This is great.

On the one side, I'm being accused of being Anti-Christian.

On the other, I'm being accused of being a Christian Apologist.

Buddha was right about this whole 'moderation' thing.

Unless people can be separate from the spectrum entirely and observe both ends evenly.



I think that's up to the women in question, and we have no right to tell other people how to live their lives.


They are wrong.

Unless a divine creator is not actively guiding evolution, but instead has built the capacity to adapt, change and evolve into the foundation of life.

Which means Darwin was still right, life adapts and changes, and the religious are still right, it happens because God is a very good programmer.

And science and religion can coexist peacefully.

See, the biggest failing I find with religion is the concept that God is active.

Instead of the far more believable God that is passive, sitting back and watching his clockwork universe tick.

I like what I think the Taoist explanation would be, which is that Anti-Christian and Christian Apologist aren't really that different:

-Tao Te Ching, Chapter 1

and
-Tao Te Ching, Chapter 2

These opposites and dichotomies, they only exist when one element is viewed in the context of another. So ignore the dichotomy, and let things stand as they are, all part of the Tao.

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.

Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.

Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?

Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?”

-Epicurus

And now, I am vindicated.

More human nature.
God must be a powerful father, a loving mother.
God must be active.
God must be listening.

It never occurred to Epicurus that perhaps God simply sees us as part of a larger landscape.

Earth, rather than people.

So we both agree that the solution would be to look at both sides, rather than just look only at one side, whichever side it is?

So you take the side of the Muslims in this case?


I'm sure they would love to debate this with you. Believe me, they are a stubborn people.

But as a scientific theory, evolution still doesn't need ID to be a part of it.

Why? Did he form Earth after his image too?

The Apocryphon of John says that he really screwed up the entire Genesis thing, the only reason we humans are still around and kicking is that the demons that he calls his angels fooled him, and then Christ exploited the situation to give us a break. So that puts that God clearly in the Evil category. He is not omnipotent but still mighty enough. He is jealous because humans are mostly smarter than him. But he is mostly powerless against us as a race because we are under the protection of Christ.

In this view, god wouldn't give man commandments and religion, so there would be no divinely sanctioned good and evil, just like there aren't any for mountains or dumb beasts. God wouldn't need to be worshiped by landscape, and wouldn't make afterlives for us pieces of terrain. So god would really only be a first cause and nothing more.

Why would you believe that? That there's some supernatural being that created us with the capacity for suffering and pain and sit there watching children being raped?

Sorry but theist or deist, neither holds any merit for me.

That would make "him" criminal.

Because he is not in the saving business but in the smiting business. He just didn't get around to bully everyone yet. Christ is in the saving business, thwarted by God big time. While he is not omnipotent either he does what he can.

At least this is what I would believe if I believed any of the sacred books.

That's what I have been saying from the very beginning, yes.

Are we on the same page now?


No.

I think these women are being exploited, and by both sides.

I think that the Burkha is an excuse to keep women in check, and I think that westerners decrying the Burkha are exploiting these women exactly as much.

Mostly, I believe that what someone chooses to do with their own life is their own business.

And we have no right to tell them what to do, or we become no different than the men who insist the Burkha be worn, under pain of death.


I know they are.

This does not change that they are wrong.


No, it doesn't, evolution does not need ID, we do not disagree.

ID needs evolution.

Unless humans don't matter. Maybe god has something else in mind for the world, and we are just landscaping.

Just thought it bore repeating.

Also to add that ID is just more 'god of the gaps' crap. Why shoehorn something supernatural into gaps of actual, scientific knowledge?

Yes.

Exactly.

I don't believe God had anything to do with any of that.

I believe that if there is a God, he put the wheel in motion and did nothing else.

Pain, suffering, misery, these are all human inventions. We do this to ourselves, the rape, the murder, humans do this. God did nothing.

We do this to ourselves and then we blame God for not stopping it, without every considering whether or not God is even aware we exist.

Assuming God has the capacity to care about what happens on Earth is still ascribing Human tendancies.


That would be attempting to foist Human morality on a Divine being.


I don't think God formed anything.

If there is a God, I believe God created probability - the potential for all things to happen... or not happen.

Everything else happened as the numbers dictated.

But then why were you just looking at that one side of the issue?

What about the Muslim women in Wester European countries who chose to wear a burkha?

Well, yeah...

So ID is still not a scientific theory, still does not need to be taught in public schools, etc. Nothing changed from the status quo.

To appease those who must believe God is watching, without actually altering science as we come to know and discover it.

To stop bulls**t like people who do not understand the meaning of the word "Theory" from stating that evolution is a lie, because the bible does not allow it.

To show that God and Science can coexist.

To compromise.

To bring peace.

Because i'd just spent an entire forum page looking at nothing but the other side.


They choose to wear it?

Then that is their choice.

Apart from creation mythology being dragged behind the barn and shot in the skull?

Nothing changed about the status quo.

Religion can accept and support science, is what I am saying, rather than violently oppose it on every issue.

Call it a method of teaching God to your children without ignoring scientific fact, allowing both God and evolution to exist.

At home, and in your church. Not in school.

They can't unless you change the definition of science.