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Bill Tracer

Deist Clockwork Evolution vs Creationism vs Atheistic Evolution - 1 views

www.socyberty.com/...m-vs-Atheistic-Evolution.49636

atheistic charles clockwork cosmos creationism darwin deism deist evolution

shared by Bill Tracer on 14 Dec 07 - Cached
  • Bill Tracer on 14 Dec 07
     
    When it come to a bebate between Deist Clockwork Evolution vs Creationism vs Atheistic Evolution, all too often, those who take up this topic for debate neglect to acknowledge the Deist option.
Jeffery Reid

"Is Christianity Good for the World?" | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical ... - 0 views

www.christianitytoday.com/...120-53.0.html

shared by Jeffery Reid on 07 Sep 07 - Cached
  • needlessly convoluted
    • Jeffery Reid
      Jeffery Reid on 07 Sep 07
       
      Hitchens is now resorting to attacking his writing style... how lame.
  • clumsy observation
    • Jeffery Reid
      Jeffery Reid on 07 Sep 07
       
      Give the guy a break, Chris!
  • The first is that innate is not a synonym for authoritative. Why does anyone have to obey any particular prompting from within? And which internal prompting is in charge of sorting out all the other competing promptings? Why?
    • Jeffery Reid
      Jeffery Reid on 07 Sep 07
       
      This is excellent. Why do Christians desire God so? Why do you assume their is an authority there telling you what to do? Innate isn't an authority, it may be only reality. There are no pretty clothes for it to parade around in gathering devotion. Innate means "it's there" and offers no explanation as to why; none is needed. Yet, you theists beg for God. You so want there to be God behind everything to give it meaning. You can't seem to accept that there isn't any meaning in the sense you so desire. So, rather than just accepting the empty universe for what it is, you invent fantastic explanations to give false comfort.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Second, the tangled skein of innate and conflicting moralities found within the billions of humans alive today also has to be sorted out and systematized. Why do you get to do it and then come around and tell us how we must behave? Who died and left you king?
    • Jeffery Reid
      Jeffery Reid on 07 Sep 07
       
      Wrong. Atheists aren't saying that. No one wants to be king. We want to simply acknowledge that the religious models don't hold up under any scrutiny. No one is telling you how to behave. We're simply saying that the reasons behind your current behavior make no sense and are HARMFUL to millions of others. Your beliefs HURT people whether by denying them liberty or outright killing them.
  • And third, according to you, this innate morality of ours is found in a creature (mankind) that is a distant blood cousin of various bacteria, aquatic mammals, and colorful birds in the jungle. Your entire worldview has evolution as a key foundation stone, and evolution means nothing if not change. You believe that virtually every species has morphed out of another one. And when we change, as we must, all our innate morality changes with us, right? We have distant cousins where the mothers ate their young. Was that innate for them? Did they evolve out of it because it was evil for them to be doing that?
    • Jeffery Reid
      Jeffery Reid on 07 Sep 07
       
      Yes. And even other religious types agree that life is about change. You can't ignore it. You already tacitly accept it every time you relegate another Biblical story or teaching from fact to allegory, from law to myth. There is no evil. Evil is only understood through the eyes of a victim of someone else's lethal intent.
  • If Christianity is bad for the world, atheists can't consistently point this out, having no fixed way of defining "bad."
    • Jeffery Reid
      Jeffery Reid on 07 Sep 07
       
      But we do have a way to define bad. Bad is what does others harm in the eyes of a society. And the definition of bad changes depending on a) what side you are on in a given argument b) your education and ability to experience empathy and c) how the proposed actions affect you personally.
  • Jesus Christ is good for the world because he came as the life of the world. You point out, rightly, that loving our neighbor as we love ourselves is impossible for us, completely out of our reach. But you take this inability as a state of nature (which the commandment offends), while the Christian takes it as a state of death (which life offers to transform). Our complete inability to do what is right does not erase our obligation to do what is right. This is why the Bible describes the unbeliever as a slave to sin or one who is in a state of death. The point of each illustration is the utter and complete inability to do right. We were dead in our transgressions and sins, the apostle Paul tells us. So the death and resurrection of Christ are not presented by the gospel as medicine for everyone in the hospital, but rather as resurrection life in a cemetery.The way of the world is to abide in an ongoing state of death—when it comes to selfishness, grasping, treachery, lust, hypocrisy, pride, and insolence, we consistently run a surplus. But in the death of Jesus that way of death was gloriously put to death. This is why Jesus said that when he was lifted up on the cross, he would draw all men to himself. In the kindness of God, the Cross is an object of inexorable fascination to us. When men and women look to him in his death, they come to life in his resurrection. And that is good for the world.
    • Jeffery Reid
      Jeffery Reid on 07 Sep 07
       
      This just sounds like ravings... And, it reminds me of reading The Golden Bough and learning about all the crazy stuff people have believed throughout history.
Jeffery Reid

"Is Christianity Good for the World?" | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical ... - 0 views

www.christianitytoday.com/...122-52.0.html

shared by Jeffery Reid on 07 Sep 07 - Cached
  • If our morality evolved, then that means our morality changes. If evolution isn't done yet (and why should it be?), then that means our morality is involved in this on-going flux as well. And that means that everything we consider to be "moral" is really up for grabs. Our "vague yet grand conception of human rights" might flat disappear just like our gills did.
    • Jeffery Reid
      Jeffery Reid on 07 Sep 07
       
      It is up for grabs and all one need do is look back a few years in our history to prove it. Homosexuals were imprisoned blacks were segregrated These were all moral issues. Christian doctrine supported these repressions. Today, everything has changed.
  • A fixed standard, grounded in the character of God, allows us to define evil
    • Jeffery Reid
      Jeffery Reid on 07 Sep 07
       
      What is this "fixed standard"? Brad, can you illustrate this for me?
  • I noted from your book that you are a baptized Christian, so I want to conclude by calling and inviting you back to the terms of that baptism. Everyone who has been baptized into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is carrying in their person the standing obligations of repentance, belief, and continued discipleship.
    • Jeffery Reid
      Jeffery Reid on 07 Sep 07
       
      What? So a babbling infant has already entered into a contract with God whether they like it or not? More raving lunacy...
Jeffery Reid

"Is Christianity Good for the World?" | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical ... - 0 views

www.christianitytoday.com/...119-42.0.html

shared by Jeffery Reid on 31 Aug 07 - Cached
  • The Christian faith certainly condemns hypocrisy as such, but because there is a fixed standard, this makes it possible for sinners to fail to meet it or for flaming hypocrites to pretend that they are meeting it when they have no intention of doing so.
    • Jeffery Reid
      Jeffery Reid on 31 Aug 07
       
      What is this "fixed standard"? Is it the same one that enabled the Church to launch the Crusades? Or, is it the one that let the Church launch the Inquisition? Or, is the same one that enabled people to keep slaves? Or, is the same one that exhorted believers to kill non-believers? Claiming that Christianity offers a fixed standard is just plain ignorant.
  • When another atheist makes different ethical choices than you do (as Stalin and Mao certainly did), is there an overarching common standard for all atheists that you are obeying and which they are not obeying?
    • Jeffery Reid
      Jeffery Reid on 31 Aug 07
       
      Yes. There is a standard, but like science, it changes with fashion, modernity, discovery and politics. Just like the Christian standard changes, ethic is subject to evolution. The difference is that we admit the change while Christianity obfuscates it in doctrine.
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