Draygomb

Technos

Well the universe could be bi-centric, exspanding from one center into the other which would cause a collapse.

Or, Imagine all of the energy of the universe turned into mass a spread throughout the universe such that nothing was moving except 2 little particles in the center that are in perfect orbit around oneanother. Everytime these particles hit the points at which they entered their orbit Time will be as if it had looped.

Amos

Hello Jaliet, I think this is funny.

I believe that mankind is androgyne and human and woman are opposite gender identities needed to procreate God in the image of man.

Both our gender identities are an illusion but needed to form our sexes needed to procreate man in the image of God.

Amos

[ February 19, 2002: Message edited by: Amos ]</p>

Ted Hoffman

Technos and DrayGomb

I have noo been very keen on your aside discussion but from your arguments, Draygomb is saying that repetition of specific patterns would amount to time travel. Well, the answer is NO. We have people who repeat specific patterns all the time and it does not amount to time travel. If you are talking about traveling BACK in time then one would be revisiting an action - without necessarily repeating that action. Time has to elapse. The events/ actions are the same as they were those years ago as they are to the person who has travelled back in time. I do not believe it would be possible for instance to alter things in the past because they are not available to change. They are history: only revisitable.

A pendulum is capable of repeating a specific pattern. That does not amount to travelling in time does it?

I think time travel involves being able to observe what would ordinarily not be observable because it has changed. So its like rewinding a film back to a previous scene.

When you are talking about the universe expanding and so on, which part of the universe is supposed to be expanding - its radius? the orbit of the planets? the size of the matter within it? the people in it? which part? and what would cause the fluctuation that would result in this expansion-contraction?
The universe has subsystems within it eg the solar system, the weather system etc, and I believe they are the ones that are capable of that expansion and contraction. Because they have components that interact to result in certain changes.
The universe, I believe would only be capable of expanding and contracting if it were interacting in some way with some other universe/ entity.
I believe its self-contained and is unchanging. What I believe is changing are the "contents" of the universe, not its size.

Ted Hoffman

AmosSo now man is hermaphrodite. And my penis is just an illusion. Ok. That is very clear now. Is it a scientific concept that sperms are just illusions?

Draygomb

Jaliet

To me, only an exact repeat of the entire pattern of the universe would indicate time had looped. Every particle of energy would have to be right back where it was, heading in the same direction, at the same speed. And if you weren't there the first time you couldn't be there the second time (or it wouldn't be the same as it was) though the outcome could change.

Time is the measure of change. Therefore anything that changes has time. So whatever started time must be unchangeable because it couldn't change without time.

Amos

So now androgyne is the same a hermaphrodite and your penis the creator of life. Have you perhaps noticed that you also pie with it and that it is not as enduring as you would like to to be?

Fertility researchers have us believe now that our penis is just needed to transport the sperms and that the number and vitality of our sperm is actually influenced by mental stimilation, such as foreplay and anticipation of the upcoming event. Like in "think hard and think lots."

Ted Hoffman

Amos
I didn't mention that the penis is the creator of life.
This is complete bullshit. You need to demonstrate that the penis is an illusion.

Amos

But Jaliet, I never stated that the penis is an illusion. I wrote: <strong>
Both our gender identities are an illusion but needed to form our sexes needed to procreate man in the image of God.</strong>

If our gender identity was the same as our sex identity the word androgyne would mean the same as hermaphrodite and homosexual-ity would be impossible. See the difference?

You may disagree with my choice of the word "illusion" which really is not wrong because it makes hormone therapy and "sexual orientation" posssible.

Tercel

Theli,

I’m sure God could be convincing if necessary. The sky going dark, a huge fireball appearing out of nowhere and a booming voice saying “THIS IS GOD SPEAKING” might rate as somewhat convincing. I’m sure God could be even more convincing if necessary.

Not being scientifically advanced does not equal stupid or not knowing anything about anything. People haven’t magically changed with the advent of science.

True. However, given a slightly less fantastic scenario, would you not consider it reasonable evidence? After all, the vast majority of what you know comes from hearing others and believing what they told you, is it fair to completely ignore what people say when it comes to the miraculous and religious?

Agreed. In every situation you need to establish which you think is most probable.

