Spirituality
25 Sep 06
26 Sep 06
2 edits
"Did our earliest ancestors gain some evolutionary advantage through their shared religious feelings?"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,2763,1590899,00.html
"Many years ago, a team of researchers at the department of anthropology at the University of Minnesota decided to put this association to the test. They studied certain fringe religious groups, such as fundamentalist Baptists, Pentecostalists and the snake-handlers of West Virginia, to see if they showed the particular type of psychopathology associated with mental illness."
Kirksey?
"When they were asked which group they thought would show the most disturbed psychopathology, the whole team identified the snake-handlers. But when the data were revealed, the reverse was true: there was more mental illness among the conventional Protestant churchgoers - the "extrinsically" religious - than among the fervently committed."
No worries, Reverend.
26 Sep 06
Originally posted by rwingettExactly. That is why I refuse to believe that there is no God.
I have never claimed to be free from all delusions. I only claim to be free from your particular delusion. You'd have to be deluded to claim that true delusion lies in unbelief.
26 Sep 06
1 edit
Originally posted by whodeyThe fact that matter exists does not imply a God. It might simply be a random fluctuation in the energy mass balance, or it may be Allah, or the FSM or Muffy or the Giant Celestial Chicken or Penguin, or Penguin's Cosmic Teapot. They are all absolutely interchangable, since there is no definitive evidence for the existance of any of them (except Penguin, which makes him the most likely by definition). And yes, whodey, we know you believe in him, but that's hardly definitive.
Forget about abiogenesis. How about matterogenesis?
26 Sep 06
Originally posted by kirksey957Interestingly, BBC Radio 4's Great Lives was about darwin today and they read that lst passage. It wasn't quite the same as your quote above so I checked my copy when I got home.
Here is a quote from Darwin: "From the war of nature, from famine and death, themost exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or inot one, and tha.....from s ...[text shortened]... a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved."
The words "by the Creator" appear to have been magically inserted into your quote since he did not write them.
So Darwin does not even attribute abiogenesis to a divine creator. Not that it would affect the accuracy of his theory either way if he did.
--- Penguin.
26 Sep 06
Originally posted by whodeyYes, maybe the whole thing was set off 3 billion years ago by some self aware entity. But so far, everywhere we have looked we have found no such entity. He keeps moving further and further away. He is no longer required to understand why the rain falls or the sun shines; why 'acts of God' like earthquakes hurricanes, drought or famine happen; how life evolved or the solar system formed. Now he's hiding right back at the beginning of the universe. I expect that we will one day fully understand that event and will find that he is not there either. If he is, he will be unlike anything we have dreamt up to worship.
The Maker is not made up of matter. This is the only solution to the problem, rather, the Maker created matter. In regards to time, time is merely a property of matter and need not extend into another realm in which matter does not exist such as a spiritual realm. Therefore, God did not have a beginnging, rather, he initiated the beginning once matter was ...[text shortened]... the Big Bang about 15 billion years ago. The only question remains, a beginning from what!!!!!
--- Penguin.
27 Sep 06
Originally posted by Bosse de NageYou've got to be kidding me?! It's a very complicated thing to look at with many factors to consider. I'll have to sleep on that.
"Did our earliest ancestors gain some evolutionary advantage through their shared religious feelings?"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,2763,1590899,00.html
"Many years ago, a team of researchers at the department of anthropology at the University of Minnesota decided to put this association to the test. They studied certain fringe reli ...[text shortened]... extrinsically" religious - than among the fervently committed."
No worries, Reverend.
27 Sep 06
Originally posted by kirksey957Off topic a bit Kirksey but could you clarify for me why Americans use the term 'I could care less'? It implies that since you could care less, then you actually care a bit about the subject ... very strange.
Because I am with white women. If you're with black women, good for you. I could care less.
27 Sep 06
Originally posted by amannionIt basically means that you don't care. Americans are not very precise with the language.
Off topic a bit Kirksey but could you clarify for me why Americans use the term 'I could care less'? It implies that since you could care less, then you actually care a bit about the subject ... very strange.
27 Sep 06
1 edit
Originally posted by amannionThe American version is used sarcastically. That is, it expresses an idea contrary to its literal meaning, similar to other sarcastic and snide remarks like, "Yeah, right," or "Sure." The contrary meaning is that in fact, one could not care less.
Off topic a bit Kirksey but could you clarify for me why Americans use the term 'I could care less'? It implies that since you could care less, then you actually care a bit about the subject ... very strange.
The Australian version is a literal comment, not a sarcastic one. That could be because Australians are so simple-minded that to have it otherwise would be too confusing.