You don't come at my beliefs because they are much more open to viewpoint than yours. People seem to confuse getting a thought process rammed down your throat as narrow-minded. Religion-based thinking is as narrow-minded as thinking can get. Every now and then you run across people like Led By Fire who have some other type of thinking; but that is rare. He does not defend the Bible with more Bible, because he realizes that's fruitless. He has a lot of what some people lack, a basis of fundamentals.
I'm open, but not to narrowmindedness. Present me with some substance, and we can have a discussion. Else, prepare to be torn down.
For example:
From the King James version of the New TestamentMatthew 2:1. Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem,
2. Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east and we are come to worship him.
If the star was in the East, then why did the so-called “wise” men travel to the West? Did they simply lose their way, accidentally going in exactly the opposite direction and somehow managing to find baby Jesus? Did they suppose that a star in the East meant that a savior was born in the West? Were they so unintelligent that they couldn’t follow a single star, instead going in the diametrically opposite direction? It seems to me that the three Wise Men were actually quite dull. More like the three Wise Guys, I say. Lost in translation my **** either, I can translate the Greek transcript also. Not to mention most Christians (educated) conclude that this was a forgery by the Italian monk Josephus, and that most of his testimony may have lost it's credibility.
My board purpose is to get people to realize that there are always going to be someone better and smarter than you on a subject. Simply because one reads necessary material on the subject.
I am serious when I say if I post 1/4th of the knowledge that I post on other boards, I will single handedly chase everyone away. For the most part, I take it easy on Bible matters by just stating my opinion of what I've learned and not evidencing it. But if you want me to evidence stuff now, I suppose I shall.
1) It is true that we choose what to fill the gaps with -- god or natural factors, supernaturalism or naturalism. However, historically, naturalism has time and time again filled such previously recognized gaps, while supernaturalism has no comparable track record. Therefore, it's only reasonable to assume that naturalism will similarly continue to fill the gaps in out understanding, pushing supernatiuralistic claptrap farther and farther to the fringes of knowledge.
2) Methodologically, supernaturalism is in fact a superfluous solution. In order to claim supernaturalism as a causal factor, you must still add in all the naturalistic factors first, and then tack on the supernatural on top of it; in effect, your choice is then between two systems of equivalent predictive power, one more complex (naturalism + supernaturalism) and one less complex (naturalism alone). Correctly employing Ockham's Razor as a methodological tool, we then must favor the purely naturalistic explanation.
3) The supernaturalist hypothesis is ill-formed, because it utterly lacks any and all predictive power, thus being unfalsifiable. In it not a well-formed hypothesis, and thus is fundamentally, irrepairably unscientific.
4) On a related note, supernaturalism is meaningless because it is by definition above and beyond the natural world, yet all of our modes of knowledge are fundamentally sensory, and deeply grounded in the natural and the physical; which is to say, if the supernatural cause existed, we could in no way, shape, or form actually know anything about it. We couldn't possibly tell a difference between a supernatural god having created the Universe, a supernatural cosmic tree frog pissing it out, and a supernatural highschool science club creatng it as a lark. In epistemic jargon, supernaturalist hypotheses are radically underdetermined.
5) Funally, the supernaturalist ID hypotheses are deeply broken because, fundamentally, supernaturalist ID is based on invalid transposition of context. It takes concepts we know from our daily physical existence -- intelligence, design, plannining, purpose, etc. -- and tries to instantiate them in a context which lacks any and all environmental features upon which our conceptualization of these things depends. For example, we see intelligence in terms of ability to manage and process information -- but what information is there outside Universe? or how about time? Intent implies time, but time is a feature of the Universe, meaningless outside it; etc. In effect, such hypotheses are guilty of anthropomorphizing Universe, in ways only marginally less naive than the prehistoric people assuming that thunder must be angry at them.
So if supernaturalism is meaningless, why do you believe that there actually is a higher being?
Higher being does not premise supernaturlism. I simply said a being vastly more powerful than us, therefore making him higher. He also abides the most uniform laws of nature such a time; but may or may not be bound by others.
You don't come at my beliefs because they are much more open to viewpoint than yours. People seem to confuse getting a thought process rammed down your throat as narrow-minded. Religion-based thinking is as narrow-minded as thinking can get. Every now and then you run across people like Led By Fire who have some other type of thinking; but that is rare. He does not defend the Bible with more Bible, because he realizes that's fruitless. He has a lot of what some people lack, a basis of fundamentals.
I'm open, but not to narrowmindedness. Present me with some substance, and we can have a discussion. Else, prepare to be torn down.
For example:
From the King James version of the New TestamentMatthew 2:1. Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem,
2. Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east and we are come to worship him.
If the star was in the East, then why did the so-called “wise” men travel to the West? Did they simply lose their way, accidentally going in exactly the opposite direction and somehow managing to find baby Jesus? Did they suppose that a star in the East meant that a savior was born in the West? Were they so unintelligent that they couldn’t follow a single star, instead going in the diametrically opposite direction? It seems to me that the three Wise Men were actually quite dull. More like the three Wise Guys, I say. Lost in translation my **** either, I can translate the Greek transcript also. Not to mention most Christians (educated) conclude that this was a forgery by the Italian monk Josephus, and that most of his testimony may have lost it's credibility.
My board purpose is to get people to realize that there are always going to be someone better and smarter than you on a subject. Simply because one reads necessary material on the subject.
The King James version of the Holy Bible is full of inconsistencies. . .especially the New Testament. However, this particular verse is okay. The wise men SAW the star in the East, where they were from. They didn't necessarily follow it FROM the east. The star didn't move until after they visited Herod.
Quote:
9 When they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was. 10 When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.
Magi is the forerunner to our word Magic; and stems from an oriental word Magoi, which is used to describe Zoastrian priests. The amazing star was one of the predictions of Zoaster. That's why they set out to find the "saviour".
A Comet: Halley's Comet, along with others, has been considered one possible physical explanation of the Star in the East. Halley's Comet was visible in 11 B.C.E. and it's entirely possible that Jesus was born in that year. The problem with Halley's Comet, as Asimov asserts, is that it is "too noticable." Herod the Great had to inquire about the supposed star. He would have known what it was.
Supernova: As I said before, none in that point of history.
Venus: Unlikely. The magi would have known what Venus is.
Occultations of the planets with each other: Between 12 B.C.E. and 6 B.C.E., there were two hundred occultations between the five visible planets. The largest occultations, of Jupiter and Venus, took place after the death of Herod the Great.
Occultations of Jupiter and the Moon: Not visible from Persia, as I mentioned above.
Why should the type of space odditty matter?! The fact that it moved on its own and led the Three Wise Guys to baby Jesus, bending all known laws of physics, suggests that it was at least a little bit special.
So if supernaturalism is meaningless, why do you believe that there actually is a higher being?
Higher being does not premise supernaturlism. I simply said a being vastly more powerful than us, therefore making him higher. He also abides the most uniform laws of nature such a time; but may or may not be bound by others.
So what exactly does that mean? He/she is a human being with special powers?
So if supernaturalism is meaningless, why do you believe that there actually is a higher being?
Higher being does not premise supernaturlism. I simply said a being vastly more powerful than us, therefore making him higher. He also abides the most uniform laws of nature such a time; but may or may not be bound by others.
So what exactly does that mean? He/she is a human being with special powers?
For you to hypothesize that a species no older than a few million years old is capable of creating the beginning of our current universe; you are making yourself look pretty intelligent.
