the early 17th century, it was the accepted scientific theory that was accepted din the scientific world. You keep forgetting and/or ignoring the fact that the Scientist of the era condemned Galileo and his theory right along with the church.

Or perhaps because of the church -- punishing the loudest rabblerouser sends a pretty clear message to the others, dontcha think?

Funny how when the Mafia whacks one witness to a crime, the others change their stories. <--- metaphor; not to be taken literally.

[QUOTE] I hear atheist always say that Christians should accept modern science, so why throw a huge fit when the Church did just that, in the 17th century?[/QOUTE]

Then take it up with the people who say that -- you're talking to me now, not them.

Address the things I say, not the things that you'd expect me to say.

As I said before, no visual clues = not knowing what is humor and what isn’t.

Egad, I'll have to simplify my writing style -- usually written humor comes across pretty obviously.

Don't feel bad -- Most people miss the humor of writers like Swift or Twain -- not that I'd presume to put myself in their category, but you get the point...

Didn’t say that, did I? No, what

I've been saying that all day.

Are we talking about religion, or the human condition -- can we discuss one without the other?

You said something so I thought I would have a bit of fun and introduce the history of the term ‘atheist’ and how it developed into our modern view of the atheist.

A piece of trivia which didn't add anything to the discussion at hand -- but you acted as if it did.

Let me see, who brought up the Galileo affair? Was that you or me? Who seems to act as though the church was trying to condemn science and had a war with science? Was that you or me?

War with science? Most definitely you.

The church has misinterpreted the Bible, duh I would agree with you that it has, the problem is though there are usually more than one interpretations and we must study those views and come to a conclusion.

Something the church, generally speaking, has no interest in doing once it comes to the "right" interpretation -- the Galileo affair is one example of this larger problem. Darwin was another -- still is to this day.

Now, it's true that both these examples are of the Church's Bible interpretation being attacked on scientific grounds, which might be why you mistakenly thought that this was about a war of "science vs.religion," which is not where I was going with this. That is only a symptom of a much bigger problem.

The church has endorsed and embraced a variety of stances on social, political, and scientific issues, such as women's rights, homosexuality, antisemitism, civil rights, war, nationalism, charity, and yes, even science education, based on how it views and interprets the Bible -- indeed, different religious sects have found themselves on both sides of each of these issues, both using the very same Bible as inspiration.

Clearly, both sides can't be right -- but what if they're both wrong?

I happen to be of the opinion that, far more often than not, this is the case -- many religious people (and anti-religious as well, to be sure), rather than base their political/social views on what the Bible means, instead base their Biblical interpretations on their pre-existing views.
I further am of the opinion that religious institutions do the same thing, and have done so for a very long time (Yes, secular institutions do it as well, but that's a topic for another time).
I believe as a consequence of this, if the Bible were to be read (on an institutional level) more in line with the original social, political, theological, and literary context of the writers in mind, the resulting belief system would be far different than what we see today.
I think the end result would be that many devout believers, who have unfortunately wedded their theism with their institution, would suffer a crisis of faith if this were to happen. I think the various institutions know this.
Because of that, I think the chances of this happening on any kind of large, mainstream scale are more or less a snowball's chance in hell.

And I find that to be a very sad state of affairs all around.

Can I objectively prove any of my beliefs to your satisfaction? Probably not. Is that reason to abandon my opinons? Most certainly not.

Sounds fair to me.



That it does. Now have fun and talk soon!

You too. Might I say, while tension has occasionally run high, you're far more cordial than some of the other people I've met so far in my short time on these boards.

[Nathan Poe]

It took a little bit of time, but I found that this man was John Wycliffe and in short, in 1415, the council of Constance declared him a heretic and in 1428, his body was dug up and burned. I should note he died in 1384, so this therefore proves that being dead didn't stop the church from declaring people heretics.

Yes, but generally speaking, they didn't do that -- there's always an exception or two

[lilpixieofterror]

Never claimed otherwise -- once again, tu quoque does not make the issue go away.

It's too bad that I didn't say it did, did I? I simply pointed out it was a human trait, huh? Perhaps you should try to learn your fallacies a little bit better?

So, we're taling about this group of people -- that other groups have similar issues does not excuse them.

Did I say that? Nope, but I produced arguments and reasons to defend my view and then pointed out that people all over the world, from all belief systems, have done similar things so it’s not so much a religious trait, but a human one. If I was saying, “Oh yeah, this group does it too!” and that was the end of story, you would be right, but since I didn’t do that, you have no argument.

I'm afraid you're misunderstanding what tu quoque means:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque

You-too version
This form of the argument is as follows:
A makes criticism P.
A is also guilty of P.
Therefore, P is dismissed.
Examples:
"He cannot accuse me of libel because he was just successfully sued for libel."
Person 1: It should be illegal to make clothing out of animals.
Person 2: But, you are wearing a leather jacket.
Person 1: People shouldn't drink. It's a very damaging habit.
Person 2: But you're drunk.

The fact that you agree that stupid Christians exist is irrelevant -- as irrelevant as the existence of stupid atheists.

This discussion is about Christianity -- simply stating "Atheists do it too!" changes nothing.

You really shouldn’t use wiki as a source of information when it comes to logical fallacies and instead try fallacyfiles.org, since it is far better and gives way better examples than wiki does. Anyway, pointing out people who say one thing and do another, is a pretty classic and perfectly valid move that is used quite often in debates. For example, Al Gore goes on and on about the environment and how we need to protect it, but his private residence uses more energy than almost every other private residence in the nation. One does have to ask themselves if Al Gore cared so much about protecting the environment, why does he use so much energy on things such as lighting up the outside of his house (which has no real value). So the question becomes, does Al Gore follow the principles he things others should? Want another example? During the Bush/Clinton debate in 1991, when it comes to new taxes, Clinton told the audience not to read ‘his lips’ (which was in reference to a comment Bush made earlier and how taxes were later raised). So again, one must ask, what George Bush following his principles and was it fair for Clinton to point that out? So the same goes for other groups and unless you can show why stupidity being more of a human trait and not a religious one is irrelevant to the question at hand, you really don’t have anything to call the Tu Quoque fallacy on.

I never mentioned an official declaration of heresy -- his death made that moot. I merely wanted to point out that his being a catholic priest means nothing. Had he lived lone enough to see his works take off, his status as a man of the cloth would not have protected him in the slightest. Indeed, it possibly would've made things worse for him.

I have seen nothing from the church that ever declared Copernicus as a heretic, have you? No, in fact few arguments against Copernicus’ book De Revolutions Orbium Coelestium had a thing to do with scripture, most talked about the lack of evidence to support it and simply used scripture as a secondary source. Don’t believe me, even Wiki will tell you that much. Sorry, but unless you can present hard evidence that Copernicus was ever declared a heretic, I have no reason to believe this claim of yours on any other grounds than just assertion.

Generally speaking, neither religious nor civil authorities are in the habit of putting corpses on trial.

(sure, there's Pope Steven's infamous cadaver synod, but that's the exception, not the rule -- agreed? ;) )

That was just a story, but just because a person is dead, doesn’t mean their beliefs cannot become hearsay or declared hearsay, do you believe otherwise?

Guilt by association? I thought you said Galileo was tried for being obnoxious.

What does Copernicus have to do with that?

The fact that the church allowed Copernicus’ book to be read and published for nearly 50 years before it was banned because it was used as a source for Galileo says something. Anyway, again, Galileo being obnoxious was the ‘straw that broke the camels’ back (so to speak). If Galileo would have been more political, he wouldn’t have found himself in so much trouble or do you believe calling the person that asked you to write a book and held quite a bit of power as being stupid, as a way to endear him to your cause?

You know, I say this not to flame, but to educate -- you tend to literalize everything to death. Your habit of fixating on the most trivial and least meaningful of non-issues is actually a suitable microcosm of what's wrong with a lot of religious thinking today.

You really should look into that, and learn to differentiate the literal from the figurative -- it'll go a long way towards helping you.

Or you need to learn how to separate where you are being literal to where you are being figurative, but of course, the problem is with everybody else, but you, right?

So he did -- which might means that he had a few supporters within the church.

And he did.

Or perhaps this was just standard procedeure:

"Witnesses for the defence hardly ever appeared, as they would almost infallibly be suspected of being heretics or favourable to heresy. For the same reason those impeached rarely secured legal advisers, and were therefore obliged to make personal response to the main points of a charge. This, however, was also no innovation, for in 1205 Innocent III, by the Bull "Si adversus vos" forbade any legal help for heretics: "We strictly prohibit you, lawyers and notaries, from assisting in any way, by council or support, all heretics and such as believe in them, adhere to them, render them any assistance or defend them in any way." But this severity soon relaxed, and even in Eymeric's day it seems to have been the universal custom to grant heretics a legal adviser, who, however, had to be in every way beyond suspicion, "upright, of undoubted loyalty, skilled in civil and canon law, and zealous for the faith.""

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08026a.htm (emphasis mine)

How does having a legal adviser therefore imply that people had to be present at Galileo’s trial to support him and to defend him against the changes present? Only his legal adviser would be required to do that, but it doesn’t mean others have to.

Who else but a bishop or a cardinal would fit the bill?

And several supported him, unless you can present evidence that they were required to. Do you have any evidence that says otherwise? Yes or no?

Did I say the church was anti science? No. I say the church was (and to a lesser extent still is) so fixated on it's own erroneous interpretations that it would not let truth from any source, be it science or anything, interfere with its own proclamations.

That is quite incorrect because the church didn’t just say, “This is the interpretation, end of story!” but they got the view of geocentrism not from theologians, but from the scientist of their day and then, based upon the science of their day, interpreted scripture as such. If anything, I’m sorry but your assertion is incorrect, the church based it’s interpretations upon the proclamations of the scientist of its day and again, even Wiki will tell you this much if you would bother to read it.

Whatever war of science vs. religion that occurred or is occurring is tangential. But if you'd rather argue against the things you'd like me to say as opposed to the things I actually say, this discussion is quickly going to turn equal parts fruitless or pointless.

So why did you bring up this example or do you still fail to see that hindsight is 20/20? Simply put, you are wrong and dead wrong at that, the scientist of Galileo’s day declared Galileo’s theories as false and the church joined suit behind them and even were used in many of the refutations of Galileo’s theories! Did you actually bother to read (beyond Wiki that is) about how the trial went? Give you a hint, not all the Cardinals presiding over the trial signed the sentence order.

And once that geocentric approach became wedded to the interpretation of scripture, what happens when it is challenged?

If this wasn't an issue of Biblical interpretation and/or faith, why would the church be involved at all?

I said it was an issue of interpretation and even said that the thing that brought Galileo to trial was interpreting scripture. However; as I said before and say again, the church based it’s interpretations upon the scientist of their day accepting and teaching the geocentric model. Do you believe that the church should accept the science of its day or not?

