Quote:But none of those discoveries were made by theism. A more accurate sentence would be that one hundred percent of scientific discoveries were made by scientists, using the scientific method. It's a testament to the strength of the common element in all scientific discoveries, which is... you know, science.
Fair enough but the point was that God has nothing at all against science, he's down with it, he's cool.
Quote:And isn't it funny that the preachers and faithful, despite claiming inerrant wisdom from on high, never come to any of these discoveries from the pulpit? They all need to go and get degrees in the sciences first...
Gods relationship to his creatures isn't particularly a scientific kind of deal. It's a different subject not that the two subjects never overlap at all.
Quote:It's almost like religion has nothing to do with scientific progress at all...
Monotheism may well have been the driving force behind it as it proposed a rationally understandable natural order purpose made by God. And that is indeed what we have right here. Even Islam had a golden age of scientific progress that left the Christian world somewhat behind. The the situation now is a little reversed from that.
Quote:"Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear. Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ." - (Ephesians 6:5 NLT)
That was advice for people being owned as slaves for the secular/pagan powers that be not an endorsement of slavery in general. It's clear that Christs message was very much against it. There's quite a lot written in there about how Christians were to live in pagan culture as the down trodden people they were. Later Christianity came to be the ruling power of course but it was never really the ideal religion of Earthly authority as Islam is. They only managed it by ignoring much of what Christ actually taught and focusing on various rituals, feast days and rights. But the foundation stone was always lurking beneath.
Quote:EDIT: Oh, by the way, I've got a quote from Jesus about how you should punish slaves, if that'd carry more weight with you.
Jesus was very much down with the downtrodden masses, the poor and the oppressed. He wasn't someone who supported the establishment, the rich or the elite. We have to be clear on his stance. Yes he spoke in parables to make certain hard to understand points.
