Cutting the head off Medusa

[Brian37]

Saying you don't need to hold a label does not make me a a bigot. So run away rather than AT A MINIMUM consider that you do not need the social club you like.

What makes you think people need to adopt your way of thinking? It's rather arrogant to say that at minimum they should consider throwing away their belief.

I am damned glad Galileo didn't think like you otherwise he'd coddle the insecurities of the church and we'd still be living believing that the sun rotated around the earth.

If learning only depended on staying inside one's comfort zone we'd all be right and every claim by proxy of the ability to utter it would make everything true.

I shit fart and pee and will die like everyone else so get of your false accusation that I am "arrogant" for saying that people should not fear self introspection about even their own deeply held beliefs.

If we never questioned social norms our species never would have left the caves. Not liking my delivery is your baggage, not mine.

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Again what is more important, protection one's own ego, or examining something to insure you are not making a mistake? If you are not willing to look at yourself and at the same time willing to question others while setting up a taboo yourself, there is a word for that, hypocrisy.

You are on a board that questions religion and religious claims, why should ANY claim be given a pass if you are willing to question one claim, then you should be willing to question all claims and willing to be self introspective about even your own. Anything less is personal bias and does nothing but protect one's own ego.

You have not seen me here, not in any post ever demand you don't question me. You have not seen me say "you hate me" because of how you respond to me. So do yourself and me a favor, either jump in the ring and fight me back, or stay out. But do not expect me to conform to you. I am not a clone of you.

[FallentoReason]

What makes you think people need to adopt your way of thinking? It's rather arrogant to say that at minimum they should consider throwing away their belief.

I am damned glad Galileo didn't think like you otherwise he'd coddle the insecurities of the church and we'd still be living believing that the sun rotated around the earth.

Do your research. The Church got involved in someone else's fight, which was that of the scientists of the day arguing against Galileo. Now, the blame is incorrectly placed on the Church when they didn't even initiate the controversy as we know it today.

If learning only depended on staying inside one's comfort zone we'd all be right and every claim by proxy of the ability to utter it would make everything true.

I shit fart and pee and will die like everyone else so get of your false accusation that I am "arrogant" for saying that people should not fear self introspection about even their own deeply held beliefs.

If we never questioned social norms our species never would have left the caves. Not liking my delivery is your baggage, not mine.

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Again what is more important, protection one's own ego, or examining something to insure you are not making a mistake? If you are not willing to look at yourself and at the same time willing to question others while setting up a taboo yourself, there is a word for that, hypocrisy.

You are on a board that questions religion and religious claims, why should ANY claim be given a pass if you are willing to question one claim, then you should be willing to question all claims and willing to be self introspective about even your own. Anything less is personal bias and does nothing but protect one's own ego.

You have not seen me here, not in any post ever demand you don't question me. You have not seen me say "you hate me" because of how you respond to me. So do yourself and me a favor, either jump in the ring and fight me back, or stay out. But do not expect me to conform to you. I am not a clone of you.

I asked you a simple question. Judging by the answer, there's clearly a hidden reason as to why you take the debate to heart. None of my business though.

[Brian37]

Then I guess the story about him being put under house arrest was not true? If he was, what were the beliefs of his jailers?

And still wouldn't matter, at that time the popular belief was that the sun rotated around the earth. Even if he was jailed by people who believed in pink unicorns, he STILL was facing that society with facts they did not want to face.

THE POINT IS that you don't progress by simply accepting whatever claim comes down the pike because it is a popular belief. It is the surest way to lead lemmings off of a cliff.

[FallentoReason]

Then I guess the story about him being put under house arrest was not true? If he was, what were the beliefs of his jailers?

To be honest I don't know the full details, but this is Augustine's take:

In 1614, Galileo felt compelled to answer the charge that this "new science" was contrary to certain Scripture passages. His opponents pointed to Bible passages with statements like, "And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed . . ." (Josh. 10:13). This is not an isolated occurrence. Psalms 93 and 104 and Ecclesiastes 1:5 also speak of celestial motion and terrestrial stability. A literalistic reading of these passages would have to be abandoned if the heliocentric theory were adopted. Yet this should not have posed a problem. As Augustine put it, "One does not read in the Gospel that the Lord said: ‘I will send you the Paraclete who will teach you about the course of the sun and moon.’ For he willed to make them Christians, not mathematicians." Following Augustine’s example, Galileo urged caution in not interpreting these biblical statements too literally.

http://www.catholic.com/tracts/the-galileo-controversy

So clearly the Church was on his side, but I'm assuming they put him under house arrest so that they wouldn't lose popularity amongst the secular people.

And still wouldn't matter, at that time the popular belief was that the sun rotated around the earth. Even if he was jailed by people who believed in pink unicorns, he STILL was facing that society with facts they did not want to face.

THE POINT IS that you don't progress by simply accepting whatever claim comes down the pike because it is a popular belief. It is the surest way to lead lemmings off of a cliff.

Agreed. I just don't agree with your methods, because if you truly believe that the facts will speak for themselves, then let them. There's no need to weigh down your arguments with excess baggage such as name calling or expecting the opponent to be quiet and reflect on their faith everytime you finish talking, because you're drawing them away from the facts and making them suspect you have an agenda of some sort. Then accepting anything infront of you just isn't going to happen.

