Hi Dark, Yeah, let's not go there. Besides being completely off topic for the list if we start down the road of debating religion and ethics we will be here until doom's day discussing it. Like it or not everyone has an an opinion, right or wrong, and its amazing how drastically different those opinions can be in scope. Especially, when a lot of the opinions aren't based on rational observation and good old logic and reasoning.
For example, a year or two back a couple of Jehovah Witnesses knocked on my door, and I let them in. They started in on their religious song and dance, and happened to mention they were raising money on some program to teach school age children about the Biblical Creation and what a lie Evolution was. Unfortunately, for them they chose the wrong guy to get into a debate with over Creationism vs Evolution. I'm a pretty science oriented kind of guy, and I find the religious creation stories rather dubious anyway. I've read a lot of the Creationism arguments before, and they are scientifically weak, usually are based on spurious information that is untrue, and try to defeat Evolution by stating that creation is an all or nothing process. However, that's beside the point here. I asked them if they honestly thought the universe was only 6,000 years old. They told me that the bible says it is only 6,000 years old, the earth was created in six days, etc. Well, I told them to point me to the verse or verses that states how old the earth is. They could not do that, because apparently its based on going throughout the various genealogies given in Matthew, Luke, Genesis, etc and coming up with some round about figure when the earth could have been created, but nowhere does the bible actually say the actual age of the earth and universe. What makes their argument even weaker if someone studies the first chapter of Genesis the word translated as day in English is misleading. In Hebrew the word could mean a day, a week, a month, an eon depending on how you choose to interpret it.Point being here that the bible doesn't actually say it was created in six literal days, but that's just how Jews and Christians chose to interpret it until science came along and proved that interpretation as impossible. Since the word for day in Hebrew is so vague it may very well mean millions and billions of years if a person is of a mind to interpret it that way. Naturally, they didn't like the fact I could so readily dismember their argument using the bible itself and we hadn't even gotten to the scientific arguments. I asked them about radio carbon dating which places the beginning of the universe at some 15 billion years ago, and they told me it was junk science. They told me radio carbon dating is horribly inaccurate which is only partly true. Radio carbon dating isn't good for pinning down an exact date but usually can date something to the correct century give or take a hundred years. That's good enough for what we are talking about here, and is accurate enough for most archeological dating of items let alone the beginning of the universe. Anyway, I then told them that the stars up in the sky are millions of light years away and when they look at the stars at night the light they see is already millions of years old. As you and I know the speed of light is the great constant in the universe, figuring out the distance of objects using light is easy to do, but they refused to believe that. Instead they came up with some lame excuse that they had to be a lot closer than astronomers claim and that the astronomers simply are wrong. Bottom line, I gave them three good rational arguments that disproved their theory, their beliefs, but they chose not to open their minds and listen to the my side of the debate. Instead they wanted to continue believing in their opinion right, wrong, or otherwise. This, I think, is the problem with religion. Some people once they become convinced of some truth, think they are right, regardless of what compelling evidence might prove them wrong in the long run. As they say, "a person convinced against his will is of the same opinion still." Therefore arguing with such people is fruitless. Cheers! On 6/18/12, dark <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Tom. > > well those sorts of christians are nuts, and I agree they give reasonable > christians a bad name the same way extreme muslims give the entirity of > islam a bad name (personally I don't like either group). > > When I was in colidge a friend of mine always used to introduce me to such > people, because, as a philosopher I could always manage to tie them in > knots. One of my favourite tactics was asking if mahatma Gandi had gone to > hell for not being a christian, and when they admitted that he did saying > "well okay then, ---- if hell is good enough for the greatest peace activist > > of the 20th century, it's good enough for me!" > > In fact I've often thought if indeed those people are right and only people > > with those sorts of views go to heaven, ---- I really wouldn't want to go to > > heaven! :D. > > It can however be extremely unpleasant when they decide to start a witch > hunt. For example, my brother once had an awefull experience where he went > to what he assumed to be a reasonable church. Outside, was a man collecting > > for the gay awareness charity. In the middle of the service the priest > actually stopped and told the congrigation about "the sinfull thing going on > > outside the church" where upon after the service lots of people went across > > and gave the fellow at the gay rights stand a severely hard time, ---- and > yet god is love! > > Sometimes I think that the worst instinct humans have is to band together in > > groups and say "everyone in our group is right" whether that's national, > religious, racial, even disability based. But before this becomes a > discourse on ethics I'lls top. > > Beware the grue! > > Dark. > > > --- > Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] > If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to > [email protected]. > You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at > http://mail.audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. > All messages are archived and can be searched and read at > http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]. > If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, > please send E-mail to [email protected]. > --- Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [email protected]. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://mail.audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]. 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