[Genmotty]

A little forward from Gen
As always the difficult thing is asking a good question. Many questions cannot be directly answered or have their responses judged in a meaningful way. Interestingly though, the topic of religion, in particular the 'Biblical Account', appears to be a great way of missing the point of questions in the west, by those trying to answer the question. There are historical reasons for this that I will in the course of time relate to you, if someone else doesn't. But just because you have picked up a meme of the times, doesn't mean you cannot be a secular thinker. All it requires you to do, is examine the logic.

[hr]

Is the Christian God relevant in today's society?

Well is he/it? The fact is this question isn't about the 'Biblical Account', it's not about if Angel exist, or if you are going to Heaven. It's not even about 'good' and 'evil' (if either such things existed).

No. It's a question about history, about society, and about our human needs. It is a question more orientated at the psychology of the Christian religion, and the needs for faith, and a coherent cosmology of the world, and it's planes of existence.

Hence if we are to debate this like men (or women). We will need to first analyze what we will need to cover in order to reach some answer to the question;

A) We need to look at the evolution of Christianity since it's conception as a radical cult in the Roman Empire.

B) Having done that, understand where today's society comes from when it views Christian religion, and compare this to the orthodox view of not just our contemporary theologians, but also those from ancient history.

C) In both A and B will will have seen purposes for religious belief, may it be the hardships of the times, or clearly just an explanation of the world from a mythological viewpoint. Hence here will be where we judge if the purposes that the Christian faith has had historically are mirrored with needs in today's society.

I hope you'll join me on this quest, and bring in other points that may have escaped my readings.

Gen

[hr]

I'll start you off with some information that might start somewhere half through B above. But I think it's important that we start where protestant belief derives it's authority from. (Where protestant belief comes from can be looked at in the course of time.) The Holy Bible.

So anybody here read Genesis. Tis the first book of the Bible, so it might be a good point to start.

In the beginning God created heaven and earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. edit. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light...

We all know the story; Day 1: Light, Day 2: Heaven and Earth, Day 3: Plants, Day 4: Moon and Sun, Day 5: All the animals, Day 6: Man.
What we have he is a 'Biblical Account' trying to describe the creation of everything, to explain that the world/universe hasn't always been, that it was made in stages. It is a metaphor in story terms, just like the way Aesop told his tails of morality. So let us then look at chapter 2 of Genesis;


Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made. These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.
Said in best Londoner accent; “You what?!!”
Well, that doesn't make much sense does it? In chapter 1 the Bible told us that all the plants were made before man. Yet here in chapter 2, we are being told; “No, man was made before the plants.” Contradictory eh? Well if in barely a page worth of text the Bible has two contradictory statements, you can be pretty certain that it will be full of more. Hence any argument based on 'what the Bible says' is a bit pointless don't you think?

Here just like in chapter one, we are being given not a literal mythology as a modern day creationist might preach, but again an allegorical account in terms of mythology to explain the fragility of man and how we are worth little more than 'dust of the ground' in the 'garden of Eden'.

So with just the very first two chapters of the Bible, we have seen why we cannot take the worlds of the Bible as literal gospel, and also how we should read the Bible, as a set of mythological stories, each preaching some aspect about the world in the term of metaphor. Aesop did it, as well as many other writers, and is a common way to pass knowledge as a meme to kids when they grow up, and might not be able to understand the complexity of the concept you might be trying to convey.

Contemporary literature, doesn't have a lot of emphasis on this aspect of writing, but then as I saw in a thread about Haiku, neither does it explain about the nature of poetry in a historical context, where these styles have been traditionally used to pass on information, rather than as an artform to be taken literally.

So what evidence do I know of to back up my statements about the Bible. Well there is Philo of Alexandria he lived when Jesus lived, and made some commentaries on the stories that became the Bible were much the same, and perhaps he also gives us the logic to explain why the Bible has such a contradiction right at its beginning. “By having the contradiction” he might say, “It forces one to correlate one story with the other, in doing so you learn how to read the scripture using the correct allegory.”