So why was the church stepping up to defend geocentricism with the power of the Inquisition to back them up?

Clearly, they thought they had a stake in this -- their faith was being attacked.

Pulling things out of thin air isn’t going to help you here at all. Of course, the church was under attack in the early 17th century due to the various issues it had all over Europe(Luther in Germany, the Church of England split, all the wars that ravaged Europe, etc) the church was being attacked and was in danger, from several angles, so I can see that creating a culture of fear. That being said though, again, the church based its interpretations upon the science of its day or do you believe that the church shouldn’t have done that and should have based it upon something else?

I see some creative reimagining of history -- but I'll let it slide.

You are welcome to prove it, but thus far I really do not see where you have done any of that.

But being an obnoxious jerk was not the main charge. Galileo was never called upon to apologize to the Pope; only to recant his scientific position -- the one that disagreed with the Church's "official" interpretation of Scripture.

And that somehow means that he wasn’t being an obnoxious jerk? Just as you said, even in that time, being a jerk wasn’t illegal, but it sure is not a way or endear yourself with those in power, do you think so?

Or perhaps because of the church -- punishing the loudest rabblerouser sends a pretty clear message to the others, dontcha think?

That what, you’ll be arrested and sent to your house? Oh, I’m sure everybody was shaking as a result.

Funny how when the Mafia whacks one witness to a crime, the others change their stories. <--- metaphor; not to be taken literally.

And the Mafia shoots and kills people to get its way, the Inquisition put Galileo on trial and sentenced this one to house arrest. Apples to oranges here, my friend and yes I understand you got a metaphor, but it’s night and day.

Then take it up with the people who say that -- you're talking to me now, not them.

Address the things I say, not the things that you'd expect me to say.

And yet, here you are, condemning the church for holding to a rigid position about geocentrism when it was also held and supported by the scientist of its day. You claim you are not making an argument about science vs religion, but yet, you seem to be condemning the church for holding to something supported by science. So should the church follow scientific understanding or not?

Egad, I'll have to simplify my writing style -- usually written humor comes across pretty obviously.

Don't feel bad -- Most people miss the humor of writers like Swift or Twain -- not that I'd presume to put myself in their category, but you get the point...

I’m actually a reader of Swift or Twain, you’re just not as good at writing it as you think you are or you are way too subtle.

I've been saying that all day.

Are we talking about religion, or the human condition -- can we discuss one without the other?

No, but pretending as though religion somehow brings out ignorance is where my major issues sits at, in many cases, just as other fields are used to support ignorance religion is often simply one of the many things people will hide behind to support their ignorance.

A piece of trivia which didn't add anything to the discussion at hand -- but you acted as if it did.

Sure it does, it shows me you are not a student of history and you really are not better informed on matters of other parts of history, I’m afraid. It’s ok, many people find history to be very boring.

War with science? Most definitely you.

You’re the one that mentioned Galileo for your argument that religion has some sort of issue with education, not I. So why did you bring up Galileo and his trial?

Something the church, generally speaking, has no interest in doing once it comes to the "right" interpretation -- the Galileo affair is one example of this larger problem. Darwin was another -- still is to this day.

The church simply accepted what the scientist of its day said and joined them in condemning the heliocentric model. Don’t you agree that the church should follow and understand scientific ideas and understanding? You and I have an advantage over those living in the late 16th and early 17th century, we have more than enough evidence and understanding to prove that the geocentric model is wrong, they didn’t science at the time, physics and even science wasn’t nearly as well developed and it wouldn’t be until Newton, (over 60 years later) that you really begin to see physics take off.

Now, it's true that both these examples are of the Church's Bible interpretation being attacked on scientific grounds, which might be why you mistakenly thought that this was about a war of "science vs.religion," which is not where I was going with this. That is only a symptom of a much bigger problem.

That what? The church used the science of its day and what it had as the best evidence of the time and accepted the most acceptable scientific theory of how the universe worked, at the time? Should the church have rejected the science of its day and merely got off on speculative theories that had little to no evidence to bring about their acceptance? Would that of made you happy?

The church has endorsed and embraced a variety of stances on social, political, and scientific issues, such as women's rights, homosexuality, antisemitism, civil rights, war, nationalism, charity, and yes, even science education, based on how it views and interprets the Bible -- indeed, different religious sects have found themselves on both sides of each of these issues, both using the very same Bible as inspiration.

That’s nice and just like many atheist, you totally ignore all the social factors involved in the process as well as the history behind it. The church, just like any other group, is also influenced by the social aspect and unless you can prove that the church wasn’t basing some of its theology on the social climate it was in (which as the Galileo affair shows, it was, at least in that peculiar case). Besides, I would really suggest that you pick up some history and stop letting ignorance guide you because in the time Christianity formed, you had no civil rights, women were second class citizens, charity was almost nonexistent, and thousands of baby girls were left in the wild to die. The church changed many of these things and created the society we have today. Finally, if you want to make this into an issue of disagreements somehow proves something; you got several issues, first were you the one that just got done attacking me for using the same fallacy you are now attempting to use? Also, where in the Bible does it state that Christians must walk in lock step? All together, your ‘argument’ isn’t as powerful as you think it is and it seems as though you would have preferred that the church just ignored the science of its day and instead choose to follow a theory that didn’t have support behind it. Yet, it’s the church that is anti-intellectual? Hummm… interesting…

Clearly, both sides can't be right -- but what if they're both wrong?

It’s possible, one side is wrong and the other is right or both are wrong.

I happen to be of the opinion that, far more often than not, this is the case -- many religious people (and anti-religious as well, to be sure), rather than base their political/social views on what the Bible means, instead base their Biblical interpretations on their pre-existing views.

I’d agree and I see this daily, in many sermons and in many book stores. That is why one should be very careful in their interpretations and try their best not to do this.

I further am of the opinion that religious institutions do the same thing, and have done so for a very long time (Yes, secular institutions do it as well, but that's a topic for another time).
I believe as a consequence of this, if the Bible were to be read (on an institutional level) more in line with the original social, political, theological, and literary context of the writers in mind, the resulting belief system would be far different than what we see today.

Yes and no, in the sense that Jesus was always seen as the Christ, the living God, you’d find that this hasn’t changed a bit. Now when it comes to other silly things you find in authors such as Joel Osteen that preach the prosperity gospel, you are quite currect.

I think the end result would be that many devout believers, who have unfortunately wedded their theism with their institution, would suffer a crisis of faith if this were to happen. I think the various institutions know this.
Because of that, I think the chances of this happening on any kind of large, mainstream scale are more or less a snowball's chance in hell.

And I find that to be a very sad state of affairs all around.

And I find you are correct and thus the reason I reject many of the ‘popular’ preachers you find today.

Can I objectively prove any of my beliefs to your satisfaction? Probably not. Is that reason to abandon my opinons? Most certainly not.

You’ll find I agree with these views, but I take a different view than you do in the sense I haven’t found it as a good reason to leave Christianity behind, but instead believe that the faith (as it is stated, in the scriptures, not some of wishy washie stuff you find in many church’s today) can be defended.

You too. Might I say, while tension has occasionally run high, you're far more cordial than some of the other people I've met so far in my short time on these boards.

I have very little patience’s for stupidity (from either atheist or Christian), but I haven’t seen anything to convince me you are being dumb.

Yes, but generally speaking, they didn't do that -- there's always an exception or two

Plenty of dead people are declared heretics today, being dead isn’t grounds for not calling somebody a heretic.

[Nathan Poe]

It's too bad that I didn't say it did, did I?

No, you didn't say anything -- I did. Are you having trouble keeping track of who said what?



Did I say that? Nope, but I produced arguments and reasons to defend my view and then pointed out that people all over the world, from all belief systems, have done similar things so it’s not so much a religious trait, but a human one.[/QUOTE]

Does that make it right? No? Then you have no argument, then.



You really shouldn’t use wiki as a source of information when it comes to logical fallacies and instead try fallacyfiles.org, since it is far better and gives way better examples than wiki does. Anyway, pointing out people who say one thing and do another, is a pretty classic and perfectly valid move that is used quite often in debates.[/QUOTE]

So you say -- but it doesn't change the fact that whether or not another party engages in a wrong behavior does not unde any circumstances make it any less wrong.

For example, Al Gore goes on and on about the environment and how we need to protect it, but his private residence uses more energy than almost every other private residence in the nation. One does have to ask themselves if Al Gore cared so much about protecting the environment, why does he use so much energy on things such as lighting up the outside of his house (which has no real value). So the question becomes, does Al Gore follow the principles he things others should?

Does that make what he says about the environment false? No? You have no argument, then.

Want another example? During the Bush/Clinton debate in 1991, when it comes to new taxes, Clinton told the audience not to read ‘his lips’ (which was in reference to a comment Bush made earlier and how taxes were later raised). So again, one must ask, what George Bush following his principles and was it fair for Clinton to point that out?

Actually, the better question is "who cares?"

Just so you know, you're off topic.

So the same goes for other groups and unless you can show why stupidity being more of a human trait and not a religious one is irrelevant to the question at hand, you really don’t have anything to call the Tu Quoque fallacy on.

As long as religious groups are human, they're accountable for their actions.

I don't blame them exclusively for this -- they are, after all, only human.

I have seen nothing from the church that ever declared Copernicus as a heretic, have you?

You're really hung up on the wrong things -- have you never read anything figurative before in your life? I'm really starting to get that impression...

[UOTE]No, in fact few arguments against Copernicus’ book De Revolutions Orbium Coelestium had a thing to do with scripture, most talked about the lack of evidence to support it and simply used scripture as a secondary source. Don’t believe me, even Wiki will tell you that much. Sorry, but unless you can present hard evidence that Copernicus was ever declared a heretic, I have no reason to believe this claim of yours on any other grounds than just assertion.[/QUOTE]

DID I EVER CLAIM THAT THE CHURCH OFFICIALLY DECLARED COPERNICUS A HERETIC?

Your inability to see the forest for the trees is a serious handicap.

That was just a story, but just because a person is dead, doesn’t mean their beliefs cannot become hearsay or declared hearsay, do you believe otherwise?

Slightly off topic, but the Cadaver Synod really happened. And Copernicus' work was banned -- this is an unpleasant reality that you can't deflect.

The fact that the church allowed Copernicus’ book to be read and published for nearly 50 years before it was banned because it was used as a source for Galileo says something.

And what does it say? Straight answer, if you please...

Anyway, again, Galileo being obnoxious was the ‘straw that broke the camels’ back (so to speak). If Galileo would have been more political, he wouldn’t have found himself in so much trouble or do you believe calling the person that asked you to write a book and held quite a bit of power as being stupid, as a way to endear him to your cause?

Do you have anything to back this up, or are you just speculating?

