The Other Michael

Hello blackhawk,

If you hop over to the philosophy forum and PM any of the moderators there, I think they could probably direct you to any number of threads discussing the whole "is it real life, or is it just the Matrix in my non-existant mind?" question in excruciating detail.

But that topic is one for another forum.

cheers,
Michael

Rational BAC

Bumble Bee-------

I assume you mean statistical numbers rather than the Biblical "Numbers"

I never said I was never willing to learn.

We are all somewhat guilty on the "numbers" part. Both me and those atheists who are sure that Fundies are an overwhelming majority, lurking behind every corner.

I think I've said this before, but will say it again. Supposedly Fundies are about 30% of Christians---(what I have read anyway and pretty well agreed on even in this thread as a pretty good rule of thumb.) I thought that was an overstatesment since it is not true at all in my area. My personal experience in my area says maybe 1 out of 20 or 30 is more accurate. But my area is not the whole US of A. As I have realized.

From posts on this thread, it is obvious that there are large sections of the "heartland" of this nation that ARE overwhelmingly Fundy. So we all can get a skewed notion of the number of Fundies nationwide.

Point of this thread is to find out what is really true nationwide. I am not out to "make any points" at the expense of the truth. I hope you feel the same way.

Are the Fundies of sufficient number to actually control any major aspect of the nation? I don't think they have the numbers or ever will have the numbers to do that.

Again -------any help in determining how many Fundies there are in this nation is greatly appreciated.

Does everyone agree with my definition of a Fundy? at least for the time being to come to some kind of agreement?

That is to say a Fundy is--------------------- " Someone who believes without question that the Bible is the literal word of God and is inerrant in all ways."

Got to start somewhere, and I think that is a good starting point.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

PS---------Not going to get into the Islam part of your post. I have nothing against Muslims. Am more familiar and more comfortable with Christianity. Both supposed to have the same God anyway you know.

Starboy

Here are just a few:

1) Without Christianity there would be no morality.
2) Christianity strengthens the family.
3) Christianity provides meaning to life.
4) Christian values are good for society.

There is no evidence that Christianity is any better at these things than nothing at all (placebo). And there is some evidence that another non-supernatural religion may be much better at these.
Hello! Anybody home? Why not start with the claim that god exists.
What evidence are you talking about?
This is such a BS question, you see what ever our existence is we are in it. So if you want to label it an illusion or real or whatever it doesn’t matter. But whatever it is science is the human endeavor to explore it and to try to understand it. To me it appears that others share in this reality or illusion and as far as I can tell the illusion is perfect. People completely unaware of each other on the other side of the world discover the exact same things about reality and report them in the journals all the time. This is not proof but it is excellent evidence that an objective reality exists. And you are right I cannot trust my senses or even my thoughts, just as you cannot trust your senses or thoughts. What we think is obvious may turn out to be nonsense. That is why all scientific knowledge is held tentatively. That is why it is important for independent third parties to verify findings. That is why future results can call any current findings into questions. Science is not perfect like religion, it is a very messy enterprise, but the amazing thing about it is that it does work. It is the most successful human enterprise for understanding our surroundings in the entire history of mankind.

As to your insistence that philosophy of science somehow plays a role in all this even modern philosophers will tell you that philosophy has no business telling science how to conduct itself and that philosophy has little to add to the legitimacy of science. It all goes back to confusing “truth” with reality. Since science cannot claim to know all of reality there is no point in calling any currently accepted scientific knowledge “true”. But without any way to determine the “truth” of statements, philosophy has little to nothing to add to science. You see all philosophy has is logic, but logic is not very useful if you can’t make any claims about the “truth” of your propositions. The best you can do is check the consistency of scientific knowledge, however alas, just because something is consistent doesn’t make it real or “true”. Besides if we knew the “truth” there would be no point in science.
So let me get this strait, you are not saying that god exists?
If it pleases you to think the world is an illusion have at it. But whatever you think it is, when you get sick, need electrical power or food don’t worry about it. It’s just an illusion. You can pray to god and it will tell you a bedtime story and tuck you into bed.
I think that using religion to find meaning in life is just one more indication of how wacky it is. The only place you can find meaning for your life is from within not from without. What does it matter that I was placed here for a reason, it was not my reason. How could it be, I didn’t exist. Why should I care what the reasons were for bringing me into existence? There are many things that I care about but I can tell you that making an infinite being happy is not one of them. And in any case, if I am a cog in a machine then I must be doing what I am supposed to be doing because I haven’t seen a supernatural repairman.