But what's a philosopher to this debate, eh? Many philosophers say many things, doesn't mean they may be true, so why don't I choose somebody in the Church, let's take one of the Saints, I dunno, Saint Augustin he'll do;

Originally Posted by ”Reworded to modern English”

It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that he [the non-Christian] should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are. In view of this and in keeping it in mind constantly while dealing with the book of Genesis, I have, insofar as I was able, explained in detail and set forth for consideration the meanings of obscure passages, taking care not to affirm rashly some one meaning to the prejudice of another and perhaps better explanation.

So, it looks like he thought the same too (italics), and you know what I like about this quote, that he warns about reading the scripture literally lest it make you an idiot, and not only that, tells you that we will know of nature in time and with science (reasoning and experience).

So wow. We have a good deal of backing in posterity that the Christian faith isn't about taking some old book/set of stories literally at all.

You know what that says to me, that tells me that we are done with the Bible and everything the Biblical Account has to offer. I'd say this is a darn better example explaing the fallibility of the Biblical Account, then anything our other religious thread has come up with. But there you go, I wouldn't expect people to remember their history. I mean it's only the most useful subject there is to teach you about the world, and yes I put it even above Physics.

Anyhow, perhaps we should get onto looking at what happened to this view of Christianity, to today's view where there is some 'great battle' (apparently) between religion and science, and secular belief.

Ta ta for now,
Gen

[GeekyGator]

Well I agree. Of course the Bible should not be taken literally and is so full of self-contradiction that as St. Augustine suggests, I am prone to laugh at it. But that said there are people who take it literally, and in the context of motivating their actions it must be given some consideration, despite the fact that people tend to read what they want to into it and draw whatever conclusion they want out of it.

So then what question shall we tackle.

[Farseer_Emlyn]

Well, Gen, you're analysis is correct in terms of literal adoption of the bible as "scripture". I agree as well that "Christians" should try to get back to the pre-scripture notion of their beliefs. However, you'll find upon closer examination of biblical texts (primarily Jewish ones) and extra-biblical texts that it simply isn't that easy.

Let me just run through a few doctrines which are not inherently present in the Yawistic (i.e. earliest) Jewish texts:

1 ) Satan as the archenemy of God.
2 ) The notion of Good vs Evil
3 ) The idea of some apocalyptic end to the world in which God ultimately triumphs.
4 ) Life after death (and any reward that goes with it)
5 ) Jerusalem as the sacred center of religion
6 ) Creation out of nothing (ex nihlio)
7 ) God as three persons (trinity)
8 ) A spiritual notion of messiah (i.e. Jesus)
9 ) Monotheism

Shall I go on?

You see, if one begins to dissect modern Christianity from the "original" ideas of pre-Judaic Yawism, you'll see that it simply isn't possible. For Christian to "go back to their roots" they would have to abandon almost their entire religion and it really wouldn't be Christianity any more would it?

[Genmotty]

Originally Posted by GeekyGator

So then what question shall we tackle.

Shall we see why some people take the word of the Bible literally? Again, all we have to do is look back into history...

...Let's go back to the 1500s and the Reformation. The reformation came about because of human nature, we see it today that during a period of relative prosperity, corruption can reach even the highest positions in the land. However it's not why the Reformation came about that is of interest to us, rather who had a hand in it, and how did this shape Christianity.

Prior to the Reformation the interpretation of the Bible lay solely in the hands of the Pope and various religious figures he appointed. This practice allowed a certain amount of overwatch to what people thought of 'God' and the scripture within the Bible. It allowed the Pope or religious leaders to tailor the morals contained within to events as they took place in the local community and across the world.

Remember in this era of history the world was much bigger than today, where people still had a lot to learn about tolerance and the natural world. Why would the plague come and strike down 10 children yet to have seen 10 summers, but leave the old withered beggar standing? The New World had just been discovered by Amerigo Vespucci at the end of the previous century, and tales of strange lands where people ate the still beating hearts of others was coming to people.

So in this time of 'discovery' some Christians decided to 'discover' religion for themselves in rejecting papal authority, and instead supplanting it with the Bible as the only authority.

Now remember Saint Augustine's warning from history, not to use the Bible as a science textbook...?

