Christianity in America

[Saint Marcus]

I would say that the majority of Christians follow moderate doctrine and teachings, rather than the extremist rantings.

Then why does over 50% believe the events in the Book of Revelation will come true? Hardly any mainline christian, christian or protestant, feels that way. At least here, might be different in mainline American churches.

[Caligastia]

Originally posted by St Leo
I have more respect for someone who can see the value of looking for answers outside the bounds of science than someone who always believes the latest scientific theory is gospel truth.

Both of your examples are idiots. I have zero respect for either because neither of them is a skeptic.

So you think science has the power to explain everything? Interesting.

[TheStinger]

Science at least is attempting to explain everything it may never get there but it will try.

Religion OTH just says God says so and no further explanation is neccessary

[Caligastia]

Originally posted by Ethelred


Believing the ludicrous because there is a modicum of good ideas hiding in it is you in a nutshell. Urantia is definitly nuts. I know you don't agree but I really can't understand why you accept something that is so seriously wrong on so many things.

Its "wrong" according to current scientific theories. Until they change of course.

Smart people can be idiots. The term is not limited to IQ.

So you think anyone who is misguided is an idiot?

That is because that is what you do. I don't see a lot of value in accepting things that are verifiably wrong. I looked at the books. Both your Urantia and Rogan's Bible. I find them both wanting in terms of reality.

Verifiably wrong according to current scientific theory, well we know how reliable that is.

Now if you want to debate this stuff thats fine by me Caligastia. I like debate. I didn't make any personal attacks on anyone in this thread and even in other threads where I have it has almost always been in direct responce to someone attacking me(I did just call someone a pirate). If you want to discuss the ideas please do so. Attacking me as a person is not going to make Urantia suddenly sensible.

Im not attacking you Ethelred, I just thought Rogan Josh made an accurate observation regarding your edherance to the scientific gospel. Do you deny that you tend to disregard anything that contradicts current scientific theory?

[Jack the Bodiless]

It depends on your definition of "science". I happen to believe that science WILL have all the answers.

Not because I believe that scientists are omniscient, but because I regard the process of obtaining verifiable answers as inherently "scientific" in nature. If an answer is "unscientific", that means it's pure, untestable speculation: you'll never know if it's an "answer" at all.

Similarly, nothing "supernatural" will ever be discovered: if it exists, it's natural. If anyone ever demonstrates that (for instance) some people are telepathic, then there will be some sort of mechanism for that: something that can, at least in principle, be investigated.

[Caligastia]

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless
It depends on your definition of "science". I happen to believe that science WILL have all the answers.

So you think nothing can exist outside the material realm. How can you be so sure?

Not because I believe that scientists are omniscient, but because I regard the process of obtaining verifiable answers as inherently "scientific" in nature. If an answer is "unscientific", that means it's pure, untestable speculation: you'll never know if it's an "answer" at all.

"scientific" answers are also largely speculative.

Similarly, nothing "supernatural" will ever be discovered: if it exists, it's natural.

In a way you are right, but in another way you are wrong. You are right that nothing "supernatural" will ever be discovered by humans because only material things are "scientifically" verifiable by us. You are wrong when you say that nothing exists outside of what we percieve as "natural".

If anyone ever demonstrates that (for instance) some people are telepathic, then there will be some sort of mechanism for that: something that can, at least in principle, be investigated.

Again you are assuming that humans are capable of discovering all possible levels of reality while still on the material plane.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Saint Marcus
Then why does over 50% believe the events in the Book of Revelation will come true? Hardly any mainline christian, christian or protestant, feels that way. At least here, might be different in mainline American churches.

Like I said, those polls are grossly inaccurate. "Believing that the Book of Revelations will come true" could range anywhere between "Literally believing that there will be seven angels and seven seals etc." and "Just believing that the world will end someday." The latter belief is hardly a fundamentalist belief.

[Thucydides]

Smart people can be idiots. The term is not limited to IQ.

Not according to where the word came from. Idiot is a classification of people of below average IQ's, along with Moron, Imbicile, and a couple of others that were ported over from the french classification scheme of intelligence and later became derogative terms used to insult someone's intelligence in english.

I think the words your looking for to describe people who think the world is coming to an end because it says so in the bible as deluded, gullible, and just plain ignorant.

By the way, Boskho's post earlier was right on the mark, I was going to post something along similar lines but he beat me to it.

It would have been interesting to see how the US would have been affected by there being a state church in the US from the beginning. It probably would have a had major impact on the course of events, but then there's always the frontier problem which would have made it all but impossible to accomplish in practice.

[Dinner]

Polls are garbage. I can set up a poll so that I get any result that I want.

[Jack the Bodiless]

Caligastia:

If there is something "beyond the material realm", why do you think it can't be investigated scientifically?

Modern science has gone far beyond "the material realm" anyhow. In fact, Einstein's discovery of mass-energy equivalence made the old notion of "the material realm" obsolete, and there's some very weird and far-out stuff in quantum mechanics.

"scientific" answers are also largely speculative.

But science involves making speculations and testing them, discarding groundless speculations and generally working to refine speculations into something more concrete.

If you don't do that, you have nothing but speculation, with no clue about what to keep and what should be discarded as bunk.

...Which reminds me of a radio interview I heard once. Someone who ran an "alternative medicine" clinic was asked a simple question: which remedies have been discarded by the "alternative medicine" movement because they didn't work? Apparently the answer was "none": the notion of testing the effectiveness of alternative medicines was something the practitioners had never considered doing.

