Theology Thread

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I've often contemplated the subject of natural disasters. My theory is that, possibly, this is Mother Nature's way of thinning the herd, so to speak, to restore a better balance. A great deal of major natural disasters seem to occur in over populated areas, such as India, China and Mexico: Koyaanisqatsi (Life out of Balance).
 
BethN--this implies purpose.



Nature as the mother goddess presumably has a purpose.

Nature as it objectively is may have absolutely no purpose.

People and other sentients and near sentients such as chimps

do have a purpose to what they do. I don't know that nature

does.



It is an assumption only.



We certainly hear about disasters over populated areas,

and it certainly does help to thin the herd, which does need

thinning.



But disasters do happen where there aren't too many people,

witness that probable meteor strike in the north in the early

1900s.



Must shut down. Lightning, you know.
 
[quote author="Nude" date=1214063384][quote author="graphrix" date=1214055462]Maybe even start an IHB ubernerdy book club. </blockquote>
What are these book things? Is that like the internet on paper?</blockquote>


I remember the Days when there were Fields where the internet is now...
 
[quote author="PeterUK" date=1214102461][quote author="Nude" date=1214063384][quote author="graphrix" date=1214055462]Maybe even start an IHB ubernerdy book club. </blockquote>
What are these book things? Is that like the internet on paper?</blockquote>


I remember the Days when there were Fields where the internet is now...</blockquote>


I remember those fields...



Irvine, 1976

<img src="http://home.comcast.net/~nudedj/IHB/Irvine1976.JPG" alt="" />
 
[quote author="T!m" date=1214050857]Where I am at with the problem of evil is still being stuck on natural disasters. I see no point in a good, powerful God allowing them to exist at all. He can see that man will cause enough suffering on the planet. Why do we need nature to add to it? The idea of having the bad so we can appreciate the good would be plenty well served without tornadoes and droughts. It's just God piling on. I wonder why more people don't wish for him to go away.



Faithful who survive some disease or disaster thank God for their survival; they say they are blessed. I say, why didn't he save those who died? Wouldn't the survivors be more blessed if they hadn't had the disease or disaster to begin with?</blockquote>


Your view seems to be based on death as a punishment, or theft of life. Death is only a punishment if you think that it is the complete and total end of "you".

Storms bring rain, which brings food, which in turn brings life. Volcanos and earthquakes are the byproduct of a warm earth that doesn't freeze everytime the sun goes down. Fire replenishes the soil with nutrients needed to feed new plants. This planet is huge by human scale, and so large versions of these events seem cataclysmic from our vantage point, but on a planetary scale they are just the normal processes of a thriving ecology.

<blockquote> I also have a problem with the "standard" interpretation of the part of the New Testament wherein if you don't put your faith in Christ, then you go to hell. Why would a loving God condemn the vast majority of the people who have ever lived to go to hell? Seems like an angry, selfish dick to me.



I used to be very much into "mainstream," Protestant, non-denominational Christianity. I've read the entire Bible, I've led Bible studies, etc. However, since I have been honestly asking myself these questions, I have more and more trouble believing as I used to. I've moved more into wondering if it isn't all a bunch of baloney that we believe so we don't have to face our own mortality. It could very well be that when we die, we just die. That is a crushingly sad thought for most people.</blockquote>


I agree with you. Any religion is just a collection of practices designed to put you in conscious contact with their deity. Catholics have Mass and confession, Muslims have multiple prayers a day facing Mecca, Jews have Temple on Saturday, etc. But the practical application of religion has always been to keep society functioning along acceptable lines. Which is where Hell and punishment come in; be good and productive and you get heaven when you die, be lazy and mean and evil and you will burn for all eternity. I can't reject the idea of God because I personally believe in God, but I don't subscibe to any religion because I think it's all hooey designed to keep a large population of people from descent into anarchy. In it's benign form you get beautiful buildings and a stable society. In it's malignant form you get Jim Jones, al-Quaeda, Salem Witch Trials, and the Inquisition. Everyone believes their 'god/gods' is the true one, but maybe each 'god' is just a different manifestation of the same entity and it was the selfishness of man (or evil as I mentioned previously) that twisted it around to suit selfish purposes.
 
The material universe is at least indifferent.



Biological nature can be fairly regarded as malevolent. After all,

we live by eating each other. Even vegetarians eat veggies. Grass

and such doesn't want to be eaten, and people who study this stuff

report that plants evolve thorns and bark to avoid being eaten and

then the animals evolve stronger teeth or horny beaks.