But that's what a James Ussher did. Ussher believed that the Bible held all the information to how the world began and how we should live our lives. He did something rather interesting as part of this, by carefully looking at all the chronologies in the Bible deduced that the world came into existence 4004 BC. Well, we know from todays (Victorian era) study of geology this is complete bull, however it was printed in every page of the King James Bible. What is the King James Bible, well it was the first authorized Bible by the new protestants, and published during the reign of King James the I.

Now jump back a century and a half from King Henry the VIII, and what was the revolutionary invention of the time? The printing press. Then if we jump forward to mid 1500s, we have William Tyndale who took the Latin new testament during the Reformation and translated it to English, and had it printed. So it began the first ever Printed Bible in English, that meant for the first time Bishops and Religious leaders in England, could read the Bible in their own tongue, not only that, it allowed the literate, the free thinkers, of the time to read the Bible and form their opinions on its text.

This became the Great Bible, of the new Church of England. Not written or given sacrament(sp? not sure if this is the right word either) by the Pope either. But by the 1570s became the Bishops Bible in the Church of England. In all manner of the terms, we English had destroyed Orthodox Christianity, supplanting it with our own theory of the absolute word of God as laid down in the Bible. To top that off, we used one of the great inventions of the time to mass produce the protestant text, and ship it out to every Church in the Land, in the name of our King by the 1600s.

For one of the first times in history, mankind used media to change public perception en masse. What made this even worse, was the fact that this was the most widely read edition of the Bible for the next 300 years.

This Bible, changed the world. It shaped history. It became cannon, and with it the idea of absolute authority in the word of the Bible.

Bet you weren't expecting that as an answer to why people take it literally, eh Geeky? But it gets ever so better...

So we had us Brits making a hash up and by Saint Augustine words, idiots of ourselves, yet it was those damn Yanks who had to take it one step further and blow the first out of the water. Bring on Dayton, Tennessee (I had to look the name of place up) and the stupid law makers of the state. As we will see, their 'mistake' stemming from Usshers and Tyndales work leads us to this very thread today, and the stupidity of the other thread when put into context.

I want to reference, the Scopes Trial. Not what the trial was about, but rather what the trial never addressed, because both the prosecution, defense and wider public were as shallow minded as todays 'debators' in the other thread.

The prosecution came from the idea that Darwinsim was wrong, and should not be taught in schools, even though for the past 60 years it had been and clergy around the western world were perfectly happy with it being taught. There was nothing wrong for Catholics and many of the great thinkers during the Victorian era, because although the word of the Bible was an absolute, most people were;

A) Illiterate. So they couldn't read the Bible and take the word literally.
B) Still interpreted by a literate and informed clergy, who understood the metaphorical nature of the Bible, even if they needed no one to derive authority in the message they choose to preach.

The defense was from liberal thinkers who thought if you ban reason today, you ban free thought tomorrow.

But what kind of argument is this? Well I seriously fail to see why most people don't understand why this bad form right from the get go. You have a perceived trial of;

Religion vs Free thought

...but hand on. We've just seen with the rise of protestantism, the interpretation of the Bible is now open to all. Haven't we? I mean the work done by those during the Reformation allowed us to choose where and how and what to interperate from the Bible. It's the 1920s so many more people are literate.

So you've really got;

Free thought vs Somebodies random interpretation of the Bible who just happens to be in politics and so hence it gets turned into a legal issue.

Now, not many people think along those lines, and again the media helped fuel the fires.

It's the 1920s so what's the next big thing in technology, and the media? Newsreels! Like this one;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNPOz...eature=related

So what does the US now think of the Scopes Trial, is it the reality of what was the trail was, or was it the sensational headline that the media put out? Well, I'll tell you this, if it was Religion vs Free Thought, then I'm on the side of the prosecution, because at least they believed in thinking for themselves.

Hence we have seen how something that might have gone down as a footnote in history again spread wide across the US and eventually by TV and the Internet to Europe as well. The media once again, as stoked the fires of a war. This one, where both parties were at peace to begin with.

Darrow in the Scopes trial also has much to blame with the last 80 years of religious history, because he used the publicity of the trial as a spring board for his dislike (dare I say even hate) of people with religious standings holding positions of authority within society.

But then who were these people? They weren't priests or clergy. They were upstanding members of the new middle classes, who went to Church on a Sunday like everybody else. They were not an exception to the rule, they were not fundamentalists. They were simply the successful of the time.

