I don't get "moderate" christians...

[Brian37]

I've been thinking about this for a while now and it's really been getting on my nerves. I was on Youtube the other day looking at some video pertaining to Evolution vs Christianity, in the comments section below I see all these comments from liberal christians complaining that there are plenty of Christians who believe in evolution, and that the bible story of genesis "isn't meant to be taken literally"   #-o

I'd agree that you can believe in a god and accept evolution. But to be a Christian?  How can you trust anything that the bible says when you've wholeheartedly accepted that it's take on the very origins of life on earth is completely innacurate? How/Where do they even know where to draw the line? If the bible's can't even give us an accurate idea of how we came to be, what does that say about the rest of it's content? If there was no garden of eden, no tree of knowledge, why do we need a savior to begin with?

Not only that, but their refusal to deny the fact that the bible clearly deems homosexual acts "destestable" baffle me as well. Gay christians especially confuse me. I have a family member who is gay and also happens to be a preacher and I just do not understand why he would even want to associate with a religion the openly rejects him, let alone preach it to the masses.

Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled at the amount of theists that accept evolution.  It's the fact that they still desperately cling to whatever's left of their faulty theology that gets me.  

Am I the only one who feels this way?

Well the fact is that their are believers that accept science. However,  I think this is merely a delusion on their part and to me science and religion will never be compatible.

Well, the good thing is technology and social media are reducing the hiding places of superstition. Our modern knowledge of science as a species is young compared to the 100s of thousands of years of human ignorance we evolved with. Social norms are hard for our species to give up long term.

Sam Harris has the same indictment of moderates when it comes to issues of global division. And Victor Stinger in his book "The New Atheism" dispels the myth that science does not have anything to say about god claims.

But yea, gay Christians and gay republicans would be like black people insisting on KKK memberships.

When my black co workers rightfully point out racism and profiling it pisses me off when they puff out their chests when I question their god belief when they don't know, or care to know how many atheists supported the civil rights movement. They hypocritically do to me what was done to them. "Know your place token atheist".

But this isn't a label issue as much as it is an evolutionary one. Dawkins discribes this kneejerk reaction in evolution in his book "The God Delusion" as the alpha male bird in a flock reacting violently to a subordinate bird, even when it is offering it help.

[Colanth]

Also there are some people who believe that this is an authentic writing by Josephus and my grand-father is one of them.

Ask your grandfather what he'd think of a passage in Luke that called Zeus the chief god of all gods.  It's about the same as a Jew writing the Testimonium Flavianum.

[Rob4you]

I've been thinking about this for a while now and it's really been getting on my nerves. I was on Youtube the other day looking at some video pertaining to Evolution vs Christianity, in the comments section below I see all these comments from liberal christians complaining that there are plenty of Christians who believe in evolution, and that the bible story of genesis "isn't meant to be taken literally"   #-o

I'd agree that you can believe in a god and accept evolution. But to be a Christian?  How can you trust anything that the bible says when you've wholeheartedly accepted that it's take on the very origins of life on earth is completely innacurate? How/Where do they even know where to draw the line? If the bible's can't even give us an accurate idea of how we came to be, what does that say about the rest of it's content? If there was no garden of eden, no tree of knowledge, why do we need a savior to begin with?

I don't know all about religion, but this is what I think:

I also agree that you could believe in God and accept Evolution, but in which God? There are some problems:

Christianity and Evolution: they are incompatible.  Why some "moderate" christians accept it? Maybe because they still are not so brainwashed and deluded to believe in Genesis literally.  The incompatibility is mainly with Christianity and Islam, because in Judaism they do not need to believe literally in Genesis as much as Chrisitanity does.

I read an article some time ago, about what people accept as explanation the Origin of the Human Species, and buddhists, hindus, even jews accepted the Theory of Evolution, and not surprinsingly those who don't, were christians and muslims, only the most "moderate or progressive" ones did accept it.

Christians reject it because they need an explanation for the origin of sin, and because they need a savior, without that pivotal explanation, the whole thing starts to crumble.
Muslims reject it because they want to believe that the Quran is perfect, and they don't like the idea that the Theory of Evolution doesn't mention Allah at all.

Not only that, but their refusal to deny the fact that the bible clearly deems homosexual acts "destestable" baffle me as well. Gay christians especially confuse me. I have a family member who is gay and also happens to be a preacher and I just do not understand why he would even want to associate with a religion the openly rejects him, let alone preach it to the masses.

Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled at the amount of theists that accept evolution.  It's the fact that they still desperately cling to whatever's left of their faulty theology that gets me.  

Am I the only one who feels this way?

No, you are not alone, I don't understand either.  I think homosexual christians exists because they're still not honest with themselves, maybe they want to please their family, still have fear of eternal torture, but no matter how many arguments they use to try to justify it, the Bible clearly and openly CONDEMNS Homosexuality!, they are just deluding themselves.

It's like if a black person would join the KKK (like if they even would allow that) with an argument like: "You know, those extreme acts of violence were for a specific place and an specific time, you're taking it out of context".  :-s  

[Jorjor]

Well the fact is that their are believers that accept science. However,  I think this is merely a delusion on their part and to me science and religion will never be compatible.