About half of the cells in our body aren't us, they are microbes of

various kinds, some helpful, some moderately harmful, some fatal

if given a chance.



Religion has softened that somewhat by coming up with the concept

of communion.



Also, if we regard the whole body of earth organisms as one thing,

it's not that dreadful to contemplate.



Ok, bad things we do. Fathers abandoning their children. Anybody think

this is a good thing? Since this

happened to me, I can speak on it. Now, I'm glad, knowing what I

know, that he didn't stick around. However, for the most part, getting

abandoned by your father is not a good thing for a kid. Now, one

would think that those children would not survive as often, and therefore

this would cause the genes of the abandoning bio-father to not spread

as widely as a nurturing one, and hence evolve out of the picture.



Hasn't happened tho. The moms and grandmoms try to keep the child

alive, and often succeed. As do those of raped mothers. So the one

factor is balanced genetically by the other. Those fathers who abandon

their children don't have the kids around for comfort in their old age,

and, if they don't have an "official" other family, don't have the support

of family when they need it.



Just so's I'm not just picking on guys, women who have kids sneakily by

men other than their husbands tend to pick out men who are smarter or

handsomer (an indication of health) or something-er, and those kids get

both the benefit of maybe better genes and a nuturing father too. It is

a high risk strategy obviously. The successfully sneaky woman is probably

smarter than the average, and also more manipulative.



Some of this may be conscious, much not. There are lots of forces pulling

at us that we are not aware of, and that we don't really want to think

about.



If the survival value of faithfulness is higher than that of unfaithfulness,

if will be selected. If the survival value of unfaithfulness is higher than

that will result. Ok, we are riding the tiger and want to be faithful. We

can control some of our impulses some of the time, but not always.



A couple of related facinating facts:



About 30% or so of the people in central Asia are descendants of the

Genghis Khan family. A lot of raping there very successful in producing

descendants.



Faithful animals don't need so much sperm. Animals which aren't faithful

including chimps and bonobos (our closest relatives) have a sperm arms

race, and large testicles. Men are medium on the scale.



Disgusting but logical conclusion? Hypocrisy pays. We are both faithful and

unfaithful. If we try to change this would we get stupider as a result?
 
Some people need a belief system in order to function.



I briefly shook the faith of a Jehovah's witness once. It

made her very unhappy. I decided I would never do that again.



She was a nice lady with a lot of problems and she didn't need me

to make her more unhappy.
 
Very funny Irvine Realtor. I couldn't figure out how to reply to you by private

message. Hey, post the joke already.



I will tell the hub. His undergrad degree was in Physics.



How many MIT students does it take to change a lightbulb?



One.



The student reaches up, places the bulb in the socket, and the universe

revolves around him. . .
 
The underlying assumption so far is that there is a god and good vs. evil fits into ones view of such a deity. How can we even be sure that there is a god in the first place? I'll go even further - why even ask that question in the first place? We are certainly not trying to pin down the existence of dragons, unicorns or the <a href="http://www.venganza.org/">flying spaghetti monster</a>.
 
I'm an agnostic personally.



I was wondering when the spaghetti god was going to show up.

I haven't checked on its permutations for a while.



God may not exist, but maybe the divine does.



It's interesting to contemplate what forms the various gods have

taken. Sez a lot about us.



God may not exist, but good and evil sure do. Dragging the notion

of good & evil away from religion and theologians is a good thing.



There are a fair number of people who believe that the only thing

keeping some people good is a fear of God's punishment. And that's

probably good for those who would be bad otherwise. It is, however,

the worst possible reason to be good.



Agnostics and atheists really have to think about morality because

the god will punish you thing really doesn't work for them. My mother

occasionally asks me if I'm not afraid of going to hell. Concern? A

desire to push my buttons and drive me crazy? Both?



There are lots of people out there who assume that agnostics and

atheists are bad immoral people.



So other than Godly rewards and punishments, what other reasons

are there to be good, particularly when nobody's looking?
 
[quote author="green_cactus" date=1214129372]The underlying assumption so far is that there is a god and good vs. evil fits into ones view of such a deity. How can we even be sure that there is a god in the first place? I'll go even further - why even ask that question in the first place? We are certainly not trying to pin down the existence of dragons, unicorns or the <a href="http://www.venganza.org/">flying spaghetti monster</a>.</blockquote>
We ask the question for the same reason we asked "what lies beyond the horizon?" or ponder the implications of String theory. As for the mythical creatures, you forget that people did try to pin down their existence; those questions were settled so long ago (centuries) that we no longer need to ask. The reason we are still asking "Is there a God?" is simple: we have not yet fully disproven the possibility that an intelligence greater than ourselves exists. Since we have still not determined, nor been able to replicate, the switch that turns chemistry into biology (for example, how did the first protzoan on Earth come to exist?), the possibility of a "Creator" cannot be eradicated. Despite modern attempts to ridicule *any* belief in a deity as delusional in the face of modern scientific evidence, or to discount it with farcical alternatives, science can not fully discount the possiblity of "God" because we can't yet perform the experiments that will turn theory into a proof.
 