Yet via the trial, Darrow could denounce these people, as in any trial, dish dirt on the otherside with borderline slander. He believed that science would be a better standing for morality and social order than the thousands of years of religious teaching. In essence (if we take the nature of what the trial was about) saying that the 'survival of the fittest', is the new morality of nature, (as I will show through the theory of memes, this is a logical faux par for morality, and how mathematically another genius found the inherent route of morality).

Now if we put that in the context of the times it's rather easy to see why the public of Dayton voted for Christianity, not only logically were they doing the 'right thing' (although it would take another 30 years before the mathematics to prove this would come along [don't worry I'm not going to dive off into some convoluted proof, unless somebody wants me too, I'll just reference the person and their works]). With the 1st World War just out of the way, the survival of the fittest as a new morality, was just asking for war and slaughter.

So what did the Scope trial achieve for the last 80 years of religion, and it's image in the public opinion. On the one hand the media portrayal of the trial left many with a warped idea of what it was about, and on the other you had it's outcome, where a religious fundamentalism through whoever had interperated the Bible literally had triumphed because of the current affairs of the times, and a politically vocal defendant, who went against the grain.

As you can see yourself now, both were very bad...

...What happens if we scroll the years on a bit for American history and culture. Well we get to the 1960s don't we. What happens there then? Well, it's a time of liberalism and free expression in many ways that were abhorrent and in contravention of the Biblical teachings of morality. So what did the religious fundamentalists do? They returned to the 'absolute word of God, as written in the Bible'.

Yeah, good. No, not really. See the trouble with that, is again let's look at the context of the world. Almost everybody can read now, so anybody can read the Bible and take literal lessons from it, because of Ussher Tyndale and those others from the Reformation. They do this, and along with Saint Augustine's warning from history make themselves look like complete idiots in doing so. Hence we get the rise of fundamentalism in the Bible Belt of America, and such fallacious works as The Genesis Flood, Scientific Creationism and The Genesis Record Well we all know that they are complete bull, but that wasn't all. With no one (like the Pope) to come tell people to come back down to reason, the liberal openness that followed the 60s into the 70s and to the present day. Allowed them to continue to act like Saint Augustine's idiots.

The scientific community laughed at creationism, we all watched the documentaries on New Age Evangelists on the TV asking for money, and prayer. The statistical studies done on praying, and need for people to 'prove their God'. Well most of us laughed...

But it's been three generations since then, and we have a problem. That nice liberal culture that the US bred, never told the idiots that they were idiots. And so, they go on like those early Christians before they had a Bible or Pope, to tell their wacky interpretations to their offspring. Some of these fundamentalists like back with the Scopes trial found their way into positions of power, and they tried again to impose their views on other people.

...and that is where you might say, the Shtlk hit the fan...

It wasn't the wacky fundamentalists, that caused today's 'religious vs science' war. It was those 'rationalists' who knew that they were being confronted by idiots, and had a point to prove in the most aggressive ways possible. It is a trend that continues right up to this very day, and I can see it in the posts of some members.

Bring on the rise of the atheists!

[hr]

I'll leave it here for now, otherwise we'll end up with just a massive wall of text.

I'm sorry if all of this appears like; “Wow, out of the blue!” and if you feel, why does history matter? Well history matters greatly, because it allows us to understand the present, and I have a point to prove/show with all this as well. My displeasure with the other thread, might be because I'm privy to all this because I went away and studied it when I had my spiritual crisis. Hence I am looking from a world view that is radically different from just a passing nod to the media and current affairs. I wouldn't say I'm an expert on all this, and I could be quite possibly be wrong on many an account. But what I do know, is that by exploring history I can explain things of today, that other people struggle with. Anyhow I'm rambling a bit here, so I'll cut it short.

Gen

EDIT: Well, nobody said that interpreting the text of the Bible was ever going to be easy...

Indeed Saint Augustine, even mentions that for obscure passages he has to put aside their meanings. Part of the trouble is that mythology isn't clear cut.