Or you need to learn how to separate where you are being literal to where you are being figurative, but of course, the problem is with everybody else, but you, right?

Actually most people don't have this problem at all -- it just seems to be you.

How does having a legal adviser therefore imply that people had to be present at Galileo’s trial to support him and to defend him against the changes present? Only his legal adviser would be required to do that, but it doesn’t mean others have to.

What exactly are you arguing for/against here? I'm sorry, but I find this statement of yours to be utterly incoherent.

And several supported him, unless you can present evidence that they were required to. Do you have any evidence that says otherwise? Yes or no?

Does having a few supporters change anything? Does it mean anything? Is there something in here at least vaguely resembling a point?

That is quite incorrect because the church didn’t just say, “This is the interpretation, end of story!” but they got the view of geocentrism not from theologians, but from the scientist of their day and then, based upon the science of their day, interpreted scripture as such. If anything, I’m sorry but your assertion is incorrect, the church based it’s interpretations upon the proclamations of the scientist of its day and again, even Wiki will tell you this much if you would bother to read it.

Ptolemy was quite a bit before their day, as it were. Who else was there?

So why did you bring up this example or do you still fail to see that hindsight is 20/20? Simply put, you are wrong and dead wrong at that, the scientist of Galileo’s day declared Galileo’s theories as false and the church joined suit behind them and even were used in many of the refutations of Galileo’s theories! Did you actually bother to read (beyond Wiki that is) about how the trial went? Give you a hint, not all the Cardinals presiding over the trial signed the sentence order.

SO WHY WAS THE CHURCH INVOLVED IN THIS AT ALL? WHAT BUSINESS WAS IT OF THEIRS?

I said it was an issue of interpretation and even said that the thing that brought Galileo to trial was interpreting scripture. However; as I said before and say again, the church based it’s interpretations upon the scientist of their day accepting and teaching the geocentric model. Do you believe that the church should accept the science of its day or not?

Accept it, yes, dictate it, no. Did the church follow the scientists, or were the scientists following the church?

Pulling things out of thin air isn’t going to help you here at all.

It's been doing you a world of good -- more or less.

Of course, the church was under attack in the early 17th century due to the various issues it had all over Europe(Luther in Germany, the Church of England split, all the wars that ravaged Europe, etc) the church was being attacked and was in danger, from several angles, so I can see that creating a culture of fear. That being said though, again, the church based its interpretations upon the science of its day or do you believe that the church shouldn’t have done that and should have based it upon something else?

Why do you insist on turning this into a science vs. religion debate? The church wasn't fixated on science; why are you?

And that somehow means that he wasn’t being an obnoxious jerk? Just as you said, even in that time, being a jerk wasn’t illegal, but it sure is not a way or endear yourself with those in power, do you think so?

So he WAS placed under house arrest for being a jerk -- how long is this going to last, I wonder...

That what, you’ll be arrested and sent to your house? Oh, I’m sure everybody was shaking as a result.

I never claimed that Galileo didn't get off lightly -- suspects always get a lighter sentence when they confess -- or in Galileo's case, publicly recant.

And the Mafia shoots and kills people to get its way, the Inquisition put Galileo on trial and sentenced this one to house arrest. Apples to oranges here, my friend and yes I understand you got a metaphor, but it’s night and day.

Point is, Galileo could've gotten a lot worse. You know it, I know it, he knew it, everyone knew it.

Sorry friend, you missed the metaphor by a mile. Don't you understand "intimidation"?

And yet, here you are, condemning the church for holding to a rigid position about geocentrism when it was also held and supported by the scientist of its day. You claim you are not making an argument about science vs religion, but yet, you seem to be condemning the church for holding to something supported by science. So should the church follow scientific understanding or not?

Was the church supporting it, or establishing it?

I’m actually a reader of Swift or Twain, you’re just not as good at writing it as you think you are or you are way too subtle.

I shall make my humor far more obvious and bombastic so that you don't miss it in the future.

No, but pretending as though religion somehow brings out ignorance is where my major issues sits at, in many cases, just as other fields are used to support ignorance religion is often simply one of the many things people will hide behind to support their ignorance.

Agreed -- and do we both agree that "lots of other people do it too!" doesn't make it right?

Sure it does, it shows me you are not a student of history and you really are not better informed on matters of other parts of history, I’m afraid. It’s ok, many people find history to be very boring.

It shows me that you thought you could impress me with misdirection. A pity you didn't.

You’re the one that mentioned Galileo for your argument that religion has some sort of issue with education, not I. So why did you bring up Galileo and his trial?

As an example of the larger issue -- the one you're deflecting away from.

The church simply accepted what the scientist of its day said and joined them in condemning the heliocentric model.

The CHURCH joined the scientists? Who was the authority of the day? Who had more sociopolitical weight to throw around?

Who joined whom?

Don’t you agree that the church should follow and understand scientific ideas and understanding? You and I have an advantage over those living in the late 16th and early 17th century, we have more than enough evidence and understanding to prove that the geocentric model is wrong, they didn’t science at the time, physics and even science wasn’t nearly as well developed and it wouldn’t be until Newton, (over 60 years later) that you really begin to see physics take off.

And it's interesting to note that among his other hobbies, Newton was very interested in church history and Bible exegesis -- in fact, he wrote more on those topics than he did on physics! He considered science and faith to be interrelated; both, if done right, would invariably lead to the same conclusions.

That what? The church used the science of its day and what it had as the best evidence of the time and accepted the most acceptable scientific theory of how the universe worked, at the time? Should the church have rejected the science of its day and merely got off on speculative theories that had little to no evidence to bring about their acceptance? Would that of made you happy?

You keep saying that the church used the science of its day, but I'm left to wonder if perhaps the church was the REASON that was the science of its day.

They must have had a stake in it, else why get involved in the first place?

That’s nice and just like many atheist, you totally ignore all the social factors involved in the process as well as the history behind it. The church, just like any other group, is also influenced by the social aspect and unless you can prove that the church wasn’t basing some of its theology on the social climate it was in (which as the Galileo affair shows, it was, at least in that peculiar case).

Ah, but that works both ways -- the church was influenced in some ways, and in others, wielded no small amount of influence itself.

What we've got here is a "chicken or egg" scenario. <--- I trust the metaphor needs no explanation?

Besides, I would really suggest that you pick up some history and stop letting ignorance guide you because in the time Christianity formed, you had no civil rights, women were second class citizens, charity was almost nonexistent, and thousands of baby girls were left in the wild to die. The church changed many of these things and created the society we have today.

Now THAT's funny. Why don't you give me the cliffs notes version and point me in the right direction on a couple of these issues? Perhaps a link or two to show how the church promoted such social enlightenment?

Because I've got to tell you, if what you're saying is true, I'm looking at the social issues of today and asking the church, "what happened?"

Finally, if you want to make this into an issue of disagreements somehow proves something;

I don't; kindly refrain from deflecting.

It’s possible, one side is wrong and the other is right or both are wrong.

Yeah, that's pretty much where I was going with that.

I’d agree and I see this daily, in many sermons and in many book stores. That is why one should be very careful in their interpretations and try their best not to do this.

I wish I thought it was possible -- but belongingness is one of Maslow's needs; some people will do a lot to make their ideas more acceptable -- anything short of changing them.

I think Dr. Who said it best: "You know, the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. Instead of altering their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views...which can be very uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering.”

Yes and no, in the sense that Jesus was always seen as the Christ, the living God, you’d find that this hasn’t changed a bit.

Unfortunately, that's one of the only things that hasn't changed.

Now when it comes to other silly things you find in authors such as Joel Osteen that preach the prosperity gospel, you are quite currect.

Unfortunately, you'll find such silly things to be more popular than you or I would feel comfortable with.

Osteen is hardly the only -- or even the biggest -- name to preach the Prosperity Gospel, and that's a minor issue. A heathen such as myself finds dominionism to be of more concern.

And I find you are correct and thus the reason I reject many of the ‘popular’ preachers you find today.

It's not the preachers I worry about -- it's the politicians. They've got even less incentive to get religion right than the preachers.

You’ll find I agree with these views, but I take a different view than you do in the sense I haven’t found it as a good reason to leave Christianity behind, but instead believe that the faith (as it is stated, in the scriptures, not some of wishy washie stuff you find in many church’s today) can be defended.

And what exactly is being defended?

As an institution, I want no part of what Christianity has become -- and the feeling has been pretty much mutual so far.

The day may very well come when the institution becomes something I can accept -- alas, change comes slowly, if at all.

I have very little patience’s for stupidity (from either atheist or Christian), but I haven’t seen anything to convince me you are being dumb.

I don't suffer fools all that well myself; you don't seem to be one.

[lilpixieofterror]

No, you didn't say anything -- I did. Are you having trouble keeping track of who said what?

Oh, I know just what is going on, but I would like to know why you seem intent on trying to make me say things I didn’t say.

Does that make it right? No? Then you have no argument, then.

Did I say it made it right? No I didn’t, but I just used it as a point. Casting out an entire belief system because people use it to further their own devices doesn’t make the belief system as a whole false.

So you say -- but it doesn't change the fact that whether or not another party engages in a wrong behavior does not unde any circumstances make it any less wrong.

Did I say otherwise? No I didn’t, but again you are missing my point, which is why do you attacking religion for something that is commonly human behavior based? Could it be possible that a belief system is right,

[quote]Does that make what he says about the environment false? No? You have no argument, then.

It doesn’t bring his motives into question, when he says that the environment is in danger and needs protection, but takes no steps of his own to protect the environment and save energy. He also makes quite a bit of money on marketing environmentism and his brand of it. So taking these facts into mind, it is quite curious why Al Gore doesn’t follow the environmental philosophy he claims others should follow. That being said that, does it make it false? Not necessarily, but here comes my next point; how does pointing out bad things that Christians did, work as proof that Christianity is wrong?

Actually, the better question is "who cares?"

Just so you know, you're off topic.

Not really, but I am making a point, which is you really don’t have an argument if all you can spout off is that, “Some Christians did bad things!” so what? How does that prove that Christianity as a whole is false or how does that work with proving Christianity as wrong? It really doesn’t, so it is kind of funny to watch you attack me for doing the very same thing that you appear to be doing. So what is it, is pointing out examples of people doing bring an entire system into question or not?

As long as religious groups are human, they're accountable for their actions.

I don't blame them exclusively for this -- they are, after all, only human.

You are correct, but here is the question; why are bad things that religious people do evidence of something being wrong with religion, but it doesn’t count anywhere else?



You're really hung up on the wrong things -- have you never read anything figurative before in your life? I'm really starting to get that impression...

I do a lot of reading of figurative language dear (the Bible containing much in terms of figurative language) and you are not as good at this as you think you are.

DID I EVER CLAIM THAT THE CHURCH OFFICIALLY DECLARED COPERNICUS A HERETIC?

