Albert Cipriani

Oh Ipetrich,
This is just too rich! You inspire me to nominate you for the Limber Award, bequeathed to the contortion artist able to stretch a non-existent point beyond the breaking point. This you have done thusly:


I love it! That's why people everywhere have been burning incense in front of Buddha statues for the last 3,000 years. They have been celebrating atheism! Don't tell them that, tho. It'll be our little secret.

You guys say that since the Greatest Story Ever Told IS SIMILAR to myths, the Greatest Story Ever Told IS a myth. OK. Fair enough. Now let's apply this example of Ipetrich's and Apikorus' illogic to the Buddha. Since we have it on Ipetrich's authority that the Buddha was an atheist, let us illogically compare the Buddha's story to other known atheists' stories.

1) Hitler and Stalin and Mao were atheists.
2) These modern-day atheists all fought wars.
3) The Buddha was [b]"a sort-of atheist."[b]
4) Ergo Buddha fought wars.

The myth that Buddha was a tree-hugging pacifist must be just that, a myth, for we have newsreel footage of the wars modern-day atheists fought. No doubt, if cameras had been around in Buddha's day, we'd have proof and could watch that earlier-day atheist mounted on elephants rampaging villages.

See how easy it is, once you give into illogic, to "support" your bogus biases? -- Doubly Disgusted with You Both, Albert The Traditional Catholic

lpetrich

Exactly right. Especially, as you point out, when this criterion can provide evidence for religions other than Albert Cipriani's.

There are legions of examples of altruism in the biosphere, including numerous examples of self-sacrificing behavior:

Most cells of multicellular organisms will die when the organism dies; on average, only one (asexual) or two (sexual) cells will survive. This is true even of blue whales (100 tons ~ 10^17 cells) and sequoia trees (4000 tons ~ 4*10^18 cells).

Many multicellular-organism cells are sacrificial, such as various surface cells (skin, digestive system), blood cells, wood and bark cells, and deciduous-leaf cells. Cells even have a built-in suicide mechanism, apoptosis or Programmed Cell Death; under certain conditions, a cell will commit hara-kiri.

Sacrifice of resources for the production of offspring is essentially universal; it sometimes goes to such extremes as not trying to survive a cold or dry season (annual plants) and refusing to eat while watching over eggs and ultimately dying (octopuses). This typically results in overproduction of germ cells, especially male ones (sperm, pollen), resulting in overproduction of offspring (our species is almost a limiting case of low offspring overproduction, though ours represents a strategy of a few big ones instead of a lot of small ones).

In full-scale social (eusocial) insects, only a small number of individuals reproduce; the large majority of them do other tasks, including helping the reproducers. This is carried one step further by worker honeybees, which have kamikaze stings; their stings are barbed, making them stick in their victims -- and getting the stings pulled out of the bees as they try to fly away, killing them.

And evolutionary biologists have come with a very successful hypothesis that explains such self-sacrifice: kin selection. All these acts of self-sacrifice are done for the sake of other possessors of the self-sacrificer's genes, enabling the genetic tendency for self-sacrifice to continue.

Compared to all this, some fairy tale about some religious prophet who was nailed to a cross -- and who was supposedly an omnipotent being who could have jumped right off of it - seems very pale.

Albert Cipriani

Dear Liana,
If you were really a "former Catholic" you'd know that they never put something in the communion wafers. That's the heretical Protestant view of CONSUBSTANTIATION, whereby God shares space with bread. Catholic theology maintains that bread is TRANSUBSTANTIATED into God. He is not put into the bread, rather, the bread is turned out for Him.

Like the small talk in a western movie before the good and bad guys dueled and they'd say "This town ain't big enough for the two of us," the finite substance of bread is not big enough for the infinite substance of the Godhead. Ergo, nothing is put into bread. Rather, Everything replaces bread.

I'm glad you


Thrills prove nothing. But what we are thrilled about proves what we are about.

For example, Hitler was a coprophiliac. He got a sexual thrill out of excrement. Ergo, one could not be far from the truth to infer that Hitler was full of shit.