I mean if we take Greek Mythology (primarily for some odd reason I know a lot about it even if I don't know where from) we have the story of Daedalus and the Labyrinth wonderful story about him fashioning a wooden bull for the wife of Minos to have sex with, and then she bears a child half bull-half man, and all this magic comes about because Poseidon(sp?) made her lust for the bull after Minos decided not to sacrifice a white bull. Lovely story to explain where the Minotaur comes from, but then if we change sources. Daedalus being the craftsman and architect he is crafts the Minotaur himself, like he made the 'images that appeared to move'.
Old sources have these problems where the story differs depending who you look at the story changes. Anyhow I digress. I assume you refer to where the Bible is specific as almost a historical text? And hence isn't about interpretation of a wider cosmology or fables about morality and society.

Well, then I think it is generally a question about is there any evidence for a flood, or 10 plagues? Most of the time we cannot know.

But I'm still failing to get at what you are trying to say with your post Emlyn, that the whole of Christian mythology is much greater than just the New Testament? Or that there are generalities between all the Abrahamic religions? Because I take both of those as given. Yet your list also includes things that definably are interpretations within the texts, and I wonder if the post above might not answer why we appear to have more 'wacky ideas' in the scripture. Because at the end of the day (and I say it so much I wish I got a pound every time I do say it) religion is just a set of beliefs, no more, no less.

Either way I made no comment suggesting Christians should go back to their roots, and I would welcome people to challenge the scriptures and think for themselves. Mind you I don't think I trust that everyone will do so rationally.

Could you explain what your trying to say about the god of the Israelites, and the Jewish roots?

Gen

[Tyndmyr]

Augustine was a hack trying to justify the utter failure of christianity when involved with governing the real world. So, he invented the idea that religion was an entirely seperate domain from reality...in order to keep religion from being tested by any real means. Keep in mind that he lived shortly after the fall of the roman empire, which occured after it had accepted christianity. That, and the following dark ages proved for all time the inadequacy of christianity as a guide for governance. Augustine was simply trying to shift the blame.

The bible has never been taken literally, but people of a wide variety of christian beliefs claim they do, because they don't have the slightest clue what a literal interpretation is, or because they mistakenly think it gives their interpretation additional credence. When you've got thousands of conflicting interpretation, basic logic tells you that most of them are wrong, and everyone is desperate to believe that the one they happened to pick is the one true way.

[Genmotty]

By hack do you mean;

Hack: a person who is a professional at doing some sort of service, but does crappy work.

Perhaps he was, did I say he wasn't? As you weren't there and his contemporary, I doubt you can judge either.

The fact remains whatever work Saint Augustine did do was later taken by Saint Thomas Aquinas and made cannon. However he was still a teacher of literature, and his quote stands today, as it stood hundreds of years ago. Rowan Williams holds similar views, so do does the ex-leader of the human genome project. I hold similar views, are we all Hacks? Hell I don't even claim to be an expert, so I can do a crappy job and no one will hold me accountable for it except myself!

Second, did he govern the whole of the Mediterranean? Of course not, so I have no idea what your on about Tyndmyr. Christianity has never 'governed' the world as a government, but it has played important parts throughout history [don't twist my words]. So I fail to see how the adoption of Christianity was the sole reason for the fall of the Roman Empire and the Dark Ages. Indeed, historians have argued over the fall of the Roman Empire for hundreds of years, and well they have many more ideas than simply what religion the ruler(s) followed. Considering US presidents are Christian over the last century and they have done rather well for themselves kind of breaks the correlation don't you think?

...and what about the role of monasteries preserving all the lost secrets of the Roman Empire eh?

No sorry, that post was inadequate and simply trying to invalidate 1 source. Even when what is 'discrediting' is not related to what the source was being used to describe. Did I reference the City of God ? No, so what relevance does his view on 'planes of existence' if I can call it that, have on his views on the interpretation of the 'Bible'?

To be honest I don't know the chronology of his works, or when that quote was made, so it could be related, I do not know. I wouldn't link the two off-hand.

Anyhow if you don't like his words, I'm sure I could find the same thing to be said by another of his contempories...?

[hr]

The bible has never been taken literally...

Go read; The Genesis Flood, speak to Richard Dawkins, find a devout evangelist people do, most people don't, read the last half of my second long post.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++

I think the logic goes when no ones got the answer, then no ones knows the answer.