That's why I'm an agnostic, not an atheist.



The universe is extremely subtle and strange, and I would not

want to discount anything.



However, I feel pretty confident that the biologists will be able

to figure out how it could have been, sooner or later, and probably

sooner than later. Nobody will ever know for sure, but I think that

proof will be had which is convincing to reasonable persons.



I would guess that life is relatively easy to start; amino acids have

been found in meteors, haven't they?



So I don't think that because we don't know yet how primitive life

was created is proof that a creator had to be involved. One could

postuate that the Creator just put all those chemicals there in a promising

environment and then let'er rip. Actually, I think that Catholicism

has no objection to that premise.



Intelligent life, now, that's hard. One could argue that it hasn't happened

yet.



One could argue that we, or some other intelligent being somewhere

in the many solar systems could evolve toward godliness. It would

be really nice.



I read on Slate that biologists are thinking that gayness is caused (caused

is a strong word, perhaps influenced would be better) by hormones in utero.



OK, you are a prospective parent. It has become common to test for gayness

and the tests are effective. You have the opportunity to treat the fetus in

utero by changing the hormone content of the fluids the baby floats in.



Is this immoral? Is it in the nature of fixing a birth defect, which we can

already do, far more intrusively that a hypothetical hypodermic thru the uterine

wall. Has gayness because acceptable only to become regarded as a

disease?



Is this like deaf people claiming to have deaf culture and not wanting a

cure for their deafness even if one is developed? Having become a bit

deaf myself, I find this attitude inexplicable.



Would someone who doesn't want to put up with the hassles of being gay

accept a possible hormone treatment? Or, is that like offering a black

person who is sick of the hassles of being black, whiteness? Perhaps a

profound insult?



And what about me? My mom said that because I was so robust as a

baby, the doc said--I should have been a boy. I had boylike interests and was a tomboy,

but only interested in boys sex-wise. So maybe I was exposed to a bit

extra male hormones, and as a result am more aggressive than the average

girl. Would I have been tested and toned down? Shades of Brave New World.



They asked some Catholic authority person and he said it seemed ok.



This from a Church which is anti any meddling in sex and birthcontrol,

no test tube babies, but an anti gayness shot--no problem.
 
I read some of the hate mail on the flying spaghetti god blog, and

I'm not sure if the hate mail is really hate mail, or just satire piled

on satire, but I think that some of those people are for real, or they

wouldn't spell so badly.



Assuming they really mean it I don't think that they'd recognize

satire, or a saytre, if the Great god Pan bit them on the ankle.



And don't some people think that dragons were invented to explain

dinosaur bones? Pterodactyls were pretty dragonish looking.



Although I suspect the t-rex bones would have been far more

impressive.
 
I don't believe in god.



With that said, I wanted to respond to some of LL's musings....



1. I believe I was born gay, no doubt about it.

2. I do think that science will eventually confirm this.

3. I do think that once scientists identify these genetic markers, efforts will eventually be made in the attempt to stop homosexuality from happening....that there will be some sort of a gay amniocentesis done, just as they are done now to detect Down Syndrome/genetic disorders in pregnant women.

4. I would not accept hormone treatments now to change my sexuality....I like women too much ! ;)

5. I would have preferred to have been born straight, I mean, Duh ! So personally I wouldn't have minded if my Mom got some hormone treatments to reverse my in-utero homo-ness. It's been a rough ride and if it could have been avoided, my life would have been much easier. The reason I wouldn't have a problem with it is because I believe that every mother would want their child to fit in. I didn't, and it pained both my parents so much ! My Dad used to ask me, "why do you choose to live like this...it's such a hard life".

He's right that it has been hard sometimes, but he's just plain wrong about the "choosing".



I think religion is comforting to people, and I support anyone's religious leanings.....as long as their religion or church is not trying to do damage to me and/or my gay brothers and sisters (case in point, those fine "religious" folks that picketed the first gay wedding I attended last week...I mean, what kind of crap is that ??!) And if they try and quote that bible business with me, I have a few passages to throw right back at them that are just as...uh...um....(trying not to offend)....ridiculous.