Likewise, myths about theism have always thrilled humans everywhere. Ergo, to quote St. John: "And the Word is the Light that enters every man that comes into this world." That is to say, God is in us so we are thrilled by myths regarding God around us. Myths man has been thrilled enough by to pass down from the beginning of recorded history about god around us speak of us being full of God.

Like 6 month-old St. John the Baptist who leapt in St. Ann's womb when Mary entered her house pregnant with our Lord. We, too, are naturally thrilled when we come into contact with theistic myths, not atheistic ones. Mythology proves this about us while proving nothing about God. Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

GunnerJ

Sorry to butt in, but...

However, if she is, like I am, a former Catholic, she doesn't believe in that illogical mumbo-jumbo any more, so your correction is wihtout need.

theophilus

If God exists and he controls the operation of his creation, then his dealings are not "extraordinary." They are only extraordinary if one assumes the atheists worldview which is unproven.

What test do you have to know if a miracle is true or not? How did you verify that test?

Apikorus

Theophilus, it seems as if it is you who is not paying attention. Or, more likely, you are dodging the question. Exactly how would you assess the prophetic status of some modern claimant? Would you give him a bible quiz? What if he were to predict that a comet will strike the earth in 2005? The bible isn't exactly a roadmap of the future.

Regarding the Iliad, are you saying that a book must explicitly claim to be the "word of God" in order for it to be true? Where exactly does the bible make such a claim? Please note that the bible is an assembly of different books. Where is it explicitly claimed that the Book of Ezra is divine? Where is it claimed that Qohelet is divine?

And what of the Asclepius testimonials? Do you believe the written testimony of the ancient man who claimed that his prayer to Asclepius resulted in the miraculous creation of two functioning eyeballs where none had previously existed?

Pay attention!

theophilus

I think I answered this already. Whether the accounts are true does not address the "truth" of the message. The Bible accounts for supernatural powers which operate, by God's providence, against his kingdom.

[ January 08, 2002: Message edited by: theophilus ]</p>

Apikorus

No, no, I'm afraid that will not do, theophilus. The bible is an assembly of books, and in the case of the New Testament the canon was decided by the vote of a council. Different traditions have a different canon. Jews do not accept the New Testament as canonical. The Catholic bible contains books such as Jubilees. The Eastern Orthodox church has a larger canon still. While Jude is in the Protestant canon, it quotes "prophecy" from the noncanonical book of Enoch.

So please explain why a particular book - the Book of Ezra, say - is canonical, while the Temple Scroll from Qumran cave XI is not.

LianaLi

Thanks, lpetrich and Rimstalker.

Unfortunately, I have to plead guilt to the charge of former Catholicism. If you’ve witnessed some of the debates I’ve had with Amos, who also claims to be catholic, on practice and catechism, you would have seen me call him on it. I, unfortunately, have been educated as a catholic, so I’m well aware of transubstantiation.

Although, with recent witnessing by Catholics, I do have to wonder if they’re slipping acid hits into the communion wafers.

You’re dodging the bullet here. How do you differentiate between “thrills?” If I follow your premise correctly, I’m thrilled by reading a myth, because I’m full of the character that the myth is about. You’re obviously operating on the basis of the xian myth. I’m not. I get thrills reading Greek mythology, does this mean I’m full of Zeus? I like reading Irish myths as well. Does this mean I’m full of the Sidhe? I also get a “thrill” reading evolutionary texts, and genetics. Does this mean I’m an atheist, because those texts go counter to young earth theories?

The problem with being thrilled about things already within us, is that it does not differentiate between thrills. To use “thrills” as a standard, one must assume ALL things which thrill contain some sort of truth. Problem is, these multiple versions of truth, as accepted on that thrill standard, have a high tendency to contradict eachother. How do you explain that, unless being thrilled by something inherent within a human being is not a viable standard?

-Liana

Albert Cipriani

Dear Liana,
I, too, am aesthetically thrilled by every one of the things you listed, even evolutionary theory, which I reject on religious grounds. You said it all when you concluded correctly:


Yes, this means the thrill standard results in their "high tendency to contradict each other." That's why we have a brain, to sort it all out.

The fact that there are no atheistic myths (unless evolution qualifies) validates your conclusion and supports my point:
1) Atheism is not thrilling.
2) Truth is thrilling.
3) Ergo, Atheism contains no truth.
– Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic