<p>Wow, this is some discussion going on here. I just wanted to interrupt with my two cents. I am pretty surprised at the experiences people here have had with "the church" and christians. I come from CT and I am a Christian, but geez, you guys seem to be dealing with fundamentalist psychos. I know for sure that my church is considerably different. It supports the poor, the needy in town. They push forgiveness, love, encouragement and support in the congregation. One of the main things I have learned is that I have to live what I believe. Gosh, I believe in being kind and loving with everyone I meet, and that includes being a good listener. I never condemn other people's beliefs and certainly, if I have learned anything at church, it is not to push beliefs on another. That story one of you had about someone whipping out the New Testament and trying to convert you.... that's bogus. It is the fundamentalists like these who make ALL CHRISTIANS seem like ignorant bumbling idiots. We're all not.
Referring to the evolution discussion - I believe it to be a malleable topic. I don't agree with the 10,000 yrs creationism, but then I don't believe that evolution is the be-all end-all. I always love hearing the new theories and ideas out there because there is quite a bit that we do not know yet. Also, it is only macro-evolution that I have qualms with. Micro-evolution is pretty much truth in my eyes.
I guess what I hope to find when I get to college (find out in APRIL!!!) is openess in discussion on both angles. Too many times (I live in a pretty liberal area) do I find liberals who are just as closeminded as fundamentalists. As soon as someone brings in anythign remotely right-wing, they just go off, won't listen and try to prove them wrong. People have to got to open up to both sides no matter how they swing - liberal and conservative beliefs each both have some truth that's worth knowing.</p>
<p>Oh, and just to add... i came across this interesting article. <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=315976%5B/url%5D">http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=315976</a></p>
<p>COols875: I saved that article for future reference ... it was very interesting. Thanks for posting it.</p>
<p>Anyway, I would just like to say that I've really enjoyed reading this debate. I've stayed out of it (mostly b/c of my inferiority in biology), but I love to read the posts. It gives me hope for intelligent conversation!!</p>
<p>And BTW, I just picked up Miller's Finding Darwin's God. When I walked into the local B&N it was on the floor in the philosophy section. I remembered someone mentioned it here and decided to go with the flow. Looks interesting! Thanks to whoever mentioned it. :)</p>
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I am pretty surprised at the experiences people here have had with "the church" and christians. I come from CT and I am a Christian, but geez, you guys seem to be dealing with fundamentalist psychos.
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<p>That sounds a LOT like the place I live. I haven't had such experiences with close-minded Christians or anything. Most of the people I know, as I said in an earlier post, are very open-minded people (religious and atheist) and respect each other's opinions. I think it's because a lot of other people come into contact with close-minded religious people that they tend to see a lot of Christians that way, because that's what they've been exposed to most of the time. So I hope that wherever people go, they will remember that not all religious people (or non-religious people, for that matter) are unaccepting of others' beliefs.</p>
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That story one of you had about someone whipping out the New Testament and trying to convert you.... that's bogus. It is the fundamentalists like these who make ALL CHRISTIANS seem like ignorant bumbling idiots. We're all not.
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<p>I don't think it's bogus that someone whipped out the New Testament. If it's a true story, then it happened. Big deal, there's close-minded and disrespectful people everywhere you go.. they can be either religious, not religious, etc. And true, sometimes it IS those kinds of people that make a lot of Christians look bad.</p>
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Referring to the evolution discussion - I believe it to be a malleable topic. I don't agree with the 10,000 yrs creationism, but then I don't believe that evolution is the be-all end-all.
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<p>I agree with your statement. :D</p>
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I guess what I hope to find when I get to college (find out in APRIL!!!) is openess in discussion on both angles. Too many times (I live in a pretty liberal area) do I find liberals who are just as closeminded as fundamentalists. As soon as someone brings in anythign remotely right-wing, they just go off, won't listen and try to prove them wrong. People have to got to open up to both sides no matter how they swing - liberal and conservative beliefs each both have some truth that's worth knowing.
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<p>Haha I live in a highly liberal area as well... the student population here is probably like 95% liberal. Yeah, I also meet many close-minded liberals... as I said, there are close-minded people in each discipline.</p>
<p>Finding Darwin's God is a really interesting book! Incidentally, if you take bio 20 at Brown, Professor Miller goes out of his way to eat lunch with several students after every class (all you have to do is go up to him and ask). This is one of his favorite topics to debate with people in his class about.</p>
<p>Is it sad that I didn't even get into Brown (yet ... hopefully) and I already have teachers and courses lined up to take? haha. I'd so take Miller's bio class. :)</p>
<p>Thanks for the post COols,</p>
<p>I read thte first tease of this in "PHILOSOPHY." It was cryptic but clear that Flew had done a U-Turn on creation v. random chance.</p>
<p>I wonder if this will make it easier for other people who see the logic of intelligent design.