[Brian37]

1614, Galileo felt compelled to answer the charge that this "new science" was contrary to certain Scripture passages.

So the bible is to blame for the wrongful attack on him and only the supporters of that book would have attacked him, so if it was not the church then who? Churches are made up of club members. So again you have an example of the gang members saying "my boss isn't doing this, we are doing it on behalf of our boss".

It seems that line implies if Galileo had simply kept it to himself nothing would have happened to him. Another example of blaming the victim.

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No they were not on his side otherwise they would have stuck up for him. They jailed him to maintain power to keep the masses from taking their heads off. Complete and utter cowardice.

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And that also brings up a broader topic on all holy books in general.

If there were no book to fight over either way, this wouldn't have happened.

But since holy books do exist and can be read to justify a position, it should give everyone all the more reason to question it's credibility.

Holy books are weapons and must always be treated as such.

[FallentoReason]

1614, Galileo felt compelled to answer the charge that this "new science" was contrary to certain Scripture passages.

So the bible is to blame for the wrongful attack on him and only the supporters of that book would have attacked him, so if it was not the church then who? Churches are made up of club members. So again you have an example of the gang members saying "my boss isn't doing this, we are doing it on behalf of our boss".

Good point. I'll have to look into this some more when I can.

And that also brings up a broader topic on all holy books in general.

If there were no book to fight over either way, this wouldn't have happened.

But since holy books do exist and can be read to justify a position, it should give everyone all the more reason to question it's credibility.

Holy books are weapons and must always be treated as such.

They're only weapons in the wrong hands.

[Autumnlicious]

If there were no book to fight over either way, this wouldn't have happened.

But since holy books do exist and can be read to justify a position, it should give everyone all the more reason to question it's credibility.

Holy books are weapons and must always be treated as such.

Judging by your logic of simply removing entire entities because people may fight over it, I submit that we should remove all books.

After all, someone might fight over said subject matter, from ideological to political, right down to flame wars for VI versus Emacs (people fighting over which text editor is superior)...

[Brian37]

So the bible is to blame for the wrongful attack on him and only the supporters of that book would have attacked him, so if it was not the church then who? Churches are made up of club members. So again you have an example of the gang members saying "my boss isn't doing this, we are doing it on behalf of our boss".

Good point. I'll have to look into this some more when I can.

And that also brings up a broader topic on all holy books in general.

If there were no book to fight over either way, this wouldn't have happened.

But since holy books do exist and can be read to justify a position, it should give everyone all the more reason to question it's credibility.

Holy books are weapons and must always be treated as such.

They're only weapons in the wrong hands.

I totally disagree because everyone thinks the other is the "wrong hands". It is and will always be a weapon.

Do you seriously think that a right wing baptists thinks that a bible in the hands of a liberal Catholic is the "right hands" or vice versa?

You still are stuck with the POINT OF VIEW of who gets to decide whose hands are the right hands and everybody thinks they are the right hands.

It will always be this way with books no one will ever agree on how to interpret.

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Another example of why holy books are weapons.

Martin Luther King many would claim, is an example of "the bible in the right hands". First off you don't have to believe in a god to know that blacks shouldn't have ever gone through what they did. But that same book was used by white Christians to justify slavery and the oppression during the civil rights movement. King IS one of my heros, but that does not make his god real.

Now why do I still call it a weapon, after all he did do good? I live in the state of North Carolina which the majority of people BOTH black and white AND a majority of Christians BOTH BLACK AND WHITE, despite the lesson that was supposed to be taught by King, are using that same bible INCLUDING BLACKS to ban gay marriage.

When I went into vote against that ban, the best a black man could say, who was sitting outside, and one old enough to know what separate bathrooms were, could only muster the strength to say "vote your conscious". He could not say, "Yea it is wrong" because he grew up with even blacks who condemned homosexuality.

Which proves my point long term. Saying that religion does good does not make the god real and it does not mean in the future that all bad things will stop being justified by ANY holy book.

Doing good does not require being a Muslim or Jew or atheist and for every good a person does it does not mean a label is responsible or that because they do good the gods they claim are real.

King was a great man, not because of his religion and not because his god was real. He was a great man because of his ability to do the right thing and all of us are capable of that. If that black man who said "vote your conscious" was doing the right thing he wouldn't have said that he would have said "Yea, the ban is wrong".

[FallentoReason]

Maybe we have differing views because here in Australia Christians (and other religious groups) are harmless. Sounds like the U.S. is a mess from what I've gathered from different people. But here, 80% of my friends are Christians and they are good people. Beneficial to society in many ways, even if along the line they have to preach and tie Jesus to their actions to get people wondering.

[Jackalope]

Maybe we have differing views because here in Australia Christians (and other religious groups) are harmless. Sounds like the U.S. is a mess from what I've gathered from different people. But here, 80% of my friends are Christians and they are good people. Beneficial to society in many ways, even if along the line they have to preach and tie Jesus to their actions to get people wondering.

I think it depends a lot on where you live in the U.S. I live in the Pacific Northwest, which tends to be quite liberal and doesn't seem to be nearly as religious as the south and midwest, at least in the more populated areas. I've traveled extensively through the western U.S., midwest, and south and it really does vary regionally.

Frankly, for the most part, I think it's a very vocal minority that gets noticed.