Your inability to see the forest for the trees is a serious handicap.

Your inability to see that you are not as good at this ‘figurative’ thing as you think you are is a serious handicap.

Slightly off topic, but the Cadaver Synod really happened. And Copernicus' work was banned -- this is an unpleasant reality that you can't deflect.

And your point is what? That people, who happen to be religious, do dumb things? I’m sorry, but as I exposed above with the Gore thing, Al Gore not following his own philosophy about saving the environment doesn’t necessarily mean that the environment doesn’t need saved, but it does speak a lot about Al Gore personally though.

And what does it say? Straight answer, if you please...

That the reasoning that the book was banned had nothing to do with the book itself, but who it became associated with.

Do you have anything to back this up, or are you just speculating?

You mean besides the fact that the Pope himself asked Galileo to write a book talking about the merits and demerits of the geocentric and heliocentric system? If the church was actively trying to stamp this idea out, why did they wait so long to do it? Could it be because it has not a thing to do with heliocentricism itself, but with Galileo specifically?

Actually most people don't have this problem at all -- it just seems to be you.

Funny thing is, I can read other figurative authors just fine, without issue. So again, what does that say?

What exactly are you arguing for/against here? I'm sorry, but I find this statement of yours to be utterly incoherent.

How is it ‘utterly incoherent’? It’s pretty straight forward, how does the paragraph you quoted therefore mean that other people, which were not directly associated with Galileo’s legal adviser, required to support Galileo at his trial? It simply doesn’t follow and it is up to you to show otherwise.

Does having a few supporters change anything? Does it mean anything? Is there something in here at least vaguely resembling a point?

That people were not as united against him as you seem to want to apply them as being?

Ptolemy was quite a bit before their day, as it were. Who else was there?

Ptolemy was one of the major factors that tried to refine Aristotlelian natural philosophy and pretty much sent up the geocentric system that people of the 17th century believed in and used and thus was an authority upon which the geocentric system was built upon when it came to Astronomy. Again, the church of the early 17th century was basing its interpretations upon what was then, scientific conscious of the era.

[quote]SO WHY WAS THE CHURCH INVOLVED IN THIS AT ALL? WHAT BUSINESS WAS IT OF THEIRS?

Because the church of the early 17th century was a major leading legal figure that often took care of and discussed matters that were seen as important? Remember, in that era and time, the church was quite a major force in matters of law and academics.

Accept it, yes, dictate it, no. Did the church follow the scientists, or were the scientists following the church?

The scientists of the era were following the general scientific authority of the day. Who do you think that was? Give you a hint, it wasn’t the church.

It's been doing you a world of good -- more or less.

It’s too bad I haven’t been doing that, but have actually spent the time to learn the history of the era and learn things about history before I try to pretend to be an expert on it. If you think I am wrong though, you are welcome to prove otherwise.

Why do you insist on turning this into a science vs. religion debate? The church wasn't fixated on science; why are you?

And why do you bring up things about Galileo as though it proves something?

So he WAS placed under house arrest for being a jerk -- how long is this going to last, I wonder...

Again, do you think insulting your supporters is a good way to endear them to your cause? It’s a very simple question, why do you refuse to answer it?

I never claimed that Galileo didn't get off lightly -- suspects always get a lighter sentence when they confess -- or in Galileo's case, publicly recant.

In which, was a deal he made and being confided to his villa wasn’t that huge of a deal, since he did that anyway.

Point is, Galileo could've gotten a lot worse. You know it, I know it, he knew it, everyone knew it.

Could have’s and what if’s are not reality. If we want to speculate on things, go ahead and do so, but I prefer to deal with the facts and the facts are that the church wasn’t very swift on giving Galileo any sort of terrible judgment, was it?

Sorry friend, you missed the metaphor by a mile. Don't you understand "intimidation"?

Do you understand ‘bad metaphor’ since it didn’t seem to work too well in the case of the break off of the church of England nor did it work too well with Martin Luther, did it?

Was the church supporting it, or establishing it?

The position that geocentrism was true was held long before the Church ever existed or do you believe that Christianity existed in the 4th century BC, when Aristotle was teaching it and the other Greek Philosophers were writing about it? Much of physics of the early 17th century was based upon Aristotle’s work and again, you would know this if you were to bother to read upon the history of science and understand these things.

I shall make my humor far more obvious and bombastic so that you don't miss it in the future.

Works for me.

Agreed -- and do we both agree that "lots of other people do it too!" doesn't make it right?

Never said it did, did I? I did that to make a point, which was don’t throw out the baby with the bath water.

It shows me that you thought you could impress me with misdirection. A pity you didn't.

It would only be misdirection if what I said wasn’t true. Was it true? Yes or no?

As an example of the larger issue -- the one you're deflecting away from.

And the large issue is what? People do dumb things? So what? What does that prove about rather or not Christianity is true?

The CHURCH joined the scientists? Who was the authority of the day? Who had more sociopolitical weight to throw around?
Who joined whom?

Do you believe the church influenced Aristotle back in the 4th century BC? I’m sorry, but the church simply based it’s interpretations upon what was thought to be the correct system. Of course, it was wrong, but hindsight is always 20/20. In the early 17th century, did the church or anybody have a good reason to reject geocentrism for heliocentrism? Yes or no?

And it's interesting to note that among his other hobbies, Newton was very interested in church history and Bible exegesis -- in fact, he wrote more on those topics than he did on physics! He considered science and faith to be interrelated; both, if done right, would invariably lead to the same conclusions.

I know that and I also know that Newton also was an alchemist and quite an unorthodox Christian at that. So what?

You keep saying that the church used the science of its day, but I'm left to wonder if perhaps the church was the REASON that was the science of its day.

They must have had a stake in it, else why get involved in the first place?

No, unless the church was influencing Aristotle in the 4th century BC, when he was writing about his natural philosophy (the precursor to modern day science) and Ptolemy in the early 2nd century AD (when the church wasn’t nearly as powerful as it became centuries later). I’m sorry, but the geocentric model was the accepted scientific model long before Christianity ever came along and was finally rejected because the evidence against it amounted to a point where it could no long be accepted.

Ah, but that works both ways -- the church was influenced in some ways, and in others, wielded no small amount of influence itself.

What we've got here is a "chicken or egg" scenario. <--- I trust the metaphor needs no explanation?

You are correct that it has been, but what does that really prove? That the church simply took what was accepted science and used it to support its peculiar interpretations of the Bible? Remember, only one argument against heliocentrism had a thing to do with the Bible, the rest were based upon what was considered proper science and authorities of the era.

Now THAT's funny. Why don't you give me the cliffs notes version and point me in the right direction on a couple of these issues? Perhaps a link or two to show how the church promoted such social enlightenment?

So you’re totally unaware of the legality of leaving babies, in the roman world (mostly girls) to the wild to die of exposure or killed by wild animals? You are also unaware of the Roman view of women and what regard they were held in, during that time? You are also unaware of the civil rights issues of the Roman world compared with modern developments of it? Well, if you want some good sources on this one, I found David Bentley Hart to be pretty good at talking about these ones. JPH and Glenn Miller also have some good articles on some of these things too, if you want to go look them up.

Because I've got to tell you, if what you're saying is true, I'm looking at the social issues of today and asking the church, "what happened?"

So you don’t know how the average Roman was treated compared to how the modern western is? Let me ask you this, do you think the Roman Emperors would have allowed the Occupy Wall Street protest to take place?

I don't; kindly refrain from deflecting.

You first have to show there is any deflecting going on, which there isn’t.

Yeah, that's pretty much where I was going with that.

So what side do we accept?

I wish I thought it was possible -- but belongingness is one of Maslow's needs; some people will do a lot to make their ideas more acceptable -- anything short of changing them.

And others will change, when presented with new evidence. Not all Christians are closed minded people.

I think Dr. Who said it best: "You know, the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. Instead of altering their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views...which can be very uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering.

I can agree with that one.

Unfortunately, that's one of the only things that hasn't changed.

I don’t think so, since we can trace a number of modern day theologies right back to the early days of the church.

Unfortunately, you'll find such silly things to be more popular than you or I would feel comfortable with.

I’d agree, but such is life.

Osteen is hardly the only -- or even the biggest -- name to preach the Prosperity Gospel, and that's a minor issue. A heathen such as myself finds dominionism to be of more concern.

And why would that be?

It's not the preachers I worry about -- it's the politicians. They've got even less incentive to get religion right than the preachers.

Perhaps, but you never know.

And what exactly is being defended?

As an institution, I want no part of what Christianity has become -- and the feeling has been pretty much mutual so far.

Just because some Christians do silly things, doesn’t mean you throw out the baby with the bath water. Instead you change out the water and keep the baby.

The day may very well come when the institution becomes something I can accept -- alas, change comes slowly, if at all.

I tend to believe that you can change it from within and while some elements of it are rather weird of corrupt, the same can be said for almost anything else, but that, in of itself isn’t a reason to throw everything out the window and start over.

I don't suffer fools all that well myself; you don't seem to be one.

Well thanks, I guess…

[Nathan Poe]

Oh, I know just what is going on, but I would like to know why you seem intent on trying to make me say things I didn’t say.

There seems to be a lot of that going on.

Did I say it made it right? No I didn’t, but I just used it as a point. Casting out an entire belief system because people use it to further their own devices doesn’t make the belief system as a whole false.

Except that the entire belief system only exists as a human construct -- it's people who make Christianity what it is today. We can both pine for some ideal religion, but if nobody out there's actually willing/able to put it into practice, it becomes little more than a thought experiment.

Now, thought experiments can be fun, but I'm being more pragmatic here -- I'm more interested in what is than in what should be.

Did I say otherwise? No I didn’t, but again you are missing my point, which is why do you attacking religion for something that is commonly human behavior based? Could it be possible that a belief system is right,

Suppose the system is "right," whatever that means? What's the point if nobody's doing it right? Again, it's a cute thought experiment; nothing more.

besides, who says I'm attacking religion? If anything, I'm trying to help it.

Does that make what he says about the environment false? No? You have no argument, then.

It doesn’t bring his motives into question, when he says that the environment is in danger and needs protection, but takes no steps of his own to protect the environment and save energy.

Don't question his motives; question his facts. He may possibly be the biggest hypocrite who ever walked the earth, but that wouldn't change the facts in the slightest.

He also makes quite a bit of money on marketing environmentism and his brand of it. So taking these facts into mind, it is quite curious why Al Gore doesn’t follow the environmental philosophy he claims others should follow. That being said that, does it make it false? Not necessarily, but here comes my next point; how does pointing out bad things that Christians did, work as proof that Christianity is wrong?

Where did I ever say Christianity was wrong? Where have I ever put the entire faith system in such oversimplistic "it's all right or it's all wrong" terms?

