Ion

Kamschatka, "Men utilize science and technology to build empirical tangible objects, not the opposite." indeed.
This validates science and technology as a human-made tool containing a consciousness in understanding how natural laws do operate.
Science and technology becomes worthy pursuing for the human condition.

"...faith, prayers and spirituality..." do not have any empirical effect on how natural laws operate.
They are human beliefs straying into unconscious interpretations, as being empirically unsupported and speculative human-made tools.
"...faith, prayers and spirituality..." become worthy in human condition only at a subjective level, like whatever pleases each one because there are no material proofs, and as such shouldn't be forced onto people like religions do with the arrogance of know-it-all about nature: "God created the universe, God does this, does that,...".

Nobody knows how the universe operates, and religions are charlatons for claiming otherwise, while science and technology with its empirical proofs makes promising strides into the subject.
A tree, a mountain are indeed included in how science and technology, as a conscious human-made tool for explaining how nature does operate, interprets nature and supports this interpretation with empirical back-ups.
Science and technology is not "...omnipotent...", and this was told to us when studying physics in France. Based on empirical proofs it has when reproducing things from raw nature, that's the best tool in human conscience we have about knowledge of nature.
Not of my generation, in France or other Western European countries.
People from my generation in Western Europe view religion like I do, as a cultural folklore, not as a truth about nature's laws.
Vatican is viewed as a cynical institution of power, including money.
Coming to US, I am appalled by third-world country behavior exhibited here, with people seriously believing in religious 'truths'.
I wasn't born and didn't grow up in France, I studied there; I remember the open mockery of Americans by quasi all French, regarding the naive belief in US in religious 'truths', akin to third-world superstitious countries.

brighid

Gemma -
Because you are a Roman Catholic neither answers the question as to WHY you don’t believe in Shiva, or red, pink, or seven-headed dragons, or unicorns. It simply states you are a Roman Catholic. So – do you believe in those things and if you don’t believe in them – why?

B

Gemma Therese

I have never read a book about pink dragons, devotion to them, and people's experience with them. Men and women have not been martyred for their belief in pink dragons. Cloisters of contemplative relgious orders do not exist to love and adore the pink dragon. Schools, hospitals, universities, charities, and nursing homes do not exist in the name of the pink dragon. A pink dragon did not die for my sins. I have no historical or personal reasons to believe in the pink dragon.

Does this suffice?

By the way, all the athiests here keep asking me to "prove" the existence of God. Why should I make the effort, when there is no argument under the sun that would penetrate you? You have faith, too, that God does not exist, since the existence of God cannot be proven OR disproven.

In God's Love,

Gemma Therese

brighid

Now – please onto the red, seven-headed dragons and unicorns please.

Please, stop attempting to obfuscate things here with all the other none sense and answers the questions I ask you.

B

Gemma Therese

I certainly believe in arrogance, and I find my PROOF on this board.

brighid

Quoted by Gemma ...have never read a book about pink dragons, devotion to them, and people's experience with them. Men and women have not been martyred for their belief in pink dragons. Cloisters of contemplative relgious orders do not exist to love and adore the pink dragon. Schools, hospitals, universities, charities, and nursing homes do not exist in the name of the pink dragon. A pink dragon did not die for my sins. I have no historical or personal reasons to believe in the pink dragon.
Does this suffice? ... end quote


No – actually that doesn’t suffice. Simply because you have not read a story about a “pink” dragon does not factually preclude their existence. Ummm – I know of people who have martyred themselves for the belief in Allah and other Gods. Are you meaning to say, that by this “logic” that one should believe in those Gods as well because people are willing to die for these Gods? There are hospitals, convents, schools and such all over the world set up in the names of Gods and Goddesses, specifically those in India. How do you know Jesus wasn’t a pink dragon?

Now, I would take your final quip as being sufficient as to why you don’t believe in pink dragons, but all the other extraneous “Logic” is just a bunch of illogical, prefabricated nonsense the Catholic Church has spoon fed you to “teach” you about the false nature of every claim that isn’t Catholic.

Brighid

[ May 31, 2002: Message edited by: brighid ]</p>

Jayhawker Soule

Is your intent here discussion or exhibition? Your comment would suggest the latter.

brighid

Well, answer the question – yes or no, do you believe in red, seven-headed dragons and unicorns? Come on, it can’t be that difficult to answer. I mean if one is a sucker to believe in PINK dragons, the belief in red ones can’t be that far off now can it and then couple that with it having SEVEN HEADS and you really have a whopper now don’t you?

B

MrDarwin

Gemma Therese, are you bearing false witness? I have asked you no such thing. The fact you would claim this simply demonstrates that you do not understand my questions, or have disregarded them entirely.

Gemma Therese, why should we listen to you rather than to a Southern Baptist, a Mormon, a Jehovah's Witness, a Muslim, or Hindu?

(Edited in the hope that bolding my question will make Gemma Therese finally notice it.)

[ May 31, 2002: Message edited by: MrDarwin ]</p>

Darwin's Finch

Face it, Gemma Therese, your belief in Yahweh is, at bottom, a case of cultural conditioning. The rest of the nonsense you trot out is merely window dressing. You have no more reason to believe in this particular Semitic deity than you do any other of the thousands of gods that have been worshipped at one time or another. Given a different upbringing in a different locale, you would be singing a different tune.

You believe because you need to believe, not because the evidence for such a faith is in any way compelling, as your posts repeatedly demonstrate.