Do you see a difference between 'not supernatural' and 'obeying mankind's current understanding of natural law'? So, could superior beings be subject to natural laws that we do not yet understand and still not be supernatural?
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Homosexuality and Evolution: God's Will and Human Belief
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Do you see a difference between 'not supernatural' and 'obeying mankind's current understanding of natural law'? So, could superior beings be subject to natural laws that we do not yet understand and still not be supernatural?
SkepticThinker
Veteran Member
"We" is my family. My mother would give my sister and I money, and we'd put it in the plate as it passed by us. Neither God nor Jesus ever showed itself/himself to me, nor to my sister, as far as I know.
I wasn't doing that anywhere. I wasn't even talking about my views of things. I was accusing you of misrepresenting what others said, which is what you're doing again here.
For the record I am a Buddhist. And you are misrepresentating my words.
Sapiens
Polymathematician
I presented evidence, from wiki, that the piece you cited is in error. Please address that rather than simply repeating falsified claims that you tried in the past.
I find abuse of logic and systems bothersome, regardless of the topic.
No, all were written well after the alleged date of the alleged demise of the alleged Jesus, son of God. None were contemporaneous and there are no other materials or artifacts that were contemporaneous.
Frankly, I could care less. It is impossible to prove a negative so the argument itself is basically moot. But what can be seen is the lengths that Christian apologists will go to bend the rules when things are not going their way ... it is long overdo that they are called on this.
BilliardsBall
Veteran Member
Certainly! Now, what do you call a superior being from another planet who is able to, by dint of knowledge or some natural law we don't understand, intervene to contravene those natural laws we do understand?
BilliardsBall
Veteran Member
Sounds like you haven't asked them. I hope you're not the typical forum atheist I've met, whose family loves Jesus and is devastated their child has turned away.
BilliardsBall
Veteran Member
I find it extraordinary that your Buddhism reads to me as atheism.
I will endeavor to continue to not misrepresent my words as long as you stop saying I'm proselytizing when I'm not.
I'm aware of the forum rules and just because I believe trusting in Jesus saves me from Hell to Heaven, I will not ask you to imitate my lifestyle as a Christian.
BilliardsBall
Veteran Member
Called on what?! It is not impossible to prove a negative. I can claim there is no milk anywhere in my refrigerator and look in my refrigerator to confirm my claim for the absence of milk.
You presented evidence, from wiki, that confirms what I wrote, that very, very few scholars deny the historical Jesus.
If you were open-minded, you would adhere to "contemporaneous" in the correct definition. For some reason, you seem to think a disciple of the Christ who writes 30 or even 50 years after walking with Him as a youth is not a contemporary document. How many U.S. Presidents wrote memoirs regarding what they experienced in their twenties while they were 30 years old?!
Do you know what ALL means? Virtually all ANE historians and Bible scholars, no matter how liberal or conservative, understand that some-to-all of the NT documents were written by Jesus's contemporaries. Virtually ALL of the above recognize Jesus was a real person.
If you're atheism is correct, you should debate with me the supernatural elements that disturb you in the scriptures, not whether Jesus was a human (also) or whether close associates of His who walked with Him for three years wrote and spoke of Him!
But that is your stock in trade, because God forbid even one sentence of the Bible is true and you have to consider these truths at length.
Your loss.
You were proselytizing. Stuff like this:
"We need divine help to overcome the sin nature. Is that proselytizing salvation? Even a particular religion?"
"You and I have a sin nature that will not go away through human effort. We need divine help."
And since i was accusing you of misrepresenting MY words, then your bargain doesn't really work for me that much to begin with.
Okay. I have no problems with your lifestyle. Except that you are making wild accusations of people using blanket statements and straw men, misrepresent what people say and argue that instead of what they actually wrote. But i still won't judge you about it: I have given you the benefit of the doubt. I am not even arguing against your views. Merely the way you are arguing others'.
You purposefully misrepresent people so you can perform your agenda. You're not even very good at hiding it.
I call it a weak hypothesis.
A pretty intelligent alien? Certainly not a deity, because deities are, by definition, supernatural, and this alien is natural (just very powerful).
SkepticThinker
Veteran Member
I did actually, many times.
No not at all. I have a great family and we all support each other no matter what.
Sapiens
Polymathematician
Try applying that to the more general case, e.g., "there is no god." That is an unprovable negative because it is impossible to look everywhere at once. You can never assume that it is not hiding under the next rock, which you have yet to look under, or for that matter under any of the infinite number of rocks whose underside await examination.