My beef is, and has always been, with the way various Christian individuals and institutions interpret the Bible. I say that by and large, they do so without the proper knowledge of the cultural, historical, and literary context. If they had such knowledge, Christian doctrine would be something very different than it is now.

THAT is my argument.
THAT is all I've been saying.

Whatever else you want to read into that is a product of your own assumptions and beliefs, not mine.

So, what was that about people putting words in others' mouths? Remove the beam, my friend.

Not really, but I am making a point, which is you really don’t have an argument if all you can spout off is that, “Some Christians did bad things!” so what? How does that prove that Christianity as a whole is false or how does that work with proving Christianity as wrong? It really doesn’t, so it is kind of funny to watch you attack me for doing the very same thing that you appear to be doing. So what is it, is pointing out examples of people doing bring an entire system into question or not?

Again, you don't get it. This issue is far more complex than "Christianity is wrong."

"Christianity is wrong" is such a meaningless statement that the people who think in such terms are either simpletons (who deserve our help) or hucksters trying to exploit the simpletons (who deserve our contempt). Of course, "Christianity is right" is equally meaningless, and merits the same kind of treatment.

There is so much depth to the belief system that anyone who wants to reduce it to such one-dimensional rubbish is missing the point of it all.

I trust you're smarter than that; kindly extend the same courtesy to me.

You are correct, but here is the question; why are bad things that religious people do evidence of something being wrong with religion, but it doesn’t count anywhere else?

It counts everywhere else -- I'd consider any moral code which encourages its followers to act immorally to have some flaws in the system.

Does that make it count any less here?

I do a lot of reading of figurative language dear (the Bible containing much in terms of figurative language) and you are not as good at this as you think you are.

Perhaps I'm simply too subtle for the audience. I'll adjust accordingly.

Your inability to see that you are not as good at this ‘figurative’ thing as you think you are is a serious handicap.

Pearls before swine, I suppose. Not important.

And your point is what? That people, who happen to be religious, do dumb things? I’m sorry, but as I exposed above with the Gore thing, Al Gore not following his own philosophy about saving the environment doesn’t necessarily mean that the environment doesn’t need saved, but it does speak a lot about Al Gore personally though.

And I don't give a rodent's posterior about Al Gore -- and let's be honest; neither do you. You're trying to make a point that I was never arguing against.

I suppose I'm to blame -- I let this conversation spiral way out of control; I should've reminded you of my original position sooner, so you wouldn't have gone off on this whole "Christianity is right/Christianity is wrong" debacle.

That the reasoning that the book was banned had nothing to do with the book itself, but who it became associated with.

An interesting hypothesis -- as long as we're both speculating here, is it not also likely that because the book was, as I said before, a poor read and not exactly flying off the shelves, its unpopularity -- as well as its disclaimer that wasn't a representation of reality -- managed to keep it off the radar until the Galileo debacle?

So the answer might very well be both -- content and association. Just a thought.

You mean besides the fact that the Pope himself asked Galileo to write a book talking about the merits and demerits of the geocentric and heliocentric system? If the church was actively trying to stamp this idea out, why did they wait so long to do it? Could it be because it has not a thing to do with heliocentricism itself, but with Galileo specifically?

And poor poor Copernicus got pulled into the drama? Perhaps, but before I speculate on this, I must ask: Did Galileo think there were any merits to the geocentric model? Or any demerits to the heliocentric?

I may not know as much history as you, but I do see a similar pattern occurring today -- with the creationism/evolution debacle: One side cries, "teach both sides! Teach the controversy!" while the other side cries, "there is no 'controversy,' you morons; the matter's settled!"

Funny how the more things change...

So like I've been saying all along, this was never a matter of religion vs. science; if Galileo refused to play ball with the Pope (because he wouldn't put his name to something he didn't believe in), his trial before the Inquisition would've been payback, pure and simple.

Funny thing is, I can read other figurative authors just fine, without issue. So again, what does that say?

Practice makes perfect?

How is it ‘utterly incoherent’? It’s pretty straight forward, how does the paragraph you quoted therefore mean that other people, which were not directly associated with Galileo’s legal adviser, required to support Galileo at his trial? It simply doesn’t follow and it is up to you to show otherwise.

Here's where the incoherence comes in -- I never claimed any of that, so why should I support it?

I'm sure Galileo was a complete a-hole to the people who didn't agree with him; I've experienced enough of that myself, even in the short time I've been on these boards. I'm sure that in spite of this, he had some supporters who managed to be somewhat more diplomatic than he was.

What does that prove? That the church wasn't some giant monolithic entity suffering from groupthink. Good thing I never claimed that it was.

That people were not as united against him as you seem to want to apply them as being?

Good thing I never implied that, either.

Ptolemy was one of the major factors that tried to refine Aristotlelian natural philosophy and pretty much sent up the geocentric system that people of the 17th century believed in and used and thus was an authority upon which the geocentric system was built upon when it came to Astronomy. Again, the church of the early 17th century was basing its interpretations upon what was then, scientific conscious of the era.

And of course, many of the church fathers were heavily influenced by Aristotelian philosophy -- Thomas Aquinas, for example, was a big fan.

Many of the great scientific minds of antiquity came from the church -- where else were they going to get that kind of an education? It would therefore be very understandable if, somewhere along the line, scientific and theological ideas commingled and got conflated.

I mean heck, we've already agreed that it happens now; why wouldn't it have happened then as well?

Because the church of the early 17th century was a major leading legal figure that often took care of and discussed matters that were seen as important? Remember, in that era and time, the church was quite a major force in matters of law and academics.

And what made geocentricism vs. heliocentricism seen as important? It certainly wasn't a legal matter, and if it was academic, what's the punishment for having a wrong theory? Seems like they spanked him pretty hard just for being wrong.

But it was more than that, wasn't it? Galileo was an "obnoxious jerk" -- meaning, when the Pope asked him to "teach the controversy," he told the Pope to sit on it and rotate -- or at least the 17th century equivalent of "sit on it and rotate." <----- hyperbole used for humorous purposes

So this really wasn't about law, academics, science or religion -- it was about politics... with a healthy dose of retribution. As you said -- the church was a major leading legal (among other things) figure; it's not nice to spit in their eye.

Does that say anything about Christianity as a belief system? No -- and I'm saying or implying anything to the contrary.

The scientists of the era were following the general scientific authority of the day. Who do you think that was? Give you a hint, it wasn’t the church.

It wasn't the source of their education? It wasn't the major leading legal, educational, social, and political figure? It wasn't the institution whose founders embraced Arsitotle, on whose ideas Ptolemy's geocentricism was based?

You're going to have to give me another hint, then.

It’s too bad I haven’t been doing that, but have actually spent the time to learn the history of the era and learn things about history before I try to pretend to be an expert on it. If you think I am wrong though, you are welcome to prove otherwise.

Prove what otherwise? I see a lot of crowing, not a lot of support.

And why do you bring up things about Galileo as though it proves something?[/QUOTE]

So now you want to drop the topic? Fine by me; I've been getting sick of talking about the man.

Again, do you think insulting your supporters is a good way to endear them to your cause? It’s a very simple question, why do you refuse to answer it?

So we're in agreement than, that the Galileo debacle was about revenge for the disrespect he showed the church? Fine by me; not sure why you were insisting is was some kind of science vs. religion thing.

In which, was a deal he made and being confided to his villa wasn’t that huge of a deal, since he did that anyway.

If you say he would've done that without the house arrest, I won't argue -- you seem to know a lot about the could haves and what ifs... I wonder how valuable those are...

[QUOTE]Could have’s and what if’s are not reality. [QUOTE]

Whoops.

If we want to speculate on things, go ahead and do so, but I prefer to deal with the facts and the facts are that the church wasn’t very swift on giving Galileo any sort of terrible judgment, was it?

They weren't all that swift in pardoning him, either. They seem to have a history of dragging their feet.

Do you understand ‘bad metaphor’ since it didn’t seem to work too well in the case of the break off of the church of England nor did it work too well with Martin Luther, did it?

Two cases where it didn't work -- one of which was instigated by a King of England with no shortage of military might on his side, and another leading to a schism which continues to this day -- don't exactly do much to negate the cases where it does work.

Henry VIII and Martin Luther were excommunicated, which would've sent a powerful message, but some people just don't scare easily.

The position that geocentrism was true was held long before the Church ever existed or do you believe that Christianity existed in the 4th century BC, when Aristotle was teaching it and the other Greek Philosophers were writing about it? Much of physics of the early 17th century was based upon Aristotle’s work and again, you would know this if you were to bother to read upon the history of science and understand these things.

I know that the church fathers embraced Aristotle and as a result, Ptolemy. I know such beliefs are incorporated into church doctrine. I know what happens when you try to tell the church that it's wrong -- just ask Henry or Martin.

Works for me.

Fair enough.

Never said it did, did I? I did that to make a point, which was don’t throw out the baby with the bath water.

And I never said I was doing that, did I?

It would only be misdirection if what I said wasn’t true. Was it true? Yes or no?

A person can derail a conversation with the truth as well as a lie -- if the truth is off-topic.

And the large issue is what? People do dumb things? So what? What does that prove about rather or not Christianity is true?

There you go again, reducing the issue to kindergarten terms -- Christianity is "true"; Christianity is "false."

This can't be the level of theological discussion people around here are accustomed to, can it?

Do you believe the church influenced Aristotle back in the 4th century BC? I’m sorry, but the church simply based it’s interpretations upon what was thought to be the correct system.

And once they thought it was the correct system, they made sure the people they taught thought so, too.

After all, where did one go for an education?

I know that and I also know that Newton also was an alchemist and quite an unorthodox Christian at that. So what?

No reason; just thought it was interesting.

No, unless the church was influencing Aristotle in the 4th century BC, when he was writing about his natural philosophy (the precursor to modern day science) and Ptolemy in the early 2nd century AD (when the church wasn’t nearly as powerful as it became centuries later). I’m sorry, but the geocentric model was the accepted scientific model long before Christianity ever came along and was finally rejected because the evidence against it amounted to a point where it could no long be accepted.

Agreed -- the Church hitched its wagon to the wrong star, as it were. But once they did, they didn't exactly bend over backwards to entertain notions that they were wrong, did they?

It took time and research to disprove geocentricism -- would you say, as a legal, scientific, and academic institution, that the church aided, hindered, or had no effect on that work? Here's a hint -- they smacked down Galileo for reasons which, by your own admission, had nothing to do with the quality of his work.

You are correct that it has been, but what does that really prove? That the church simply took what was accepted science and used it to support its peculiar interpretations of the Bible? Remember, only one argument against heliocentrism had a thing to do with the Bible, the rest were based upon what was considered proper science and authorities of the era.

