Yes, Virginia There is a Hell -- Jesus Said So

Very good post junobet... absolutely cogent (almost).

 

When science is considered under the philosophical aspect, science can also be said to affect ones perception. Science rules out a lot of things that are not objective, but science does have a philosophy of its own, and because of that philosophy, science itself is also subjective and should likewise be viewed as affecting perception.

 

Christians are wising up. Many don’t even believe in Satan anymore. And for good reason, the whole book is full of silly inconsistencies. Some scriptures say you need to work for heaven, some say you need to give to others, some say you’re saved by your faith in god alone. One scripture says Judas bought a plot of land, tripped on a rock and spilled his guts, another says he hung himself. One says god's merciful and slow to anger, in another he sends two bears to kill 42 children for making fun of Elisha's bald head. He spares Isaac, but has Jephtah sacrifice his only daughter. It's all nonsense. Scriptures like the one you pointed out used to scare the hell out of me… till I turned seventeen (lol), began noticing the nonsense and left the faith.

 

I think it is you that needs to research the term because you misuse the term so often by asking for emperical evidence where none exists.

You can not test history against observations in the natural world for the most part, therfor the validity of history, the Bible, is often not supported by emperical evidence.

This does not mean that history is not valid. One can use reasoning and logic to come to reasonable conclusions.

There is no emperical evidence for Jesus .. unfortunately.

 

If no empirical evidence is in existence to support any of your claims wherein I have requested such empirical evidence, then your claim is an unsubstantiated claim... a claim without any substance.

Likewise, claims laid against history, the Bible, cannot be supported due to that same lack of ability to test history against observation in the natural world. People and their individual experiences are a part of the natural world.

Reasoning amounts to 'normal thinking' , not requiring any special training or education, and logic is a subjective matter holding differing results per individual utilizing 'logic'.

There is also no empirical evidence that would disallow the former existence of Jesus. Of course, on the same token, there is no empirical evidence for such people as Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, Julius Caesar (no burial site, no death certificates, etc.). Many hundreds of millions of people from the past suffer the fate of what you call having , no empirical evidence to support their former existence. Therefore, according to your choice of logic, those many hundreds of millions of people did not ever exist. Because of this lack of empirical evidence, Darwins theory of evolution is washed down the drain, because there is no empirical evidence to support his theory.

 

Of course science affects perception. But science consists of ideas that fit the natural world while religion consists of ideas to which the natural world must be fitted.

So having science influence your perception means nothing in terms of perceiving anything beyond observable reality. Such perception may of course still be flawed, but since science is fitted to the world, rather than the world being fitted to science, this is simply remedied by continued observation of the world.

 

Oh, I love how you are so wonderfully honest about the purpose of your "provide empirical evidence of your claim" retorts

Too bad it rarely works that way. But that's a technicality for you, I'm sure.

 

In other news, antelope are becoming so "enlightened" that many don't even believe in lions anymore.

 

I does seem quite a bit like the honesty of non-theists who make demand for proof of the existence of God or the Holy Spirit.

 

Incorporeal, there is nothing wrong with asking for empirical evidence of the existence of an entity. If there is a claim of such an existence then evidence should be provided, or the claim may be dismissed.

There's nothing wrong either, with asking for empirical evidence of causations insofar as such causations pertain to natural phenomena.

However, when people start to ask for empirical evidence of an anecdotal nature such as Jesus having used sorcery, or historical claims such as a lack of belief in the Trinity prior to Constantine, or of someone's statement or of logical propositions, just to name a few (I got 185 hits on the phrase "empirical evidence" in submissions posted by just one of those people), then it's only signalling that certain questions must be too compromising for those people. Either that or that they haven't understood a jot of anything.

 

Well, I have the suspicion that most of our remaining differences here are due to a confusion of terms. There‘s faith, religion which is an organized collection of narratives and traditions in which faith is expressed and there‘s theology, which is the academic study of religion.

As you‘ve rightly pointed out faith is by its very nature not academic, but purely emotional, whereas theology is an academic discipline. Your choice of words of what it studies ‚myths‘ is not very diplomatic though, but bound to inflame especially our bible-believing literalists in this forum. Now however much I disagree with them about their way of interpreting our holy scriptures and however much I agree with you that many biblical narratives as mythical, while others are legends and none of them are to be uncritically regarded as an exact account of history or an extract from a biology/geology book, I have to point out that it‘s utterly unnecessary and immature to seek to belittle other people‘s religious narratives.. While the symbolism of aboriginal dreamtime narratives is culturally alien to me I can still treat these ancient accounts of experiences of divine transcendency with due respect. If you tried to be a bit more sensitive regarding people‘s expressions of faith it would certainly benefit the discussions on this forum. The very same holds true for many of our ultra-fundamentalist posters here whose idea of religious tolerance got somehow stuck in the middle-ages.

