RRC Archives

Ultra wrote:Zspider, so you refuse to believe that a person can practice true religion and still have a analytical mind? Just because your definition of what religion or science is, is limited, doesn't mean that it is so. What better thing to persue in science than empirical proof of Gods existence? 8)

I didn't say a person can't be religious and scientific at the same time. I said that science as a belief system is incomplete because it lacks a moral code.

As far as an empirical proof of God's existence, I think that's ridiculous. You're way off base here. A religious person doesn't require proof of God's existence.

ZSpider

Scientists always have ethical debates, often time referring back to various religious backgrounds or just to their personal experiences in life and their beliefs in humanity or what is right in the world.

Just becasue they don't have it written down in a little book or someone else telling them they have to believe this or do that doesn't mean they don't have a moral structure.

One might argue that as there is a structure to what we can believe to be "true" (to the best of our knowledge) would constitute a moral code. I mean, as a scientist it would be wrong to manufacture my data just like as a preacher it would be wrong to manufacture an interpretation of the text.

Paul3eb wrote:i believe there is... no good, no bad,...

Are you sure about this? Are you really saying that all the violence that appears on the news every night is not "bad" and this is merely a label we place on it?

i am a practicing Christian... which means that i need more practice... lots more.

is there anybody else that reads mqads posts and "hears" that kind of soft, too-silky smooth, melodramatic voice that christian radio and preachers use. I can't help it.

Mostly I believe in the healing and teaching powers of Nature. Mother Earth and Father Sky.... and lots of Buddhist philosophies, some Taoism thrown in, and some bits and pieces of Christianity, etc.

J-Rock wrote:and some bits and pieces of Christianity

.:faints:.

Zspider wrote: As far as an empirical proof of God's existence, I think that's ridiculous. You're way off base here. A religious person doesn't require proof of God's existence.
ZSpider

Isaiah 1:18 "Come now, let us reason together," says the LORD...

1 John 4:1 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

Romans 1:20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

Zspider: I don't see that God ever asks us to give up reason or rationality. There is still plenty of room for faith, but it does not seem like a blind faith to me.

kato wrote:Are you sure about this? Are you really saying that all the violence that appears on the news every night is not "bad" and this is merely a label we place on it?

yes. a great real life example: friend of mine breaks his foot while climbing. that's bad. i get to work as a trip leader on climbing and kayaking trips to fill his place. that's good.

good and bad are, perhaps, based simply on perspective. how many times to you hear both sides of the story where one person is hurt and the other is exhalted? it's everywhere in the world. they seem to be one in the same. it's our narrow perspectives that restrict us from being able to see how it all works out. another thing i think about: if there were not people, would there still be "good" and "bad"? i highly doubt it. does that makes sense?

Paul3eb:
I was thinking of an example more like this. A guy recently kidnapped two children (something like 8 yrs old and 9). They found and just identified the remains of the little boy, but managed to catch the guy based on surveillance video as he was travelling cross country with the girl. They saved her life, but with what she had been through to that point, there is no doubt she will never get over this. You still say this is not bad, but only as we label it?
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/07/ ... 8258.shtml

yes. you're probably right, she never will get over this. and how many times have you seen the very people that are best able to help others get through hard situations are the ones that have been through hell and back. maybe she'll be able to help someone else get through it. hell, maybe she's already inspiring people. no doubt this has hightened awareness, at least to a small extent. maybe, since it was her and it was well publicised, maybe it brought more attention and led to the guys eventual arrest meaning he won't get to other kids. any of these things could be true..

of course it's just a label.. how do you decide what's good and bad? it's based on some moral or ethic code. doesn't that change through the years? at some point, hasn't nearly every "fundamental" been just another accepted practice in some other time or place? if it changes, there is no constant to it, no truth in it.. it's subjective. in ancient greece, this guy seducing the boy would be a rite of passage. today, it's "bad". if i wanted to be a pain, i'd challenge you to define what is "good" or "bad". we all know the mess that leads us to..

now, i'm not saying that we should look at everything from a fatalists perspective and simply shrug and say, "what will be will be." i'm simply saying that all this talk of good and evil, god and the devil, all this dualism isn't constructive and that, at times, it leads to more problems than it solves. what i'm trying to say is that there's always another way of looking at it, that life is what it is and life will make no excuses, that there is no balance or karma in the world. mroe than anything, i'm saying to keep your eyes open and keep looking at things, that there's more to it than we see at first, that there's potential in everything. like any perspective, we can choose what we focus on.