"Hell they might be right, but nobodies been able to show it yet, so I'll just fence sit"

Gen

[Tau-killer]

Originally Posted by Genmotty

Hence if we are to debate this like men (or women).

Originally Posted by Genmotty

I'd say this is a darn better example explaing the fallibility of the Biblical Account, then anything our other religious thread has come up with. But there you go, I wouldn't expect people to remember their history.

Originally Posted by Genmotty

because both the prosecution, defense and wider public were as shallow minded as todays 'debators' in the other thread.

Right, that last one was the proverbial straw that broke the back of the equally proverbial camel.

Genmotty, you are a very intelligent person. In general I very much enjoy debating with you, but I have to say that I am finding your recent posting behaviour extremely infuriating.

On the other topic, you have done nothing but moan and complain - simply, as far as I can see, because people aren't doing things the way you want them to be done. Your posts there all tend to boil down to 'You're doing it wrong because I say you're doing it wrong.' And now, on this topic, you seem unable to resist the temptation of putting down everyone who has taken part in the other thread with these silly jabs which, if anything, come across to me as childishly petty.

Why you feel the need to do this, I don't know. Maybe this is your way of making yourself feel better by putting everyone else in their 'rightful place.' Or maybe not; I don't know. The sad thing though is that if that is truly the case, then such behaviour is completely unnecessary as you are undoubtedly one of the best debaters on this site. In this topic alone, you have posted a wealth of material that is definitely worthy of top quality debate and discussion. And up until I came across the third of the above quoted sections, I was formulating a lot of ideas in my own mind concerning what I wanted to say in response.

So, in conclusion, please think a bit more carefully about the way you treat other members here. The vast majority of them may well not be on your academic wavelength but that does not give you the right to call them shallow minded and neither does it give you the right to act as if your way of thinking about things and your way of addressing issues is the only one that matters.

[ParadoxRifts]

Just how much respect do contributors of the SD&D board have to show for the opinions and post content of others during vigorous debate?

While I have no doubt that given time Tyndmyr could have fleshed out his post and confronted Genmotty's 'wall of text' with his own properly sourced thesis, at this point barring people with some familiarity with the issues that he raised I don't think he has seriously challenged Genmotty's assertions. I also strongly doubt that Genmotty harbors some malicious superiority complex, but rather he is trying to drag other people kicking and screaming up to his level so he can have a decent debate rather than a pleasantly distracting exchange of non-conflicting worldviews.

I thoroughly enjoyed the wall of text (It sure beats the wall of equations..) and although I don't have time (Or admittedly the capacity.) if anyone wants to rise to the challenge of Genmotty's gauntlet I'd love to follow the debate as it progresses.

[coolmule]

As much as I found the wall of text interesting, I was disapointed at how it appeared to distract from what looked like an interesting opening question. I'd like to talk about how relevent a Christian God is in today's society, but I fear this thread is going to get bogged down in details about Augustine.

[Tyndmyr]

Originally Posted by Genmotty

By hack do you mean;

Perhaps he was, did I say he wasn't? As you weren't there and his contemporary, I doubt you can judge either.

We can judge him by his writings, just like many other authors. City of God really contains very little other than the idea that the religious world and the physical world are seperate, and attempts to lower expectations from politics and government.

The fact remains whatever work Saint Augustine did do was later taken by Saint Thomas Aquinas and made cannon. However he was still a teacher of literature, and his quote stands today, as it stood hundreds of years ago. Rowan Williams holds similar views, so do does the ex-leader of the human genome project. I hold similar views, are we all Hacks? Hell I don't even claim to be an expert, so I can do a crappy job and no one will hold me accountable for it except myself!

Luther was taken seriously by the protestants, and still is today, despite being a racist sob who wrote works such as "On Jews and Their Lies".

The quantity of people who accept a viewpoint does not make it correct.

Second, did he govern the whole of the Mediterranean? Of course not, so I have no idea what your on about Tyndmyr. Christianity has never 'governed' the world as a government, but it has played important parts throughout history [don't twist my words]. So I fail to see how the adoption of Christianity was the sole reason for the fall of the Roman Empire and the Dark Ages. Indeed, historians have argued over the fall of the Roman Empire for hundreds of years, and well they have many more ideas than simply what religion the ruler(s) followed. Considering US presidents are Christian over the last century and they have done rather well for themselves kind of breaks the correlation don't you think?