And which argument was the church hitching its wagon to -- the scientific or the theological? Not that it matters -- What happens to the church's credibility when the whole shebang comes down?

So you’re totally unaware of the legality of leaving babies, in the roman world (mostly girls) to the wild to die of exposure or killed by wild animals? You are also unaware of the Roman view of women and what regard they were held in, during that time? You are also unaware of the civil rights issues of the Roman world compared with modern developments of it? Well, if you want some good sources on this one, I found David Bentley Hart to be pretty good at talking about these ones. JPH and Glenn Miller also have some good articles on some of these things too, if you want to go look them up.

The church was an improvement on the Roman Empire -- no argument. No excuse for them to sit on their laurels or drag their feet when it came to later issues. of course, some churches are more progressive than others, that only speaks to them as social institutions, not towards the belief system as a whole.

Good thing I'm not discussing the belief system as a whole -- only in some interpretations of it.

So you don’t know how the average Roman was treated compared to how the modern western is? Let me ask you this, do you think the Roman Emperors would have allowed the Occupy Wall Street protest to take place?

Let me ask you: do you think Pope Innocent III would have allowed it?

Being better than the Roman emperors isn't exactly setting the bar all that high.

So what side do we accept?

You don't really think it's that simple, do you?

And others will change, when presented with new evidence. Not all Christians are closed minded people.

People, no -- individuals are usually pretty smart, and humble enough to change their minds when proven to be mistaken. Institutions... tend to be more stubborn.

I can agree with that one.

Thanks; it's one of my favorite quotes.

I don’t think so, since we can trace a number of modern day theologies right back to the early days of the church.

Meaning we can trace the institution's current ideas back to the institution's early ideas -- but how many of them can we trace back to the horse's mouth -- or in this case, the messiah's?

I’d agree, but such is life.

Too true, too true.

And why would that be?

Because among Aristotle's other works, he noted that politicians who claim divine inspiration are usually in the best position to do their worst:

"A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side."

Even a ruler who genuinely thinks he answers to God has little incentive to answer to groundlings such as you or me (particularly not a heathen such as me). And if their zeal isn't genuine, there's no way it can end well for anyone.

Perhaps, but you never know.

Perhaps, but I see no reason to get my hopes up -- In matters of politics, I tend to see things a little more Machiavellian than moralistic.

I tend to believe that you can change it from within and while some elements of it are rather weird of corrupt, the same can be said for almost anything else, but that, in of itself isn’t a reason to throw everything out the window and start over.

And yet, sometimes that is the only option -- when the tree rots, you chop it down and plant a new one.

[Xru]

I'd give NP a rep for effort . . but . . . eh . . . .

[lilpixieofterror]

There seems to be a lot of that going on.

Yes there is.

Except that the entire belief system only exists as a human construct -- it's people who make Christianity what it is today. We can both pine for some ideal religion, but if nobody out there's actually willing/able to put it into practice, it becomes little more than a thought experiment.

Now, thought experiments can be fun, but I'm being more pragmatic here -- I'm more interested in what is than in what should be.

And I do not believe it has started out that way and thus far I have not seen anything presented that should lead me to believe otherwise.

Suppose the system is "right," whatever that means? What's the point if nobody's doing it right? Again, it's a cute thought experiment; nothing more.

besides, who says I'm attacking religion? If anything, I'm trying to help it.

I would think that right would mean it's the system that is true and shows itself as being accurate. BTW if you are not attacking religion, why are you bringing up situations in attempts to make religion or at the very least, religious people, look bad?

Where did I ever say Christianity was wrong? Where have I ever put the entire faith system in such oversimplistic "it's all right or it's all wrong" terms?

If you didn't believe that Christianity or all other religions as a whole were false, you wouldn't be an atheist and no, it's not over simplistic, but the most logical course of action one can take. Sure, you can break down a belief system into different elements, but that doesn't address the system as a whole of rather or not the system turned out to be true. If you can show some other reason to believe otherwise, please present it because I haven't seen anybody do a good job of dismanteling that view yet.

My beef is, and has always been, with the way various Christian individuals and institutions interpret the Bible. I say that by and large, they do so without the proper knowledge of the cultural, historical, and literary context. If they had such knowledge, Christian doctrine would be something very different than it is now.

THAT is my argument.
THAT is all I've been saying.

Whatever else you want to read into that is a product of your own assumptions and beliefs, not mine.

And the obvious conclusion is simple, you do not believe any of them are true or you do not believe that an understanding of the cultural, historical, and literacy context makes Christianity out to be true or else, why would you be an atheist? I ironically, accept the first condition that there’s many people out there that add in their own views of the text and could care less about the culture, history, or literacy context of the Bible, but I still believe Christianity is true. Why is that?

So, what was that about people putting words in others' mouths? Remove the beam, my friend.

It’s pretty obvious that you do not accept that a proper knowledge of the culture, history, and literacy context of the Bible leads somebody to accept Christianity or else, why are you an atheist?

Again, you don't get it. This issue is far more complex than "Christianity is wrong."

I get it just fine, the problem is that you try to make some pretty simple issue into being far more complex than it has to be for whatever reason you want it to be. Unless you can come up with a third option and logically show it, it boils down to either Christianity is right or Christianity is wrong.

"Christianity is wrong" is such a meaningless statement that the people who think in such terms are either simpletons (who deserve our help) or hucksters trying to exploit the simpletons (who deserve our contempt). Of course, "Christianity is right" is equally meaningless, and merits the same kind of treatment.

There is so much depth to the belief system that anyone who wants to reduce it to such one-dimensional rubbish is missing the point of it all.

I would love to see you explain, with details, why those terms are meaningless but I doubt you could because you haven’t done it yet nor have I seen anybody do it yet either. Now please, present another option beyond Christianity being true because I have long rejected other arguments such as the one, “It may be true for you, but not for me” nonsense because you might as well say that gravity is true for me, but not for you and go and jump off a bridge just to prove that gravity will pull you down to earth at a very rapid speed, regardless of your beliefs about it. Likewise, if Christianity is true or false, it doesn’t matter what you or I think of it, it will be true or false no matter what.

I trust you're smarter than that; kindly extend the same courtesy to me.

Oh, I am smart enough to ask you to prove your argument and show that Christianity is false is a ‘meaningless’ statement because I doubt you can prove it.

It counts everywhere else -- I'd consider any moral code which encourages its followers to act immorally to have some flaws in the system.

Does that make it count any less here?

What is moral and what is immoral and how do you define the two? Are you saying that there is a right and a wrong in the world? If so, how did you come across those views and how did you decided what was true and what was false?

And I don't give a rodent's posterior about Al Gore -- and let's be honest; neither do you. You're trying to make a point that I was never arguing against.

I suppose I'm to blame -- I let this conversation spiral way out of control; I should've reminded you of my original position sooner, so you wouldn't have gone off on this whole "Christianity is right/Christianity is wrong" debacle.

Very well, but it did make the point, did it not?

An interesting hypothesis -- as long as we're both speculating here, is it not also likely that because the book was, as I said before, a poor read and not exactly flying off the shelves, its unpopularity -- as well as its disclaimer that wasn't a representation of reality -- managed to keep it off the radar until the Galileo debacle?

So the answer might very well be both -- content and association. Just a thought.

No, I think that is also wrong because even the wiki page mentions that after the book was written, people went to lengths to debate and discuss it for several years before Galileo came along and yet nobody attempted to ban it until after the association between Galileo’s ideas and the book came along. Which leads to the conclusion that Copernicus’ book was banned not because of what it was about, but because who and what it was associated with.

And poor poor Copernicus got pulled into the drama? Perhaps, but before I speculate on this, I must ask: Did Galileo think there were any merits to the geocentric model? Or any demerits to the heliocentric?

It didn’t matter what he thought or didn’t think, but as I said before, the heliocentric model didn’t have the evidence that it would later gain with publications under Newton about 50 years later that pretty much spelled the end of the geocentric system. Anyway, Galileo was asked to write a book about the merits and demerits of both systems and if he didn’t want to he should have just flat out said it instead of writing something that he wasn’t asked to write.

I may not know as much history as you, but I do see a similar pattern occurring today -- with the creationism/evolution debacle: One side cries, "teach both sides! Teach the controversy!" while the other side cries, "there is no 'controversy,' you morons; the matter's settled!"

The difference between the two systems is that we have plenty of evidence of evolution occurring today and it’s so established as happening there is no reason to teaching both ideas because one is already established as a scientific fact. However; in the early 16th century, the heliocentric model didn’t have the evidence that it would later gain after Galileo’s death under the now famous Newton because he produce the evidence that spelled the end of the geocentric model and since then, everything that has been found has continued to support and modify the heliocentric model and even further debunks the geocentric model to the point where it is now a crack pot theory. It’s really night and day.

Funny how the more things change...

So like I've been saying all along, this was never a matter of religion vs. science; if Galileo refused to play ball with the Pope (because he wouldn't put his name to something he didn't believe in), his trial before the Inquisition would've been payback, pure and simple.

Might have been pay back, but as I said before, that is why you don’t bite the hand that feeds you.

Here's where the incoherence comes in -- I never claimed any of that, so why should I support it?

I'm sure Galileo was a complete a-hole to the people who didn't agree with him; I've experienced enough of that myself, even in the short time I've been on these boards. I'm sure that in spite of this, he had some supporters who managed to be somewhat more diplomatic than he was.

What does that prove? That the church wasn't some giant monolithic entity suffering from groupthink. Good thing I never claimed that it was.

You are correct, thanks for solving this issue.

And of course, many of the church fathers were heavily influenced by Aristotelian philosophy -- Thomas Aquinas, for example, was a big fan.

You are correct that Aristotle was a major philosophical playing during that time frame and even today, his philosophy is still used as the bases of modern philosophy. Now his science isn’t science by modern day standards, but

Many of the great scientific minds of antiquity came from the church -- where else were they going to get that kind of an education? It would therefore be very understandable if, somewhere along the line, scientific and theological ideas commingled and got conflated.

I mean heck, we've already agreed that it happens now; why wouldn't it have happened then as well?

So than why such an issue with Galileo and the trial he underwent?

And what made geocentricism vs. heliocentricism seen as important? It certainly wasn't a legal matter, and if it was academic, what's the punishment for having a wrong theory? Seems like they spanked him pretty hard just for being wrong.

Not really, since Galileo spent almost all of his time in his villa anyway. If anything, I’ve heard a few people call it a plea barging in which Galileo would admit he’s wrong and face the rest of his life under house arrest.

But it was more than that, wasn't it? Galileo was an "obnoxious jerk" -- meaning, when the Pope asked him to "teach the controversy," he told the Pope to sit on it and rotate -- or at least the 17th century equivalent of "sit on it and rotate." <----- hyperbole used for humorous purposes

As I pointed out above, more of night and day because unlike our modern day creationism vs evolution debate, the scientific evidence to support the heliocentric model simply wasn’t there and wouldn’t be there until Newton finally put the issue to rest in 1687 with his now famous book.