So, any of you god fearing folks care to muse upon why there is homosexuality ? I mean, is that one of your god's way of controlling population too ? And I'm not being sarcastic, I'm interested.
 
[quote author="Trooper" date=1214227125]So, any of you god fearing folks care to muse upon why there is homosexuality ? I mean, is that one of your god's way of controlling population too ? And I'm not being sarcastic, I'm interested.</blockquote>
Trooper, I think you are exactly what God intended you to be, no mistakes and no regrets. I think men have twisted (and in some cases invented) religion to fit whatever morals they want others to have. I believe God wants us to be a part of the world and not apart from the world, if that makes sense, and that means that homosexuality is as much an intended part of God's plan as wind, surf, butteflies, and kittens. I learned that from a man named Chuck Chamberlain. You might know his son, Richard. My point is that the problem isn't God or the spirituality that drives people into church, the problem is the twisted practices and ideas they get fed when they get there that were created by selfish people with an agenda. Who knows, maybe the whole "homosexuality is a sin" thing began in response to ancient priests molesting altar boys back when Moses was a kid.
 
Religion was always terrifying to me (maybe the hell thing for trivial

offenses such as (then) eating meat on Friday.



But I acknowledge some people seem to find it comforting.



There is a truly horrible anecdote in the old Testament, where some

travelers are proposing to molest a boy or man. Their host says, oh,

don't do this horrible thing, here's my daughter, and they proceed to

rape her to death, which is clearly seen by the writer to be a better

alternate.



I see too many religions as a source of wealth and power for mostly

men, who have few talents to acquire them otherwise.



Ok, why do so many religions treat women as 2nd class citizens?
 
[quote author="lawyerliz" date=1213818283]

(To relate the evil to real estate, a guy who I thought was a good

guy, is proposing to heloc his property and walk. He may not be

able to. Is this any different than knocking over a 7-11? Except

that no violence and way more money is involved?)



This is not simply walking away. He put 30% down and is now

underwater. He is bitter. His tenants are not paying and the sheriff

is taking a long time to evict. He was nearly in tears the other day.</blockquote>


Has anybody told him it's still wrong? His tenants are screwing him, that's their bad. The sheriff is lax in his duties, that's his bad.



Ironically, I think the major problem the USA has right now is nobody stands up and judges their friends and acquaintances on what should be, IMHO, black and white issues and tells them it's wrong. It's no different that jacking a 7-11.



Before the 60s, people would have derided him for it. Today, nobody says anything and he gets tacit approval. Everybody knows it's wrong, this isn't just walking away, this is scamming to get the money with premediated default. Fraud, pure and simple.



Neglect is the most insidious of the evil traits. And it's neglect when we let our friends, neighbors and acquaintances think. Like much, we have nobody to blame but ourselves because we tolerate it.
 
[quote author="Nude" date=1214196817][quote author="green_cactus" date=1214129372]The underlying assumption so far is that there is a god and good vs. evil fits into ones view of such a deity. How can we even be sure that there is a god in the first place? I'll go even further - why even ask that question in the first place? We are certainly not trying to pin down the existence of dragons, unicorns or the <a href="http://www.venganza.org/">flying spaghetti monster</a>.</blockquote>
We ask the question for the same reason we asked "what lies beyond the horizon?" or ponder the implications of String theory. As for the mythical creatures, you forget that people did try to pin down their existence; those questions were settled so long ago (centuries) that we no longer need to ask. The reason we are still asking "Is there a God?" is simple: we have not yet fully disproven the possibility that an intelligence greater than ourselves exists. Since we have still not determined, nor been able to replicate, the switch that turns chemistry into biology (for example, how did the first protzoan on Earth come to exist?), the possibility of a "Creator" cannot be eradicated. Despite modern attempts to ridicule *any* belief in a deity as delusional in the face of modern scientific evidence, or to discount it with farcical alternatives, science can not fully discount the possiblity of "God" because we can't yet perform the experiments that will turn theory into a proof.</blockquote>


I'm not saying that spirituality and belief in god had to be ridiculed or discredited - spirituality can benefit some people in great ways. HOWEVER, filling gaps in our scientific knowledge with a "creator" or "higher intelligence" is nothing but pure speculation. As much as the possibility of a "creator" can't be eradicated, it can't be proven either. The burden of proof falls on both ends of this argument and either assumption (existence or non-existence of a deity) needs some proof. Since there isn't such thing, the question becomes part of the unknowable; it's a question that has no answer.
 
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