Faith: What's the big deal?

[Darth Kwisatz]

As a micro biologist, what is Michael Behe's position on stem cell research, and the cure of disease generally?

At what point do the ethics of faith come into conflict with or become threatened by the ethics of discovery?

[Darth Kwisatz]

My suffering ceased when I saw god for what he isn't.

[GUNWOUNDS]

As a micro biologist, what is Michael Behe's position on stem cell research, and the cure of disease generally?

At what point do the ethics of faith come into conflict with or become threatened by the ethics of discovery?

Cultures have their own ethics such as not experimenting on humans in certain situations , etc, etc.  Whats your point?  Heck even in psychology some experiments are taboo such as creating your own  feral child by keeping them in isolation chamber for 20 years.  Much could be learned from that but if there are alternatives they should be used instead.  Unless you feel all ethics should be done away with.  Maybe much could be learned by pouring battery acid on your face but that doesnt justify satisfying one's curiosity of chemistry.

[GUNWOUNDS]

My suffering ceased when I saw god for what he isn't.

Thats irrelevant, you're not dead yet.

[Darth Kwisatz]

What happens when I die is no business of any Christian here on Earth.

My question was about faith ethics, not all ethics.

Can anyone (WITHOUT ANY REFERENCE TO GOD MYTHS) point out why only humans are said to be possessed of a "spirit"? What is the difference between a mindless embryo and an oak tree? What is it about human cells that is different from those of any other organism, apart from chromosomes and DNA? Let Michael Behe identify the spirit component of a cell, so that the rest of us can see "how god did it".

Why are Christians frightened of the consequences of research? Why does it matter to them if the afterlife will take care of them anyway, and sinners face their own judgement from this god?

I'm not being in any way convinced by this that faith serves no other purpose than the reinforcement of an all-too-earthly human social order and power structure.

[Egeides]

Can anyone (WITHOUT ANY REFERENCE TO GOD MYTHS) point out why only humans are said to be possessed of a "spirit"?

I don't bother so much for my own person... I'm not an oak. They do good tables though (I know, I'm cruel). But I do see that humans have a capacity to apprehend greater than themselves. Now, no monkey answered me on such topics. Life in general has a knack for self-preservation though, an apparent drive for life itself. Since I have the capacity and they don't, it'd be my pleasure to throw them all into space for further life. This is human spirit's drive towards universal.

Let Michael Behe identify the spirit component of a cell, so that the rest of us can see "how god did it".

I'd be happy to learn more, but I don't think that it would say much about how God made it. It would not inform me about why it is more than it would about why I am.

Why are Christians frightened of the consequences of research?

What do you mean?? I am researching even if presently not in natural sciences.

I guess you're concious of your generalization, but taking the majority doesn't necessarily give you (probably not atune with majority) an idea of what Jesus could bring here. And as with many texts (Plato, Aristotle, Confucius...), a surface reading might not give much if you are searching the intellectual side.

faith serves no other purpose than the reinforcement of an all-too-earthly human social order and power structure.

Every single belief with its promoters forms a "social stucture and power structure". I've seen enough professors to see that science also forms that as anywhere else, should it be for jobs, status, or cases went wrong in red BMWs showing off how successful their brain is at solving physics' problems. There is justice, and there is law. Humans put laws (with clergy/authorities) to get something closer to justice. I'm not responsible if they mess it up.

[Darth Kwisatz]

Research that threatens to directly or indirectly undermine religious belief systems by bringing about a greater understanding of existence is always under threat from religious people. The gradual reunification of church and state in politics is a very worrying trend that threatens to drive us back into a regressive, pre-rennaissance dark age. It's fascinating in terms of historical cycles, but not the sort of "interesting times" I'd like to live in.

Being attuned with a majority view is not a measure of the veracity of one's ideas. I actually have no issue with Jesus of Nazareth. He is a figure of history whom I greatly admire, and I acknowledge his belief in god, which is a reasonable thing for his era and geographic and cultural isolation. I most admire his defiance of collective religious "wisdom", regardless for consequences for the old order. Unfortunately, like most revolutionaries, in the long term he merely spawned more of the same in a different guise. The lucrative, influential and perpetual rip-off of his core message is one of the tragedies of human history.

Justice is ultimately indefinable, as are most of the abstract qualities to which we aspire. The tragedy of modern law is the constant movement toward greater codification, where the case-by-case review of a common law by precedent would serve us much better. Justice has no connection with faith, except when faith is used to justify injustice or deny evidence.

I'm not saying that people with faith are bad. I'm saying that very bad things are done in the name of faith.

[Acriku]

Cultures have their own ethics such as not experimenting on humans in certain situations , etc, etc.  Whats your point?  Heck even in psychology some experiments are taboo such as creating your own  feral child by keeping them in isolation chamber for 20 years.  Much could be learned from that but if there are alternatives they should be used instead.  Unless you feel all ethics should be done away with.  Maybe much could be learned by pouring battery acid on your face but that doesnt justify satisfying one's curiosity of chemistry.