Agreed. Sure, you can be a science oriented person and religious in the same way you can be a vegan and work at the steakhouse  :P

[gomtuu77]

Even if you hold that thoughts are immaterial, they themselves don't materially affect the material world.  They cause people to affect it.

How is it that if immaterial thoughts "cause people to affect [the world]", that thoughts don't materially affect the world?  Wouldn't that be similar to saying a baseball player never hits a ball?  After all, he's merely causing the bat to come in contact with the ball.  I think you're stretching on that one.

Now if you claim that an immaterial part of God causes his material part to materially influence the world, that's fine, but where can we find this material part?

I didn't.

Oh, and a few different branches of science show that there was no single pair of human beings who are ancestral to all of us.  There may have been (and probably - but not definitely - was) a single organism that's ancestral to all of us, but not a single pair of human beings, or even a single pair of mammals.  Claiming that Adam and Eve were real people is being anti-science.

Actually, I've read both versions from secular sources.  But I take your point, in that the last version that I read about from a secular on-line news source was a qualified retraction of the specific original 1 man and 1 woman DNA ancestry.  I don't actually know enough about that topic to say that much, but I'm open to the evidence on either side.  My apologies if that's anti-science.  I'll discard beliefs when I conclude that there is enough good warrant to do so, not before.

(And why aren't you assuming - like you wanted us to assume that we're talking to a Christian - that you're talking to atheists?  Most of us don't assume that Jesus was a real person.)

My apologies.  Did I not assume I was talking to atheists?  I'm afraid I don't quite understand what you mean?  I don't believe I ever made the claim that any of you assumed Jesus was a real person.  To my recollection, I was conveying my own belief when I mentioned Jesus.  Is that supposed to be inappropriate somehow?

[gomtuu77]

Electro-chemical impulses in the brain may correspond to or correlate with thoughts, but they are not identical things.

Show us thoughts without a brain and we'll consider your position.

Until then, your position is not even worth considering.

I've stated that thoughts are immaterial.  As immaterial things, they do not have a physical form or body and no extension in space.  Given this state of affairs, what sense does it make for you to ask me to "Show [you] thoughts..."?  The question itself is an absurdity.  It would be like me asking you to tell me what an invisible man looked like or to describe a one-ended stick.  It's a nonsense statement.

So was it your intent to declare that you won't consider my position unless I can do something that's absurd and logically impossible?  Forgive me for saying so, but this doesn't strike me as a reasonable, fair, or even-handed approach to dealing with another person.

[Plu]

I've stated that thoughts are immaterial.

But we can measure them. So they can't be immaterial. You cannot measure something immaterial.

[gomtuu77]

I've stated that thoughts are immaterial.

But we can measure them. So they can't be immaterial. You cannot measure something immaterial.

What do you mean by, "But we can measure them..."???

[Plu]

We can hook a machine up to someone's skull and reconstruct images of stuff they are thinking about. The technology is still in its infancy, but the simple fact that it works at all, as limited as it is, shows that thoughts are material things that can be measured.

You can even already buy mind-control based input devices for your computer like the Emotiv. It's quite possible to scan someone's brain and figure out what they're thinking about. It's just really complicated stuff that takes a lot of research to do, but there is nothing to suggest that a thought cannot be measured. In fact, we have ways to do just that.

[gomtuu77]

We can hook a machine up to someone's skull and reconstruct images of stuff they are thinking about. The technology is still in its infancy, but the simple fact that it works at all, as limited as it is, shows that thoughts are material things that can be measured.

That's not true.  What we can do is tell which parts of the brain are activated when thinking about particular things and even what kinds of things might be being thought about or imagined at the time based on the fact that we've learned to correlate these things.  That's entirely different than me imagining what my mom looks like and someone being able to know and/or reproduce the imagine that I have in my mind.  All you're measuring is the activity of the interface mechanism between our immaterial and material self when certain thoughts occur.

You can even already buy mind-control based input devices for your computer like the Emotiv. It's quite possible to scan someone's brain and figure out what they're thinking about. It's just really complicated stuff that takes a lot of research to do, but there is nothing to suggest that a thought cannot be measured. In fact, we have ways to do just that.

Again, this is misleading.  You're talking about pattern recognition or the ability to make prosthetic arms move.  You're talking about crude secondary interface devices rather than the thoughts and images themselves.  Whatever mind-control based device you have, it is not identical to the thought in your head.  It may respond to certain activities going on in your own internal interface device (i.e. the brain), but it still isn't identical with the immaterial thought or image in your head and never will be.  My brain and the various neurons and synapsis being activated in your brain are a symptom or effect of your thought or image, they are not the thought or image itself.  One is material electro-chemical interface mechanism, and the other is an immaterial product or rendering of your immaterial self/soul.

So again, you're taking no measure of a thought or an image itself.  You're measuring the corresponding or correlative activity of the interface device involved in translating that immaterial thing into something actionable.