As for a scientific analysis of divinity: I and Isaiah (Isaiah 55:8 ) agree with you that it‘s not possible to accomplish that. We can indeed only analyze human accounts of our and other people's subjective experiences with the divine.

A) One of the first things I learned in my class on empirical research and statistics is that however much we should aim for it there’s no such thing as a completely neutral science. Our perceptions are always somehow affected because none of us lives in a vacuum-bubble free of ideas, preconceptions and special interests.

B) How much clearer can I make it to you that for people like me religious ideas no more affect the results of scientific observations as your idea that God does not exist affects yours.
Both of us will agree that the earth does indeed go around the sun and not vice versa. That’s the observation. The only difference between you and me observing our beautiful and fascinating world is the that you will just find it beautiful and fascinating while I will praise the Lord for its beauty. My believe in God does not change my worldly perceptions in the slightest. I just have an extra-level of perception that you lack. You’re of course perfectly entitled to not believe in this perception. But to depict every religious person as a second Kent Hovind only because they happen to believe in the Divine is just plain ignorant.
You don’t have to be an atheist to be a good scientist. In fact we ‘d be much poorer in our knowledge of this world if it had not been for religious scientists ranging from Alhazen to Mendel.



As for the intersections between faith, religion, theology and science I may have a broader approach to what I call an intersection as you have. It was faith in the afterlife that drove ancient Egyptians to built the pyramids that display their intriguing knowledge in astronomy. And it was Christianity that brought the Greek concept of logic to our shores and nourished it. Of course religion does not only have a history of furthering scientific thought but also a sad history of curbing it. But here you go: the world isn't easily divided into black and white.

 

LOL! Why do you continue to post false crap like this?

I didn't say I didn't know the vowels or their placement!

I said the original had no vowels, and everyone today translating uses the earliest vowled system!

LOL! Read-Read-Read!

And by the way - that text was in GREEK! LOL!

 

It is not false, when you have already admitted to those facts.
So now you offer a differing rendition of your former statement ... OK...

If the original did not have vowels, then the placement of vowels in these modern translations are in effect changing the words that were originally used. Therefore, the modern translations have no validity, as they are all fabricated from the imaginations of those doing the translations.

If the original did not have vowels, then how do you know that you are doing the correct thing by adding vowels where vowels were not originally used? Is it a matter of "best guess" or is it merely a means of making a word appear as you want it to appear. If the original text was written (excuse my phonetics at this point) Yod He Vaw He, How do you know that there is supposed to be any vowels at all: and how do you know which vowels to use and where to place them and how many to use? Are you gonna just throw in any vowel and say that is the right one and that one is in the right place?

 

Your usual twisting of what was actually said! LOL!

 

You have quoted two different people and concluded with the singular pronoun "your". Who specifically were you talking about?

 

LOL! PURE BULL! I haven't changed anything - go back and look! There are only 24 pages!

LOL! This too has been explained to you! The Rabbis realized they needed to add them so the Hebrew being born in other lands could read the Torah.

We ALL use the earliest HEBREW addition of vowels to THEIR HEBREW TEXT!

We are using the words as THEY say they are pronounced by THEIR addition of vowels.

ALL translators use this!

How do we know thay had vowel sounds even though they were not written? Well, they obviously added them LOL, and most words can't be spoken without them! Give it a try!

And I notice you have said nothing about the text you were refering to - actually being GREEK - not Hebrew?

 

Obviously Neutral - I put the rest to show the actual thread he responded to.

 

Then bring it forward. I am not your little servant who is gonna run and fetch things for you.

Oh really! Then are you suggesting that the Hebrew in modern day Israel speak that ancient language? Ya know the one without the vowels. I would be willing to bet with you that they don't.

"We all" ??? We all... who? I have studied many many documents that contain the early versions of the Hebrew (not containing vowels) and have puzzled myself many times trying to figure out where the modern day addition of vowels were authorized. There are even ancient opinions about the name of God consisting of 72 letters yet over the years it has remained as Yod He Vau He ... that is a rather foreshortened version of a name that is thought to have had 72 letters. Don't you think"? That is also why the name of God is called the "ineffable name of God". How many other things in those ancient scripts are meant to be 'ineffable'? Do you know? No? So in the arrogance and pride of man, man decides that this is the way it must be. Right...! Yeah????

Ahhh! So someone else has said that the words must have vowels and this is the way each word must be pronounced. Uh Huh... who is "they"?