And lastly, I think that the only hope for mankind to find peace and harmony in the world it to ditch the nonsense of religion and recognize that we are animals and are part of nature. That the only way to overcome our problems is to understand ourselves in the greatest detail possible not at the hocus pocus superficial level of religion.

Starboy

Rational BAC

This is a bit of an aside, but probably directed at Bumble Bee and maybe Goliath and others.

I do remember a LARGE number of born again Christians and born again movements back in the "Reagan" 80's. Even in my area, it seems at that time, that there were Fundy prayer groups and people holding hands and praying before eating at restaurants and all kinds of Fundy stuff going on all over the place. And it was a legitimate groundswell movement "by the people" movement. Don't really know where it came. Don't know where it went.

But all that pretty much petered out around here very long ago. Just an 80's fad that went the way of all American fads. Then came the 90's and materialism reigned and all anybody cared about was whether Clinton got a BJ from an intern or not.


And the mid-80's were a LONG time ago. Fundamentalist Christianity had its 15 minutes of fame and has been declining ever since. Or so it seems.

Lately, we have had another, but relatively very mild form of Fundamentalism rearing its head, mixed with a little jingoist nationalism. ------------Quite expected as an aftermath of 9-11.

I say relatively mild because I do not really see any tremendous groundswell of support for Christian Fundamentalism in my area.-------------at least nowhere near the extent that it was in the mid 80's.

If anything this slight fundy impetus seems to be coming from the top down rather than from the people up. Hell ---what do you expect? We got a Fundy President. Gonna do what he's got to do I suppose.

But Presidents come and go and the American people get tired of things very fast. I expect the next President to be a very immoral but very intelligent Democrap. (Not sure who yet though)

Derec

I am not sure but I think it had to do with someone featured at TBN not espousing exactly the same salvation doctrine (faith, complete faith and nothing but the faith).

UMoC

Opera Nut

I wouldn't lump philosophy and religion in the same place as being not real.

Philosophy helps us to understand the non-natural science world, thru various theories, like science. Philosophy of religion gets really deep, and goes into why people seem to need religion, etc. And there is also philosophy of science. Those are in social sciences/liberal arts, more or less.

blackhawk

And science cannot answer these questions.

1) I think most would phrase this as there would be no absolute morality and many think that a morality that is not absolute is not morality at all. YOu might disagre with this but it is not an unthinking view of morals.

2) I think it does. Christian ethics tell us to love my wife and vice versa and to love and take care of my children in all respects.

3) Again I agree with this. It does. I do not see that one that believes that there is no God has an overall meaning in life. One might say that it does not matter but then they are just agreeing with what I am saying.

4) They are. The value to love your neighbor is a great for society. Sure Christians have acted stupidly in the past but if men would act truly on Christiam moral principles this world would be a better place.

Well you have your classical evidences for God from ST. Thomas Aquinas. and many others. This is not a thred about the evidences of God but most Christians I know believe in these evidences and then make a rational decision to have faith from there.

My point in asking that question is to show that you have to answer it. You did and thus you used philosophy instead of just science.

Sorry you can't get away from the philosophical assumptions. You made them in this paragraph and others in this thread. You make an assumption and then leave philosophy alone but then say you never had to use it. SOrry it just does not work that way.