Fair enough reasoning.
So what does one do when confronted with a huge number of miraculous testimonies, in many of which it appears the person(s) were in a sound state of mind (or their was more than one person present) and the person(s) seem to be both honest and upright to the best of your ability to discern.
I have read in a variety of books, and heard in several oral testimonies, accounts of alleged miraculous events which met the above standards quite adequately.
I would also point out that if the events which were being described were not miraculous I would have no hesitation whatsoever in believing the absolute truth of these accounts. Should I perhaps reject what these accounts tell me on the basic that “miracles do not happen?” I think that would be rather presumptuous of me, I could hardly claim to be unbiased or non-presuppostional if I was to reject the evidence on the basis that I’d always assumed it didn’t happen. Or perhaps I should reject it on the basis that miracles are so rare and unlikely? However, I find that position would also be an inconsistent system of assessment: I would be quite prepared to accept a testimony (which met the above standards of course) that a person had won the lottery, despite the initial improbability of that event; Similarly I do not simply disbelieve it when I read that someone woke up alive in a morgue three days after they’d been declared dead, such things are not likely to happen but it certainly takes no more than the most basic of testimonies to convince me they did. Of course with enough people, the rare and the extremely unlikely does happen occasionally and there is no reason to disbelieve it when we hear accounts of it, and miracles would seem to be no exception to this rule.
Thus, I must personally conclude that I have no sufficient reason to believe the accounts I’ve heard and read are false. Indeed, the number and volume of believable, honest and sane accounts must surely convince me completely: Because, if even one account is correct then a miracle has indeed occurred. And I have heard far more than one account. And this is the major reason why I am a Christian.

Scientific investigation serves to prove to the limits of human ability that the event was not explicable by natural processes. Science can’t declare something to be a miracle: such a statement is up to the religious authorities, scientific analysis merely declares it inexplicable by science. Most scientifically investigated miracles are generally those involving alleged Healings. Where things like the instantaneous healing of broken bones or a cure of paralysis is alleged, scientific investigation into the accuracy of the diagnosis and the factual nature of the “Healed” condition is a useful tool.

The argument from the Resurrection normally takes the form of an analysis of the events surrounding the resurrection of Jesus, and attempts to argue that based on the known evidence, the best explanation was that Jesus truly rose from the dead. It is not an argument I particularly favour as I am not really knowledgeable enough of scholarly analysis of the Bible and early Christian tradition to be able to put forward adequately the important supporting evidences. In addition the argument is not always particularly successful against sceptics as it relies on at least a minimal acceptance of a few basic multiply attested events as fact - however sceptics have a tendency to dismiss everything in the Bible as complete and utter myth in the face of any scholars analysis to the complete contrary.

Yes, the Trilemma is similar to your Elvis analysis. It’s not a particularly strong argument as far as they go: It’s main use being to shut up those who claim “Jesus was a great teacher/sage, but he wasn’t divine” (which was quite a popular line at one stage) by pointing out that if Jesus made the claim to be divine and it was correct then we must question his sanity and his honest both of which seem to cast doubts on the greatness of his teaching. And thus if we insist on declaring him a great teacher then logically we should accept his declarations about himself.

The Fine Tuning argument notes that the universe has the ability to sustain intelligent life. It looks at what those properties are that are allowing the universe to do this and questions how far the could be different to what they are while still allowing life to exist. Now it seems possible that had our universe been completely and utterly different to all that we know and can imagine that it could have sustained life unimaginably different to ours. However for the sake of sanity we can qualify the investigation to looking at how far the fundamental constants that characterise our universe could have differed to what they are while still allowing our universe to sustain life as we know it. Modern science allows us to calculate that there are a number of properties which are extremely important to life as we know it (eg without them having their values or something close, the universe no longer still exist, or there would be no stars and thus temperatures close on absolute zero and no elements beyond hydrogen and helium) and several of these have very tiny potentials for error – in the order of one in ten to the power of fifty. The Fine Tuning argument proceeds to argue that such precision Fine Tuning is extremely more likely to occur because an intelligent creator wished to create a universe with life in than that chance would happen to cause several variables to fall within such tiny margins. A popular come-back for the atheist seems to be to suggest that there might exist many-many (say 10^250 or even infinite) universes out there and thus chance had to get it right sometime. This one always amuses me as it has the atheist defending existence of the invisible and the undetectable in place of the theist.

Actually that’s probably not a very good name for it. The Teleological argument proper is something like the “design” argument against evolution. I’m not concerned with that and I’m happy to accept evolution. But what I’m meaning here by “Teleological” is meanings themselves. The very nature of truth, meanings and abstract concepts can be formed into a dualist-Platonic type argument firstly against materialism, but ultimately arguing the pre-eminence of the mind over the material and hence for an intelligent creator.

Tercel

Tercel

That depends: What counts as “myth”? The distinction, I think, is not always clear. True historical events over the centuries can get embroidered or have morals added to them. The core of original truth will still be in there somewhere no doubt, but the story should be recognised for what it is and thus not be taken completely literally or as true in all places. Any time there is a long delay between the events themselves and their recording it is unavoidable that such things would happen. Thus with some of the history books of the Old Testament, written five centuries or more (significantly more in the case of Genesis) after the events they are describing tend towards the mythical. True, it is of course possible, even probable, that earlier sources were used and in many places scholars can analyse these usages, but for the most part these religious histories should be clearly understood for what they are. The writer’s purpose is normally to show the actions of God in his history and so attributes various events to the workings of God or his angels or Satan as he sees fit.
Now of course these books are extremely useful at showing the writer’s conception of God, past history - insofar as it can be feasibly extracted from the legendary development in the stories, as well as providing stories with morals.