So this really wasn't about law, academics, science or religion -- it was about politics... with a healthy dose of retribution. As you said -- the church was a major leading legal (among other things) figure; it's not nice to spit in their eye.

For the most part yeah, it’s more of a lesion in how to play nice with a legal authority that can have some very nasty things done to you. Galileo simply needed to be more political and less of a jerk.

Does that say anything about Christianity as a belief system? No -- and I'm saying or implying anything to the contrary.

And you are correct.

It wasn't the source of their education? It wasn't the major leading legal, educational, social, and political figure? It wasn't the institution whose founders embraced Arsitotle, on whose ideas Ptolemy's geocentricism was based?

You're going to have to give me another hint, then.

You correctly pointed it out above, the major scientific authority of the early 16th century was Aristotle.

Prove what otherwise? I see a lot of crowing, not a lot of support.

My support has been given and explained with historical understanding of the era.

So now you want to drop the topic? Fine by me; I've been getting sick of talking about the man.

Fine by me, but I would still like to know, why did you bring him up?

So we're in agreement than, that the Galileo debacle was about revenge for the disrespect he showed the church? Fine by me; not sure why you were insisting is was some kind of science vs. religion thing.

I guess you can say revenge combined with over-reacting.

If you say he would've done that without the house arrest, I won't argue -- you seem to know a lot about the could haves and what ifs... I wonder how valuable those are...

Where were most of Galileo’s discoveries and books written at? I have heard it said that Galileo was an Introvert, which would explain the possibility of his lack of social grace.

Whoops.

If you say so, but like I said, I based mine upon historical understanding and if you believe they are wrong, you are welcome to prove otherwise.

They weren't all that swift in pardoning him, either. They seem to have a history of dragging their feet.

As most government and legal agencies tend to be, but they can be really swift and fast when they want to be.

Two cases where it didn't work -- one of which was instigated by a King of England with no shortage of military might on his side, and another leading to a schism which continues to this day -- don't exactly do much to negate the cases where it does work.

Henry VIII and Martin Luther were excommunicated, which would've sent a powerful message, but some people just don't scare easily.

And what does excommunication mean to a person that has pretty much cut their ties with the church anyway? It was more of a political move that is the same reason the US refuses to have diplomatic relations with Iran or Cuba, do you think Iran or Cuba really cares? Likewise, do you think Henry VIII or martin Luther cared?

I know that the church fathers embraced Aristotle and as a result, Ptolemy. I know such beliefs are incorporated into church doctrine. I know what happens when you try to tell the church that it's wrong -- just ask Henry or Martin.

What, you get excommunicated when you already cut your ties anyway?

And I never said I was doing that, did I?

If you were not, would you be an atheist?

A person can derail a conversation with the truth as well as a lie -- if the truth is off-topic.

How is it ‘off topic’?

There you go again, reducing the issue to kindergarten terms -- Christianity is "true"; Christianity is "false."

This can't be the level of theological discussion people around here are accustomed to, can it?

Let me see, can you show a third option? Let me see:

“It is true for you, but not for me.” Does that seriously work anywhere else? Can a non belief in gravity make gravity stop working? No, so why does it work with religious ideas?

“This element of Christianity is true!” So what? Last I checked, Christianity was a collection of claims, many of which, are critical to the rest of them and if they prove themselves false, then the Christian system as a whole, is false as well.

I’ve heard these options before and rejected them due to the reasons listed, if you can either refute these two refutations and/or present another one I can’t address go ahead and do so, but that pretty much what belief boils down to. Either Christianity, as a whole is false or it isn’t. Can you produce a third, viable option?

And once they thought it was the correct system, they made sure the people they taught thought so, too.

After all, where did one go for an education?

Don’t we do the same thing to this very day? Yes, so what is wrong with the church of the era doing the same thing?

Agreed -- the Church hitched its wagon to the wrong star, as it were. But once they did, they didn't exactly bend over backwards to entertain notions that they were wrong, did they?

In the time of Galileo, they simply had no reason to reject it. Can you produce a reason why? I might add that Galileo ran across something that could have been used to demonstrate his theory, but he didn’t think about it nor did Newton. This form of evidence actually wasn’t discovered until the mid 19th century. Anyway, Galileo had a collection of observations that did bring some things into question, but simply wasn’t enough.

It took time and research to disprove geocentricism -- would you say, as a legal, scientific, and academic institution, that the church aided, hindered, or had no effect on that work? Here's a hint -- they smacked down Galileo for reasons which, by your own admission, had nothing to do with the quality of his work.

In the sense it did because he wanted people to reject geocentism and accept heliocentrism based upon faith, not upon evidence and the academic community pretty much rejected such claims. The evidence that spelled the end of geocentrism came with Newton over 50 years later. Simply put, there was no reason to accept heliocentrism before then. Based upon what the evidence was in the early 16th century, can you find any conclusive evidence that geocentrism was wrong?

And which argument was the church hitching its wagon to -- the scientific or the theological? Not that it matters -- What happens to the church's credibility when the whole shebang comes down?

And again, is there a reason that the church shouldn’t have accepted and taught the accepted model of the era and used it in its theological views of the Bible? So again, should Christians accept science and use it to base their beliefs and interpretations on or not?

The church was an improvement on the Roman Empire -- no argument. No excuse for them to sit on their laurels or drag their feet when it came to later issues. of course, some churches are more progressive than others, that only speaks to them as social institutions, not towards the belief system as a whole.

Government and legal authorities often do act slow and compared to our modern day government, the church and roman government actually acted pretty swift due to the differences between their governments and ours.

Good thing I'm not discussing the belief system as a whole -- only in some interpretations of it.

Glad to hear, but you’ll find slowness to act is a pretty common government issue.

Let me ask you: do you think Pope Innocent III would have allowed it?

Being better than the Roman emperors isn't exactly setting the bar all that high.

Most likely no, but what system brought about the modern day system of liberties we have today?

You don't really think it's that simple, do you?

In some cases, it is.

People, no -- individuals are usually pretty smart, and humble enough to change their minds when proven to be mistaken. Institutions... tend to be more stubborn.

And thus, welcome to the world of government.

Meaning we can trace the institution's current ideas back to the institution's early ideas -- but how many of them can we trace back to the horse's mouth -- or in this case, the messiah's?

That is because people like to wonder about different things and unless Jesus were to spend forever answering endless questions, by everybody around, you’re going to find that a lot of the time, people are going to wonder and to a degree, come up with some pretty creative things and even some crack pot things, all based upon what they believe Jesus means. That being said though, what do you think the point of not feeding us every answer might be?

Because among Aristotle's other works, he noted that politicians who claim divine inspiration are usually in the best position to do their worst:

"A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side."

Even a ruler who genuinely thinks he answers to God has little incentive to answer to groundlings such as you or me (particularly not a heathen such as me). And if their zeal isn't genuine, there's no way it can end well for anyone.

Is there any evidence that leads you to believe they are not genuine or that they actually believe they are ‘divinely inspired’?

Perhaps, but I see no reason to get my hopes up -- In matters of politics, I tend to see things a little more Machiavellian than moralistic.

That is because politics are often similar to drunken brawls, nobody really knows who they are fighting and often end up knocking their friends out while defending themselves.

And yet, sometimes that is the only option -- when the tree rots, you chop it down and plant a new one.

In this case, I do not believe it is.

[Nathan Poe]

And I do not believe it has started out that way and thus far I have not seen anything presented that should lead me to believe otherwise.

Well, since I'm not trying to change your mind about anything, what you believe, see, or don't see doesn't really matter to me.

I would think that right would mean it's the system that is true and shows itself as being accurate. BTW if you are not attacking religion, why are you bringing up situations in attempts to make religion or at the very least, religious people, look bad?

If you can't recognize attempts at improvement, there's not going to be a whole lot to discuss.

If you didn't believe that Christianity or all other religions as a whole were false, you wouldn't be an atheist

Who said I was an Atheist?

And the obvious conclusion is simple, you do not believe any of them are true or you do not believe that an understanding of the cultural, historical, and literacy context makes Christianity out to be true or else, why would you be an atheist?

You're repeating your same old mistakes -- who said I was an Atheist?

Or are you still using your old outdated definitions? I told you those were going to lead to confusion.

I ironically, accept the first condition that there’s many people out there that add in their own views of the text and could care less about the culture, history, or literacy context of the Bible, but I still believe Christianity is true. Why is that?

Why should I care? You want to reduce an entire belief system to "true" or "false" because that's what you can handle, more power to you.

It’s pretty obvious that you do not accept that a proper knowledge of the culture, history, and literacy context of the Bible leads somebody to accept Christianity or else, why are you an atheist?

That's the third time you've made the same mistake.

I get it just fine, the problem is that you try to make some pretty simple issue into being far more complex than it has to be for whatever reason you want it to be. Unless you can come up with a third option and logically show it, it boils down to either Christianity is right or Christianity is wrong.

So, YOU reduce Christianity to being either "right" or "wrong" -- Good for you. Why should the rest of us think so one-dimensionally?

I would love to see you explain, with details, why those terms are meaningless but I doubt you could because you haven’t done it yet nor have I seen anybody do it yet either. Now please, present another option beyond Christianity being true

Why would I want to do your work for you?

because I have long rejected other arguments such as the one, “It may be true for you, but not for me” nonsense because you might as well say that gravity is true for me, but not for you and go and jump off a bridge just to prove that gravity will pull you down to earth at a very rapid speed, regardless of your beliefs about it. Likewise, if Christianity is true or false, it doesn’t matter what you or I think of it, it will be true or false no matter what.

Well, regardless of what you think about Christianity -- "true" or "false" (how cute!) -- it still doesn't really matter. I'm not trying to change your mind, so feel free to think what you wish about it; I don't care either way.

Oh, I am smart enough to ask you to prove your argument and show that Christianity is false is a ‘meaningless’ statement because I doubt you can prove it.

I doubt you'd care -- if you think that the sum total of Christian thought is a simple yes/no issue, I need to find someone else to discuss theology with anyway.

What is moral and what is immoral and how do you define the two? Are you saying that there is a right and a wrong in the world? If so, how did you come across those views and how did you decided what was true and what was false?

Probably a slightly different way than you did, but no less effective.

You're not looking to change up, so why pretend to care?

Very well, but it did make the point, did it not?

You mean the point that you still don't know what a tu quoque fallacy is, or that you mistake political semantics with actual logic, but I really am not interested in discussing that at the moment.

No, I think that is also wrong because even the wiki page mentions that after the book was written, people went to lengths to debate and discuss it for several years before Galileo came along and yet nobody attempted to ban it until after the association between Galileo’s ideas and the book came along. Which leads to the conclusion that Copernicus’ book was banned not because of what it was about, but because who and what it was associated with.