Never said he governed all of the med. Where did you get that from? Likewise, I never said that Christianity was the *sole* cause of the Roman Empire's fall. However, Constantine was the first christian Roman Emperor, and you have a 150 years or so between the beginning of his reign and the end of the empire. This era started with widespread acceptance of christianity, and pretty much the entire era was characterized by decline. Im certainly not the first to correlate the two, it was a widely held viewpoint at the time, Augustine was actually the exception. At the time Constantine came to power, Rome's armies were at a rather high point, and rome held a great deal of territory, including Britian and parts of africa. The correlation is blatantly obvious, only the causation is at all challengable.

The dark ages were primarially the fault of christianity. Theocracies are defined by the church wielding great temporal power. This correlates with a time in history during which progress was simply not made. We actually have more surviving discoveries from the times of the greeks and the romans...which is quite impressive given how harsh the centuries are on stuff. Of course, a church so anti-progress that the fork was declared "an affront to God" being in power at the time probably had a wee bit to do with that.

...and what about the role of monasteries preserving all the lost secrets of the Roman Empire eh?

No sorry, that post was inadequate and simply trying to invalidate 1 source. Even when what is 'discrediting' is not related to what the source was being used to describe. Did I reference the City of God ? No, so what relevance does his view on 'planes of existence' if I can call it that, have on his views on the interpretation of the 'Bible'?

Preservation is distinct from progress. While good, without actual development of new stuff, preservation alone means a loss of knowledge as some things are inevitibly lost.

Besides, they weren't even that hot at preservation. Hell, christians burned the library at alexandria, after all. Remember those christian emperors we were talking about? Theodosious ordered the destruction of all "pagan temples". In this time period, christianity was dedicated to the destruction of all things not christian throughout the empire.

I consider widespread destruction of everything you dislike the opposite of preservation, and apparently even the olympic games were not worthy of sparing. This widespread destruction probably also helped the empire fall. Massive purges tend to do that.

To be honest I don't know the chronology of his works, or when that quote was made, so it could be related, I do not know. I wouldn't link the two off-hand.

Anyhow if you don't like his words, I'm sure I could find the same thing to be said by another of his contempories...?

Not really. He's known because he was an exception among his peers. His words did later become popular, because they offered christianity to blame all the failures of their experiments in power on the imperfection of people. He makes no attempt to address the comparative success of pagan rulers. In addition, he makes the case that it's really not that big of a deal, because earth is temporary, and heaven is the important bit. This bit of doctrine has stuck, and has some very negative implacations for when religion takes power.

Note that a religion having power is a bit different from a religious person being in power. Our seperation of church and state, while imperfect, has protected us from becoming a theocracy. Theocracies throughout history generally have a very troubled history, regardless of the religion itself.

Go read; The Genesis Flood, speak to Richard Dawkins, find a devout evangelist people do, most people don't, read the last half of my second long post.

Sure, they take that part literally. And then they happily skip the parts they don't care about. A true literal reading would not involve the person deciding which rules they want to take as literal truth, and which rules they prefer to interpret.

I think the logic goes when no ones got the answer, then no ones knows the answer.

"Hell they might be right, but nobodies been able to show it yet, so I'll just fence sit"

Gen

It's not about fence sitting. A fence implies two opposing viewpoints. Religion, in general, is composed of a great many viewpoints. Many of those are irreconcilably opposed, so it's not possible to believe something that everyone will agree with. The odds that any one of those beliefs are perfectly right are thus...extremely long. The odds of finding truth by simply picking a belief approach zero, so that is clearly a terrible strategy.

Clearly, relying on evidence and proof is a much sounder way. When beliefs lack those, skepticism is simply healthy logic, not fence sitting. Fence sitting also implies indecision. A great many of those who opt out of religions have no such indecision. Atheists have made a clear decision as to their beliefs. You may not agree, and you may not like it, but it's quite clear what they believe.

Insulting the intelligence of those who hold differing opinions is not the sign of a good debater, btw.