For those who are unaware, Flew has written Philosophy text books used in Universities across the US and Britain, and is one of the most widely published philosophers of our time.</p>
<p>i agree with u</p>
<p>By far one of the most intersting and informative discussions I've come across on cc.</p>
<p>like thomas Aquinas( writer of Summa Theologica) would advocate, many of the religious people need to separate their devout beliefs from their reasoning as the two are often incompatible</p>
<p>Actually wasn't Summa Theologica trying to reconcile church teachings with classical philosophy?</p>
<p>if my ap euro memory serves me correctly it tried but it couldnt instead said should be kept separate</p>
<p>I wouldn't say that religious beliefs and reasoning need to be separated all the time. For deists following the idea of natural law and the clockmaker idea, don't the two go hand and hand? I spent a good deal studying Tom Jefferson's philosophy regarding religion and he especially pushed that the way to pursue God originated in reason. He translated the certain greek word, Logos, into "reason" instead of "word" ... hence, "In the beginning was the "reason" and the "reason" was God and the "reason" was with God... and "reason" became flesh.... " He especially said that the best way to pursue God and express faith was to imitate Christ - he pointed out that "talking the talk" did nothing. Therefore, if "reason" became flesh, hence became Christ... he was actually trying to follow reason by imitating Christ. Tom Jefferson has some pretty interesting letters written about this stuff ("Never an Infidel if Never a Priest" haha). He pushed that society and organized religion with power (like a theocracy - political power) were detrimental because the power would lead to corruption... people would use religious pretenses to get their political aims achieved. He felt that religion would be best if left out in the open for criticism, ridicule and adoration. If there is something to criticize, then debate will eventually occur, requiring people to argue both sides and get all the info out in the open - if there is something corrupt, then it will be rectified for the most part. Anyways, sorry for the tangent there. Lol, i really did enjoy studying Jefferson last summer and he did a pretty good job at trying to reconcile religion and reason. One last thing - he believed that God left the human race with one important thing, the ability to reason. Through that, one could search using reason and find God.</p>
<p>Nah, you've got it backwards. He wrote as elements of clasical Greek philosophy, namely the works of Aristotle, were being rediscovered in Christendom after being preserved in Islamic libraries through the dark ages. They seemed contrary to church teachings in many regards, and many philosophers of the day were beginning to embrace these ideas. Enter Aquinas--he tries to reconcile the two.</p>
<p>Actually, I feel his first (maybe second?) proof for God (prime cause/first cause) is very compelling, but thats another issue.</p>
<p>I'm fairly certain I'm right, I just finished a course titled "The Philosophy of God" last term. Theologica was one of our (many) readings. I hope I'm not forgetting things that quickly!</p>
<p>Yes, Jefferson's deismistic [sp?] beleifs are an interesting concept, as well. Franklin took the idea to a mucher higher level if I'm not mistaken.</p>
<p>...try to make relgion fit with the fact that--"ya know, we never actually see God..."</p>
<p>Interesting - how is Theologica? Good reading? How is it written?</p>
<p>I actually really liked it. I'm a philosophy nerd, but his stuff isn't hard to read or mentally digest (as opposed to people like Hume/Sartre which is like trying to read through molasses). You have to remember, however, that how you read a lot of philosophical texts largely depends on how it has been translated into English and/or modern language.</p>
<p>His proofs are well thought out and articulated, and he doesn't try to prove god exists by weaving existance into the definition of god like so many others (Anselm, Descartes). His sections on God's teachings are a little more in-depth, but still worth it. Wherever you guys end up, if you have a chance to take a class on this stuff in college I'd do it.</p>
<p>That sounds pretty interesting. I'll definitely have to give it a shot.</p>
<p>Theologica was actually written as sort of an index of his earlier works. It was written with the intent of being readable by anyone</p>
<p>Come to think of it--that article on the last page about the athiest claiming there's a god now is largely based on the ideas in Theologica (with a dash of argument from design thrown in for flavor).</p>
<p>For me, if they're good enough to make the worlds most renowned athiest double take they're worthy of a little bit of study.</p>
<p>Haha, that definitely is a good reason.</p>