I am not so open minded that I permit my brains to fall out by adopting definitions of apologist convenience. "Contemporaneous" means, "at the same time" not "decades later." There is not only the issue of contemporary composition, there is also the issue of contemporary sourcing. The earliest gospel dates to the first half of the 2nd century and the earliest complete New Testament book is from a century later, demanding more suspension of rational skepticism and the further invocation of apologetic clap trap.
I know what it all means, but you do not. Note what you say here, "some-to-all of the NT documents were written by Jesus's contemporaries." That is not at all the same thing as having contemporaneous cross references for Jesus' historicity, especially when you add in the doubts that are further amplified by the centuries that separate the alleged event(s) and actual source document(s). All you've got is a torpid logical fallacy in the form of an appeal to authority.
No, debating the supernatural is a waste of time, there is no evidence of it and once again you just get trapped in the issue of infinite regression. Far more reasonable to deal with realities.
There are many sentences of the Bible that are true, just as there are many sentences in Homer or, for that matter, the Hunt for Red October, that are true. The presence of such sentences in any of the three novels in no way lends credible support to other sentences, that are quite incredible.
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Ingledsva
HEATHEN ALASKAN
How in the world you can misconstrue - "They obviously would NOT be Gods." into - I believe there may be natural space gods, - is beyond me!
That shows TRULY TWISTED reasoning.
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Ingledsva
HEATHEN ALASKAN
Buddha Dharma
Dharma Practitioner
I see we haven't been discussing homosexuality for awhile. Anyhow my two cents is that making evolutionary arguments for and against homosexuality as to it's morality is borderline fallacious. Evolution has given us all kinds of good and bad traits, while morality seems to generally concern itself with an idea of rising above the natural condition. That seems to be a general approach anyway.
In Buddhism homosexuality isn't more or less immoral than heterosexuality. The Buddha mentioned homosexuality in the Vinaya as prohibited for monks like all sex is, but he didn't add that it was better or worse in any way. There have been cultural ideas that it is moral or immoral among Buddhists, but the only sexual ethics for the layman that the Buddha taught is that non-consensual sex like pedophilia/animals/rape, or adultery, being a source of strife and disharmony- are immoral.
As a Buddhist, I don't base my moral sense on nature. Nature has also given me impulses that my worldview deems immoral, if I act on them. Also of note- bigotry and prejudice toward homosexuals or anyone is a departure from the Blessed One, who hated no beings whatsoever.
In Buddhism homosexuality isn't more or less immoral than heterosexuality. The Buddha mentioned homosexuality in the Vinaya as prohibited for monks like all sex is, but he didn't add that it was better or worse in any way. There have been cultural ideas that it is moral or immoral among Buddhists, but the only sexual ethics for the layman that the Buddha taught is that non-consensual sex like pedophilia/animals/rape, or adultery, being a source of strife and disharmony- are immoral.
As a Buddhist, I don't base my moral sense on nature. Nature has also given me impulses that my worldview deems immoral, if I act on them. Also of note- bigotry and prejudice toward homosexuals or anyone is a departure from the Blessed One, who hated no beings whatsoever.
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Always curious as to why any religious leader thinks that sex should be prohibited for some (monks, lamas, priests, etc.) while it is otherwise not a bad thing per se. Why would anybody assume that someone who didn't know about the joys and pitfalls of sex from personal experience would be in a position to provide counsel to others.
Bizarre.
Buddha Dharma
Dharma Practitioner
Well the Buddha knew about the joys and pitfalls of sex from personal experience, but it was his understanding that sex carries the danger of anchoring one down to the world, rather than seeking enlightenment. The Buddha had a wife and child, as well as being provided concubines in his youth. It was his understanding that even the jhanas are hard to attain for one caught in the world, much less Nirvana.
I have a personal understanding on this subject though that other Buddhists might call heretical. Given the kinds of vices we're told the monks were inclined toward before taking the monastic vows- the Buddha may have made the monk rules rigorous on purpose, because monks are likely to be individuals that need that control mechanism. In other words, monks don't necessarily have superior natural dispositions to a layman.
BilliardsBall
Veteran Member
It is "nothing but my personal opinion" that humans are morally flawed, commit moral sin, cannot make utopia, and destroy each other, particularly when we behave apart from scripture, and godless?
Nay!
BilliardsBall
Veteran Member
How did you come to understand that deities are supernatural?
capitalized : the supreme or ultimate reality: such as
a : the Being perfect in power, wisdom, and goodness who is worshipped as creator and ruler of the universe
BilliardsBall
Veteran Member
You've asked your family many times to recount to you the blessings of the tithe? And they are currently devout and tithing?