[Plu]

That's entirely different than me imagining what my mom looks like and someone being able to know and/or reproduce the imagine that I have in my mind.

Actually that's exactly what's being worked on. Like I said, still in its infancy, but this is literally reading the brain and reconstructing the image of the thing people are thinking about. It's low resolution and requires people to look at an image before it can be reconstructed, but that's just the baby steps. The theory works, that means it's possible to rebuild images of things people are thinking of.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsjDnYxJ0bo

You still have to show the existance of the immaterial part. There's no reason to believe it's there if everything can be explained without it. We can see your thoughts happening. You keep assuming that the immaterial part has to be there, but we have yet to find any reason to assume its presence.

[Colanth]

Even if you hold that thoughts are immaterial, they themselves don't materially affect the material world.  They cause people to affect it.

How is it that if immaterial thoughts "cause people to affect [the world]", that thoughts don't materially affect the world?

I have to explain what the words mean?  I don't understand your confusion.  Thoughts can not directly affect material things (unless you accept telekinesis as being real).  That's just what the words mean.

Wouldn't that be similar to saying a baseball player never hits a ball?

No, I've hit many balls - with bats, with gloves - and with my bare hands.  Does a batter normally bat with a part of his body?  Of course not, but that's not what "hit the ball" means in baseball.  "God made it rain" means that God materially affected the material world, not that he created a rainmaker and sent him and his equipment back in time to cause rain.

I think you're stretching on that one.

I'm not the one trying to use words in ways they're not commonly used.

Now if you claim that an immaterial part of God causes his material part to materially influence the world, that's fine, but where can we find this material part?

I didn't.

It's either that or an immaterial god is directly affecting the material world - which isn't possible by any known means.  ("God can do it" isn't a known means, it's just "I don't know" in different words.)

Oh, and a few different branches of science show that there was no single pair of human beings who are ancestral to all of us.  There may have been (and probably - but not definitely - was) a single organism that's ancestral to all of us, but not a single pair of human beings, or even a single pair of mammals.  Claiming that Adam and Eve were real people is being anti-science.

Actually, I've read both versions from secular sources.

But not from geneticists.  I really don't care what some "secular" who's not an expert in the relevant fields has to say.

But I take your point, in that the last version that I read about from a secular on-line news source

I was talking about science, not news (which has so little science in its science reports that it might as well be called homeopathy).

was a qualified retraction of the specific original 1 man and 1 woman DNA ancestry.

There was never any such scientific claim TO retract.

I don't actually know enough about that topic to say that much, but I'm open to the evidence on either side.

The evidence is in the genes.  The age for the Y-MRCA was 140 to 338 kya.  The age for the matrilineal MRCA was 140-200 kya.  In different places.  Now if you can explain how 2 people who were never in the same place could be a reproductive pair (without artificial insemination) ...

My apologies if that's anti-science.  I'll discard beliefs when I conclude that there is enough good warrant to do so, not before.

No one really cares whether you, in particular, agree with science or not.  (And you're probably not educationally qualified to determine whether the evidence is "good enough warrant".)  It's been as firmly established that there's no single male-female pair common ancestor for human beings as it has been that water at STP is liquid.  You can accept reality or not, it's your choice.

(And why aren't you assuming - like you wanted us to assume that we're talking to a Christian - that you're talking to atheists?  Most of us don't assume that Jesus was a real person.)

My apologies.  Did I not assume I was talking to atheists?

"Jesus did" is talking to Christians.  We assume that fictional characters don't actually do anything.

I'm afraid I don't quite understand what you mean?  I don't believe I ever made the claim that any of you assumed Jesus was a real person.

"Jesus did" (whatever you claim that he did or was or said) is the claim that he actually existed.

To my recollection, I was conveying my own belief when I mentioned Jesus.  Is that supposed to be inappropriate somehow?

I've never seen you post "IMO, Jesus etc.", or "I believe that Jesus etc.".  You always post "Jesus did".

How would you respond, on a Christian forum, to someone who never mentioned Jesus without it being in the form of "Jesus, if he had actually existed, which he didn't,"?  You're doing exactly the Christian equivalent of that.  Is it inappropriate?  It is if you ask us not to do the same thing to you - which you did.

[Colanth]

What gomtuu77 doesn't seem to understand is that if you depend on news reports for your science education, you're going to be 2 or 3 years (or more) behind the times - which is often a few generations behind.  It's like saying that cars can't go more than 20 MPH, because Model A Fords can't.

Even reading science websites isn't much better, because they miss a lot of papers, so they don't get something until it's published in a journal or magazine that they subscribe to - and that's long after the fact.

(And I seem to recall reading about reading what someone was thinking about many months ago, so it's not that new, as cutting-edge science goes.  Computer control by direct brain reading is even older, IIRC.)

We're not likely to see any change in the way theists handle things like this, though.  They all seem to think that - for some strange reason - if everyone can't understand something from reading a simple description of it, it's not real.  (Then ask one of them to describe what happens when you press a key on the keyboard of a computer, step by step, and see if they get as close as Andromeda is to us.  But they'll swear that they understand computers.)