What I am saying is that rationally I cannot prove that God exists. Although I have faith that he does exist. I know not many theists who claim that they can prove 100% that God exists. Christianity has always had the element of faith and has made that point clear so I think you are going down a dead end road herre. I believe that there is a God 100% but I can only prove that a God exits 85% or so. Faith covers the rest. It is just one of those things. I can't prove it either way. I have to give my most rational and logical quess. I choose that there is a God. You do not. You see the proof evidence to be mroe like at 10% or less. So you rationally and logically say that I believe that God does not exist. Or I do not believe that I have seen a God that could exist. Something like that. But if I choose to not answer this question I answer it. If I say that I am not going to believe in any God unless I have proof then you have answered the question in the negative.

I do not think that. I only asked you that to show how everyone must answer that question and that question is a philosophical one.

If the one who created you created you for a purpose then it is very logical to believe that finding the meaning to your life that the creator designed you to have would make you fullfilled. GOd is not like Joe down the road. He made al lthat you are so that makesa great difference.

But if we are just animals then possibly part of what we need to do is have a religion to make us happy. Why not? Why does knowing we are just animals help us in anyway? Would it help a lion to know that it was just an animal? I do not think so. I do not see how knowing or not knowing that one is jsut an animal helps us. Also I do not think that we are just an animal anyways.

Starboy [/B][/QUOTE]

livius drusus

Blackhawk, a minor issue of formatting which has been driving me out of my admittedly already-disturbed mind: you've been quoting with the italics tag ([ i ]) up front and closing with the stop bold tag ([ /b ]) so you get neither. Either use [ i ] and [ /i ] or [ b ] and [ /b] (without the spaces). For more vb code info, click here.

Thank you and have mercy on my anality.

Bumble Bee Tuna

Uh...But that was the entire point of my post. The rest of your response was completely irrelevant.

I'm saying that your nrewest "rational" argument for Christianity is that:

1. Christianity grew very quickly, therefore:
2. A supernatural event must have occurred 2000 years ago, only that could make the religion grow quickly-
3. The Bible is the only thing that describes the supernatural event...
4. Therefore I believe the Bible's account of a supernatural event.

However, this argument, just like your last one which was exactly the same except you talked about Christianity having the highest numbers vs. the highest increasing numbers, is fallacious. Observe:

1. Islam grew very quickly, in fact, it grew much quicker than Christianity, therefore:
2. A supernatural event must have occurred 1450 years ago, only that could make the religion grow quickly-
3. The Koran is the only thing that describes the supernatural event...
4. Therefore I believe the Koran's account of a supernatural event.

Except you're not a Muslim. Either you believe your logic is true, and convert to Islam, or you believe your logic is fallacious, and you stop using it to try to rationalize your faith.

You just keep trying to trot out the idea that your religious faith has a rational foundation. It does not. Before you reply with your standard "Just live and let live, you believe yours I'll believe mine" reply, keep in mind: I am letting you believe whatever you want. I don't care if you want to keep being a Christian. The only reason I respond is because you are trying to pretend that it is rational. It is not.

As for the real topic of this thread, YES, fundies definitely have enough power to control very significahnt parts of the country. It has been said many times already, but if you don't see how much influence fundies have on our government, you truly are living in a bubble.

-B

Rational BAC

Bumble Bee---

I find Islam to be a fascinating religion that I would like to learn more about actually. Same God too.

Their recent fundamentalist inclinations do worry me a lot though. A lot more than I am worried about the Christian fundamentalist movement.

Numbers, numbers, numbers-----------somehow you have the idea that I am overly concerned about numbers of adherants being the basis of my Christianity. It is not.

Talking about numbers only because this whole thread is about numbers.

Talked about numbers of Christians in the world only to show that it is something that should not be completely ignored as a useless study or useless theological interest.

You read way more into my posts than I ever intend. I think you know that too.

PS------------Fundies like to do that too--------read way more into something than is really there. You would make a great Fundy-- Bumble Bee.