A possibility -- but Galileo may have just popularized it.

It didn’t matter what he thought or didn’t think, but as I said before, the heliocentric model didn’t have the evidence that it would later gain with publications under Newton about 50 years later that pretty much spelled the end of the geocentric system. Anyway, Galileo was asked to write a book about the merits and demerits of both systems and if he didn’t want to he should have just flat out said it instead of writing something that he wasn’t asked to write.

Would've could've should've... perhaps this was his way of saying no.

The difference between the two systems is that we have plenty of evidence of evolution occurring today and it’s so established as happening there is no reason to teaching both ideas because one is already established as a scientific fact.

THANK YOU! Now, I can think of a few million well-meaning Christians who need to hear this.

Might have been pay back, but as I said before, that is why you don’t bite the hand that feeds you.

Or the one holding the whip.

For the most part yeah, it’s more of a lesion in how to play nice with a legal authority that can have some very nasty things done to you. Galileo simply needed to be more political and less of a jerk.

Politics and diplomacy mattered here -- truth was irrelevant.

My support has been given and explained with historical understanding of the era.

Not to much in the way of soures beyond your own say-so.

If you say so, but like I said, I based mine upon historical understanding and if you believe they are wrong, you are welcome to prove otherwise.

I haven't seen much reason to believe you in the first place -- that which is presented without support can be dismissed without support.

As most government and legal agencies tend to be, but they can be really swift and fast when they want to be.

Quick to anger, slow to forgive, glacial when it comes to admitting a mistake.

I expect no less from any such institution.

And what does excommunication mean to a person that has pretty much cut their ties with the church anyway?

Not a thing -- which is why it didn't work.

If you were not, would you be an atheist?

Am I an Atheist? No.

Let me see, can you show a third option? Let me see:

“It is true for you, but not for me.” Does that seriously work anywhere else? Can a non belief in gravity make gravity stop working? No, so why does it work with religious ideas?

Is that all you're getting out of all this? Egad.

I wouldn't even know where to begin with you.

“This element of Christianity is true!” So what? Last I checked, Christianity was a collection of claims, many of which, are critical to the rest of them and if they prove themselves false, then the Christian system as a whole, is false as well.

You mean if even the tiniest jot or tittle is inaccurate, the whole shebang is worthless? Is that what you think?

I'm pretty sure you're smarter than that; don't disappoint me.

I’ve heard these options before and rejected them due to the reasons listed, if you can either refute these two refutations and/or present another one I can’t address go ahead and do so, but that pretty much what belief boils down to. Either Christianity, as a whole is false or it isn’t. Can you produce a third, viable option?

I'm not going to support something I didn't say. It's your strawman; have fun with it.

Don’t we do the same thing to this very day? Yes, so what is wrong with the church of the era doing the same thing?

So that makes it right, then? Pretty strange morality you've got going there.

Government and legal authorities often do act slow and compared to our modern day government, the church and roman government actually acted pretty swift due to the differences between their governments and ours.



Glad to hear, but you’ll find slowness to act is a pretty common government issue.

Agreed,

Most likely no, but what system brought about the modern day system of liberties we have today?

Secular humanism. Next question?

[lilpixieofterror]

Well, since I'm not trying to change your mind about anything, what you believe, see, or don't see doesn't really matter to me.

The goal of a public debate should be towards the audience, but I haven’t seen anything as of yet that convinces me to believe otherwise.

If you can't recognize attempts at improvement, there's not going to be a whole lot to discuss.

And yet, religious

Who said I was an Atheist?

My mistake, I thought your profile said atheist, that being said though, why are you an agnostic?

You're repeating your same old mistakes -- who said I was an Atheist?

Like I said, my mistake, but would you be an agnostic if you thought an understanding of the Bible lead to Christianity, would you?

Or are you still using your old outdated definitions? I told you those were going to lead to confusion.

No, like I said, simple mistake.

Why should I care? You want to reduce an entire belief system to "true" or "false" because that's what you can handle, more power to you.

Like I said, demonstrate there is a third option in there and I do not see you producing a third, viable option, so why should I or others take your claim seriously if you can’t produce another viable option?

That's the third time you've made the same mistake.

Like I said, simple misreading, but it still doesn’t change my point.

So, YOU reduce Christianity to being either "right" or "wrong" -- Good for you. Why should the rest of us think so one-dimensionally?

Why is it ‘one dimensional’ thinking? Can you produce a third viable option and produce a reason to accept a third option? If so present it because I brought up the most commonly used ones and showed how they logically failed. Can you show otherwise?

Why would I want to do your work for you?

You made the claim that there was a third viable option, I made the claim there is only two and demonstrated that other common options are not viable options due to some of the reasons I’ve listed. So now, it is your job to demonstrate either another viable third option or demonstrate that I made a logical error. I do not believe I did.

Well, regardless of what you think about Christianity -- "true" or "false" (how cute!) -- it still doesn't really matter. I'm not trying to change your mind, so feel free to think what you wish about it; I don't care either way.

So you cannot produce other viable options and yet I’m the cute one. How funny, but unlike you, I demonstrate why other options were not valid, now either produce another option I didn’t address and explain, why or else don’t expect me to take your claims seriously.

I doubt you'd care -- if you think that the sum total of Christian thought is a simple yes/no issue, I need to find someone else to discuss theology with anyway.

And can you prove otherwise? Demonstrate it already instead of the passive-aggress insults and not addressing my point. I brought up other options and explained why they fail on the logical level. If you can bring up something else, go ahead and do so, but address my points and stop with the needless prattle already.

Probably a slightly different way than you did, but no less effective.

You're not looking to change up, so why pretend to care?

As I said before, public debates are geared towards the audience, so give your reasons. I give mine.

You mean the point that you still don't know what a tu quoque fallacy is, or that you mistake political semantics with actual logic, but I really am not interested in discussing that at the moment.

I know just what it is, the problem is that you don’t know what it is and think Wiki is a good source of information when discussing logical fallacies. Like I said, demonstrate as I demonstrate my logic.

A possibility -- but Galileo may have just popularized it.

I doubt it, but as I said before, people worked at refuting the book long before Galileo was ever on the scene, so the only logical conclusion is that the book was banned due to its association with Galileo, not for what the material contained within it.

Would've could've should've... perhaps this was his way of saying no.

So why not come out and say no? Why try all the sly sleight of hand stuff instead of just respectfully saying no?

THANK YOU! Now, I can think of a few million well-meaning Christians who need to hear this.

It’s the same arguments that another Christian made (known as rogue006 around here). It is possible to believe evolution occurred and not reject Christianity.

Or the one holding the whip.

Yep, thus you sometimes need to bite your tongue and play nicely.

Politics and diplomacy mattered here -- truth was irrelevant.

Welcome to the game of politics and one of the many reasons I can’t stand it.

Not to much in the way of soures beyond your own say-so.

And have you presented anything that says otherwise? Like I said, you could look up some of the topics on Wiki too and see what it says.

I haven't seen much reason to believe you in the first place -- that which is presented without support can be dismissed without support.

Same can be said at you, but again, you are welcome to go and look at some of the wiki articles that I mentioned and see what they say. I went to check on them and the funny thing is that the article on Newton mentioned how Newton proved heliocentrism and put an end to the debate.

Quick to anger, slow to forgive, glacial when it comes to admitting a mistake.

I expect no less from any such institution.

Including institutions that talk about humanism?

Not a thing -- which is why it didn't work.

It wasn’t designed for them; it was designed for everybody else. Politics is as much about the show and the efforts you put on for the sake of others as it is about addressing the person(s) you are addressing. Martin Luther didn’t care if he was excommunicated, but others cared if they were so the church doing this sent out a message to everybody else about what will happen if you do what Luther did. In the modern day look how the US refuses diplomatic relations to Iran and Cuba. Iran and Cuba don’t care, they would rather not have to deal with us at all, but others do and thus it is designed to put on a show for other nations. It is a way of saying if you don’t play ball with us, we will not play it with you.

Am I an Atheist? No.

Change my sentence to agnostic, does that change my point at all?

Is that all you're getting out of all this? Egad.

I wouldn't even know where to begin with you.

You could start by presenting viable options, which you haven’t presented yet. Do you have any other options to present?

You mean if even the tiniest jot or tittle is inaccurate, the whole shebang is worthless? Is that what you think?

I'm pretty sure you're smarter than that; don't disappoint me.

Let me try this again, if the claim that Jesus is the promised messiah is proved false, can Christianity still be true? No because Christianity rest upon the claim of Jesus being the Messiah and thus, Christianity would be proved false, but you could argue that its claims about God existing still are true, sure they would be, but that wouldn’t show Christianity as being true, would it? No, it would just show that Christianity has made a false critical claim and a true critical claim, but without Jesus as the messiah, Christianity simply cannot be true. Likewise, suppose that somebody proves that predestination is false; does that prove Christianity as wrong? No, Christianity can work just fine in free will as it can in predestination. Perhaps I should make a distinction that some claims Christianity needs to be true or else it can’t be true and claims that would just render certain interpretations and views as false. In other words, without the primary claims as being true, Christianity cannot be true. If you can show otherwise, go ahead and do so because I haven’t seen anybody do so yet.

I'm not going to support something I didn't say. It's your strawman; have fun with it.

So then if you can’t present anything else, why should I or others take you seriously?

So that makes it right, then? Pretty strange morality you've got going there.

I don’t see how this is an issue of morality, but rather in teaching what we believe to be true. To this very day, do we teach students things we believe to be true? Yeah, so why attack the church for doing the same thing?

Secular humanism. Next question?

That’s rather impossible, since secular humanism as a philosophy really didn’t take off until the 19th century, well after the modern day system of rights granted to us not from kings and queens, but from a higher power (which interesting enough, was the primary philosophy that drove the early US) is the primary motivation of the rights system we got today.

Edited to add:

Secular humanism as a movement, from what I'm finding, didn't seem to come about until the 1920's, so I find it kind of hard to believe that secular humanism can be responsible for the modern rights we have today since well, the modern idea of 'rights given from birth' comes from the 17th and 18th century.

[Benson Shays]

Interesting thread thus far; here are my own thoughts on the OP. I think the argument as it's intended is nonsense, but I think it's partially correct, in that reading the Bible without any background knowledge and with an intent to find problems will make you a skeptic.

[MWM958]

Interesting thread thus far; here are my own thoughts on the OP. I think the argument as it's intended is nonsense, but I think it's partially correct, in that reading the Bible without any background knowledge and with an intent to find problems will make you a skeptic.

Good post on the subject, and I of course agree. When we read the Bible like our personal manual as if it were written yesterday, then yeah, that should lead you to reject Christianity.