What myths are there in the Bible? Well as I have already commented, much of the Old Testament history takes a semi-mythical character – especially the greater the chronological distance between the writer and the event. Early Genesis should clearly be read as an allegory, whilst much of the rest Genesis is obviously of a mythical character. Similarlly the accounts of the exodus and the subsequent invasion of Israel no doubt border on myth. (I don’t mean they didn’t happen – I have little doubt that the core of stories is factual - but rather that there are no doubt improvements etc made to the true story.) eg the story of the donkey talking to Balaam looks like an out and out legend, while God dictating 1000 or so laws especially priestly ones looks suspicious to say the least – experience teaches that priests like to have the laws they have developed over the centuries placed as coming directly from their God.
The several strains of history (whoever compiled the accounts we have clearly used about 4 different sources – normally called J, E, P, and D.) also help to clarify in some places the factual events from the legendary development.

I would say I think it likely that Noah was a real person who did indeed build a boat to escape from a flood that covered his land, and I have little doubt that Moses was a real person. Others would beg to differ and say everything up to and including the exodus account is legend. That’s fine too.
No, for the reason that I doubt there is anything whatsoever to be gained from the study of such myths. I think we are better looking to more recent and clearer revelation for such things. And for me that is the Christian beliefs as depicted in the New Testament.

Ha, ha. I was referring to archaeology and cosmology. Science has nothing to say on the possibility of miracles, but it is a useful tool for examining the truth of alleged historical events. Eg we can find that there is little evidence of a world-wide flood etc

Methuselah and the longevity of people described in Genesis is a rather interesting case actually, because there are a number of other ancient records attributing similarly (even significantly greater) long lives to people of that time.
But anyway, I disagree with the examples you give. The people in the stories do recognise these things as miraculous. Moses definitely was very curious that the bush was on fire, for example, and he didn’t simply wonder on by without so much as a “wow”.
What I mean, is that a miracle should not be treated as a normal event. If we find that the story or characters are treating random miraculous events the same as run of the mill occurrences then we have evidence that what we are reading is mythological.

Such Just-So myths don’t usually have a moral but rather are fanciful explanations of why things are the way they are. However the women’s pain during childbirth could be viewed as meaning that all pain is a result of our rejection of God.

What I mean by this is that the account explains how things got the way they are. Some pagan creation myths have fairly fanciful ways that the world came into being: as a result of an egg hatching or a god dying etc. And the Genesis creation story explains why snakes now have no legs. And throughout Genesis there are constant references to “and that is why the town/place/person was named X”. Miraculous events as you describe above are not the same as this.

”Womenkind” .
But seriously, I’m not sure that she represents anything in particular. No doubt somebody thought that you can have a man without a women if he’s going to be the start of the human race.

In the early 4th century AD the Emperor Constantine lifted the ban on Christianity throughout the Roman Empire. (Up until then Christianity had been illegal and Christians had been periodically killed en masse by the Romans) This gave the unprecedented opportunity to have a large gathering of Christians from throughout the world, and resulted in Church councils being held later in the 4th century (325 AD at Nicaea and 381 AD at Constantinople). The councils were used to ensure Christian teachings, beliefs, and scriptures were uniform throughout the world. The councils resulted in a formal declaration of the books of the Bible, and the Nicene creed as a universal statement of the basic Christian beliefs.
The Nicene creed is termed “Ecumenical” as it accepted completely by pretty much all branches of Christianity: Orthodox, Catholic and all the major Protestant groups.

One of the leading figures during the Protestant Reformation was Calvin who wrote a lot of books on theology. Calvin’s theology was later argued against by the Bishop Arminius who attempted to put a bit of balance back into Calvin’s theology, and he established five points where he disagreed, his position became known as Arminianism. (Calvin was very into the idea that God is completely sovereign and absolutely controls everything) Supporters of Calvin’s ideas argued back with their versions of Arminius’ five points –the famous TULIP (an acronym for the Calvinist beliefs)- and their position became known as Calvinism. The Calvinist/Arminianist debate continues today. While I think some of the differences between the two amount to arguing whether the glass is half-full or half empty, the main difference can be seen thus:
Not everyone is saved. Is this because God does not will everyone to be saved and instead he wills some to be damned, or because God’s will is thwarted?
Calvinist: Nothing happens contrary to God’s will. Therefore he must be willing them to damnation.
Arminian: God wills salvation for all. Therefore something else is stopping God saving them. That something is their own will in rejecting God.
Both theologies have Bible verses that support them, and both have Bible verses which a problematic for them.
Personally I think Arminianism follows much more closely to the spirit of the Bible and the problematic verses are comparatively small and ambiguous, compared to serveral clear statements which are directly contrary to Calvinist teachings. Others disagree with me. I think the majority of the main protestant groups are now Arminians, but the Presbyterians and Methodists are still Calvinist while a few like the Baptists have tended have a foot in both camps.

Tercel