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Lily wrote
Patronizing you? Not at all!
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Lily, don’t be disingenuous, you know you were patronizing me.
So, what happened to our deal, Lily? I thought you were going to *try*. Am I operating under a misapprehension?
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Maybe you need to read my message again, I seek to understand the people who subscribe to this - I thought I was clear.
Sorry, I am not clear. Do you mean to this blog?
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Are you dense? If you had any sense of context, you’d know that I was seeking to identify, to understand, to learn from someone that has beliefs – to enlighten myself. I thought you’d do me that favor… I thought you’d at least give an honest try and we’d both benefit from the exchange.
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me wrote
How will Habitat for Humanity help me understand people who believe in God?
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It won't per se. But I was trying to think of ways far more promising than this forum for you to interact with all sorts of people, many of whom will be Christians of various stripes, in a positive environment where you would get to know them, see what drives them and maybe find some who would be open to talking about the issues you are interested in in more depth.
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Yeah, that’s it Lily. That’s my problem…. I just haven’t been around enough Christians.
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But, I've convinced myself that their must be more to it than that. There must be more to your faith than human frailty, right??
Yes, indeed!
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Yeah? Well – HOW? Let me tell you…. From the outside looking in, it *is not* obvious.
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I assure you, it does not (take a lot of effort). On some level, I think you know that already, since you know of one scientifically minded devout person and there are millions more.
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What is your problem? I am *precisely* saying that it *appears* to take a lot of effort.
I’m trying to give you the benefit of the doubt. Am I giving you too much credit?
Science and religion do not appear to mix. Christianity has a well documented track record of being the enemy of knowledge… from it’s development in the 5th century straight on through today.
It is NOT intuitive as to how someone can be scientifically minded and religious – which is precisely why I made the observation about Jimmy Carter.
What… did you think I was being coy? “On some level I think you know” – sheesh!!! I sincerely try to understand… but, I can’t *imagine* how people do it.
It’s like – how could someone believe that Santa Clause makes his rounds to the entire world in one night, then go out the next day and design the SR-71?
Again, I’m trying to give Christians the benefit of the doubt here, because logic suggests that as a person learns more about the properties of the physical world, that person has to make certain compromises with either his/her faith or his/her intellect.
It follows that depending on how a person decides to treat new information, that person must eventually bargain away all vestiges of faith; or, shut down and choose belief over facts.
A perfect example is “Intelligent Design”. How can a reasonably informed Christian get Creation and Evolution to coexist, he/she modifies both fact *and* faith to form a composite belief - which isn’t true to either fact or faith.
At least YEC’s can say they haven’t compromised.
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I am not sure what evidence you are talking about here. When the books of the New Testament were written? Who wrote them? How the canon was formed? Any of these is an interesting subject, among many others we could address.
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I don’t get it – you even mentioned Mithras earlier. And, you said you had an education, didn’t you? My bad – I assumed you knew about stuff outside the Bible and thought you might shed some light on how you regard it.
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I am not sure how to reply to this. Mary's "virgin birth" is not a Christian doctrine. What other myths do you have in mind? I am no Mary expert and will take your word for it that there are other myths out there.
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C’mon – you know…. It’s among the stuff in the more recently found gospels excluded from the NT (Dead sea scrolls, Gnostics, and all that jazz).
You know what forget that last part… just tell me:
What is your position on all the stuff that was left out of the Bible when Constantine’s team of editors put the Bible together?
Is the whole story about Constantine pure bunk? How do you fit the pieces together? (Please note – at least I’m still trying, whilst it appears you’ve retreated to some sort of selective deafness)
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(from a different post)
If free will means anything, then God cannot interfere with our use of it. If nothing else, our reaction to evil tells us, or should, something about ourselves and the world we live in. If this world, this life is all we have, and there is no ultimate purpose…
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How did you arrive at the conclusion that, if this life is all we have then there is no ultimate purpose? I mean, I understand you’re not saying that this world and life is all we have – but… you are saying that *IF* this life is all we have *THEN* there is no ultimate purpose, right?
Just so you know, the following collection of words:
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then what is the problem? Evil is the way things are and we had just better suck it up. But we can't, can we? The question is: why not?
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While I’m sure it sounded great in your head… and maybe you’re just tired…. Doesn’t make any sense.
Do you want to try that again?
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I have read here many times that atheists don't need a God to have morals. I do not find any of the reasoning persuasive.
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Would you agree that, despite any lack of persuasion, there are loads of people living moral lives without God?
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We have seen too many times, just in our own century, that it is not morality that fills a vacuum but power. And power is not maintained by adherence to the 10 commandments or any other moral code we have had offered to us.
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I agree with you there, but I don’t know if you’re trying to make some larger point. If so, would you elaborate?
Let me just ask you one more thing. Can you try… try to imagine – I’m not saying agree – but just imagine how people outside your faith
just might think it’s all a little strange?