This is what makes them "unscientific". If they worked by means of "forces beyond the material realm", then verifying this would be science. And confirmation would lead on to an intense scientific research effort into the nature of this "realm" and the principles governing it.

[Caligastia]

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless
Caligastia:

If there is something "beyond the material realm", why do you think it can't be investigated scientifically?

Because I believe that as mortals we cannot experience higher spiritual levels while we still have material bodies.

Modern science has gone far beyond "the material realm" anyhow. In fact, Einstein's discovery of mass-energy equivalence made the old notion of "the material realm" obsolete, and there's some very weird and far-out stuff in quantum mechanics.

I still consider energy etc that can be measured by humans as "material".

But science involves making speculations and testing them, discarding groundless speculations and generally working to refine speculations into something more concrete.

If you don't do that, you have nothing but speculation, with no clue about what to keep and what should be discarded as bunk.

Thats the great thing about science. It can tell us a lot about the material level, and frees us from superstition. The problem is when people think that science can explain everything, and that the latest theory is gospel truth. Spiritual realities are the common experience of many, but there is no science that can explain it.

...Which reminds me of a radio interview I heard once. Someone who ran an "alternative medicine" clinic was asked a simple question: which remedies have been discarded by the "alternative medicine" movement because they didn't work? Apparently the answer was "none": the notion of testing the effectiveness of alternative medicines was something the practitioners had never considered doing.

This is what makes them "unscientific". If they worked by means of "forces beyond the material realm", then verifying this would be science. And confirmation would lead on to an intense scientific research effort into the nature of this "realm" and the principles governing it.

True, and this is one of the reasons scientific methods are so valuable.

[Rogan Josh]

Originally posted by TheStinger
Science at least is attempting to explain everything it may never get there but it will try.

Religion OTH just says God says so and no further explanation is neccessary

I think this is the crux of the whole problem. Science does not attempt to explain everything. It builds predictive models which seek to explain physical reality beased apon certain assumptions.

For example, in building our models we assume that the laws of physics are fixed and not ramdomly fluctuating. In that way, by observing experimental data from the past we can predict experimental data in the future. But this may not be true. It appears to be true in that the models we have built have been spectacularly predictive, but who knows...

For that matter, they are only predictive in a statistical sense for very simple things. I would argue that you cannot, in principle, predict for sure what I will eat tomorrow. You may make a statistical prediction, but that is all.

And this is entirely on just a physical basis - I have argued before on these pages how the concept of 'free-will' must be thrown away entirely if everything could be explained by physics.

On another level, the entire point of fundamental physics research is to eventually describe the universe in as economical a way as possible. This might be, for example, an equation or a statement of symmetry (such as conformal symmetry) which then uniquely leads to the universe we see around us.

At that point, the obvious question is 'why this symmetry (or equation) and not some other?'. This is a question which 'science' will never be able to fully answer.

As much as I love science and respect its findings and spend my days trying to understand it, I think it is very shortsighted to say that science can or will be able to explain everything.

[loinburger]

I would be very suprised if science every managed to determine what was righteous or wicked. That isn't to say that you've suddenly got to resort to metaphysics for morality, but you certainly can't use particle physics or whatever have you.

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by Saint Marcus
Then why does over 50% believe the events in the Book of Revelation will come true? Hardly any mainline christian, christian or protestant, feels that way. At least here, might be different in mainline American churches.

In the US Southern Baptist IS mainline so it shouldn't be surprising that a lot of Americans think Revelations is real prophecy. Take a look on this thread and see how many inteligent people believe that stuff. That it was pretty likely referring to the extinct Roman Empire is something they simply refuse to accept.

There is a lot of that involved in believing in the Bible. No matter how clear or obscure it is believers insist it is without error (in some cases without error in a no longer existing original version) and blame the interpretation (or the present version despite its being all we have to go on) when the predictions are found wanting.

The original language version of the Old Testament IS available. Its in the Torah.

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by Caligastia
Its "wrong" according to current scientific theories. Until they change of course.

Mesons are not suddenly going to discovered to hold the nucleus together. So Uranitia will remain wrong forever. Show that part to Rogan, see what he thinks about it.

Maybe the part about Inspector Six Digit Number as well. That one is funny.

So you think anyone who is misguided is an idiot?

They made the decision to believe nonsense themselves. Same as you do. As I allready said 'idiot' is not just about IQ in general usage. If you want you can replace it with foolish.

Verifiably wrong according to current scientific theory, well we know how reliable that is.

Apparently at least one of us doesn't. Its extremely reliable on many things. Quantum mechanics may not be perfect but so far the Universe we live in behaves just as if it extremely accurate. The Universe definitly does not fit the one in Urantian and only by being exceedingly loose can you force fit Genesis to fit the Universe either.

Science is far more reliable than the writings of ancient men or the recordings of sleep talkers.

Im not attacking you Ethelred, I just thought Rogan Josh made an accurate observation regarding your edherance to the scientific gospel. Do you deny that you tend to disregard anything that contradicts current scientific theory?

Rogan mistated my position so he and you were wrong.

Now in that present version you are right. I see abslolutely no reason to accept something that goes against both theory and physical evidence. Current scientific theory is not suddenly going to show that humans first showed up as a single man in Eden a mere 6000 or so years ago. Nor is the meson ever going to be found to hold the nucleus together.

Just why should I start accepting things that can be and have been checked and found wanting? Why should I accept the writings of ancient men over modern science. Why should I accept a sleep talker over real evidence?

Both you and Rogan believe because you believe. I am not going to believe in the unverifiable, especially when it is verifiably wrong. This is in no way a some sort of defect.