And so that makes "all translations" correct? Says who?

Ahh,,, then you see the possibility of those sacred texts potentially having the attribute of being ineffable?

http://www.kvile.net/hebrew/index.php/2008/02/20/lesson-one-the-hebrew-alphabet/

Try again. Look through the listing of the Hebrew alphabet and you will find all of the letters that I used ... one error I made in the phonetics... for the letter I called 'vau' is actually "Waw (pronounced vav), transliterated as “v” and is pronounced like the v in victorious."

 

How the American right can claim to be christians is beyond me. They champion the rich, hence condemning the poor, they oppose UHC, they support wars, they support the death penalty.

Straight to hell. Ahhhh, there is a god!

 

LOL! You can "study" it all you want! You can't translate it without the vowels.

And that 72 letters came in later with Qabballah.

LOL! How many time do I need to say THE ANCIENT HEBREW RABBIS.

Oh h*ll no!
***

LOL! NOT! The thread is on page 21. Note that YOU give a verse from the NT!

With the sentence above you start confusing the Greek with Hebrew.

LOL! More off topic "Hebrew".

And there you have the thread ABOUT YOUR POSTED NT TEXT - and my TRANSLATION of that GREEK TEXT -and your confusion!

 

LOL There is no empirical evidence of, say, logical propositions (just to take a part of your more comical "questions"). Asking for empirical evidence of predetermination, as you for example did in one the links I provided above, is complete nonsense. Predetermination is a logical problem, not a phenomenal one.
As you so eloquently phrased it, the nature of your questions is simply revealing of your discomfort with certain subjects.

 

Junobet, as far as calling someones mythology mythological is concerned, I have to ask: Do you not see that taking this as a belittlement is actually a belittlement of everyone else, either living or dead, whose mythology is deemed mythological?

There are only three options in this for the adherent to myth: Either one admits that the myths oneself adheres to are in fact mythological, one denies it and in the process belittles everyone who've ever adhered to myths or there is no such thing as myth.

Me, I'm not about to dismiss the concept of myth just because it may offend someone that things cannot be called by their proper names.

Indeed, I felt that our differences did not concern this subject.

Yes, and I don't object to that. I only objected to your inferrence that religiosity could affect scientific observation. It cannot. It can only affect observation.

You can't make it any clearer. But perhaps I can work on making it clearer that neither of our ideas or lack thereof affects scientific observation. They can only affect our observations.

By the way, since you apparently insist that my lack of belief in your god affects my observations, will you honestly tell me that your lack of belief in Barong (a Bali god) affects your observations? I don't see how you can make any other discernment that if a lack of belief in your god can influence the perception of people then lacks of beliefs in an infinity of gods, conceived or not yet conceived of, has an equal influence.

Of course not, only if they happen to fit the world with their Divine. Which is what Kent Hovind does.

You may not give it a second thought, but praising your Divine for the beauty of the world actually infers a causation between your Divine and the beauty of the world.

Of course. And they in turn were able to add to our knowledge of this world because they stood on the shoulders on others with their dedication to knowledge. Not because they were either religious or irreligious.

I do not disagree with you.

When I mentioned intersection, Junobet, I was referring to methodology. All things that go on in the human brain intersect with each other. Of course they do. But it doesn't mean that just because knowledge of fire and water roams around in our brains at the same time that we can set fire to water.

We use both religion and science - maybe even at the very same time - but we can never use science as religion or religion as science. Not even when people unfortunately are compelled to think that their mythologies can act as science. Running a nuclear power plant on prayer can't be done, but it can be imagined and the imagination can be said out loud. And that's the Kent Hovinds of the world.

 

Who said there was? Did I say that there was? No? More of the old straw man argument syndrome.

Anything in which a resolution is attempted through "logic" is merely a subjective thing, therefore, Logic can prove nothing to be FACT = objective. Please name any one thing that is not 'subjective'.

Discomfort? Are you projecting again? Those subjects which I might have a degree of discomfort with or those in which I determine that I am not qualified to speak about, I simply don't offer an opinion. However, those topics in which I don't feel an discomfort in talking about and in which I am qualified to talk about, I will gladly discuss those topics with you or anyone else. Another one of your straw arguments.

 

How wrongfully you attempt to misdirect what is being said. In the last portion of that chain of discussion (which you deliberately left out of the quotes) is that portion where we were talking about "Yod He Vaw He". Those letters are not Greek. The previous portion of the discussion regarding Jesus, has long passed away because of your admissions that you cannot speak the ancient language and therefore, don't KNOW where vowels are to be placed or which vowels to use. You really do need to work on your honesty in these discussions.