Just butting in here... To be fair and this is a cheap shot, but we did learn a great deal of biology during the second World War thanks to... you guessed it: Hitler. Now, lives are being saved because of it. But no one would've agreed with it, but you see the point I'm making. There's a grey line in where ethics comes into scientific experiment and discovery. Anyway, just wanted to make an irrelevant point.

Back ontopic, I think faith does more harm than good. That's my bottom line. It not only shuts peoples' minds off (to the point of denying reality, such as people who refuse to believe that the Earth one big mega ball of evolution because they have faith that God made Adam and Eve and such) but faith also allows dangerous manipulation that has plagued humanity since the beginning. I don't see the big deal in faith because there's not any significant value in it. Maybe I should instead say it has no value ... anymore? Would that clear up where I'm coming from? I do recognize that faith was needed in history because we had little else to go off of. Now, there were some bloody wars that were conducted through faith's ability to manipulate, but I would recognize that it played its part in bringing us to where we are today. And where we are today, faith has no more use.

[Egeides]

Faith, or "believing in", is something I see much in science today. People "believe in" science as the vehicle of explanations: see it as explaining everything around them.

Before, people "believed in" XYZ as the vehicle of explanations.

Is faith less concerned in the modern case?

[Acriku]

I'm holding faith to believing in something without any evidence,

[Egeides]

You're jumping on parallel lines here, so maybe it'd help to situate this evidence/science thing better:

Science uses the empiric to bring some set of "world properties", and you then believe in that property as you take a plane/else (it will fly, etc.).

Could you point where you see the impossibility of using this same principle for any discipline (politics, theology...) in this world?

I'm not asking if you think it's reliable out of natural sciences or whattever, just asking the question itself.

[GUNWOUNDS]

Just butting in here... To be fair and this is a cheap shot, but we did learn a great deal of biology during the second World War thanks to... you guessed it: Hitler. Now, lives are being saved because of it. But no one would've agreed with it, but you see the point I'm making. There's a grey line in where ethics comes into scientific experiment and discovery. Anyway, just wanted to make an irrelevant point.

Back ontopic, I think faith does more harm than good. That's my bottom line. It not only shuts peoples' minds off (to the point of denying reality, such as people who refuse to believe that the Earth one big mega ball of evolution because they have faith that God made Adam and Eve and such) but faith also allows dangerous manipulation that has plagued humanity since the beginning. I don't see the big deal in faith because there's not any significant value in it. Maybe I should instead say it has no value ... anymore? Would that clear up where I'm coming from? I do recognize that faith was needed in history because we had little else to go off of. Now, there were some bloody wars that were conducted through faith's ability to manipulate, but I would recognize that it played its part in bringing us to where we are today. And where we are today, faith has no more use.

I doubt much useful information was gleaned from the gruesome experiments of Hitler's time.  They would tie pregnant women's legs together and was as she died of hemorrhage.  It was more torture and morbid curiosity than anything else.  So to say lives were saved becuz of it is quite a stretch to make an off the wall point.

As far as faith causing mroe harm than good, thats about as useful as saying that fire does more harm than good.  Its really subjective and has no real way to quantify such a thing.  So most likely any who passes a judgement on the dangers/benefits of faith is less likely to actually to give an accurate portrait of faith and more likely to mesh it into a sentence that fits their well entrenched ideology.  I personally disagree with you and think faith does more good than harm. For me atleast.

There is a saying that says without religion you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things but with religion you have good people doing evil things.  But they forgot to mention that with religion as well you have evil people doing good things and attempting to change into good people.... and you have good people trying to become even better people. 

While there is an implied (or direct if you talk about this subject) agreement between a boyfriend and a girlfriend to be exclusively dating, you're right you never know. I would rather call it hope than faith, but that's semantics.

Um, eyewitness testimony is giving way too much credit to the validity of the documents. First of all, those stories were handed down orally, by mouth, and then they were written, re-written, and re-written some more until every single document we have now is merely a copy of dozens or hundreds of copies made from the original. Hardly what court testimony is.

Orally?  I'm sorry but the dead sea scrolls refute that, the disciples were literate (Mark was a doctor), they saw Jesus in their lifetimes, and they were fully capable of writing the gospel in their lifetime, i.e. eye witness testimony.  Also given that Moses had direct contact with God and wrote scripture..... thats as direct as you can get.  Its been re-written but we have the deadsea scrolls to match current versions today.  Also given the fact that most of the re-writing was done by monks who believed it was their life's purpose to correctly transcribe the Word of God flawlessly and that if they failed they would have commited a horrible sin, shows to me that worrying about huge omissions or faulty transcription really isnt a worry.

To me that is alot stronger than your pessimistic explanation of oral, rewritten, re-written, re-written with connotations of infidelity. 

What happens when I die is no business of any Christian here on Earth.

I never said it was any of my business.  I merely stated that you will die, you havent died yet, and that you cannot definitively say that you will not experience suffering after you are dead.  Its easy to be smug when you're still alive.

[GUNWOUNDS]

It not only shuts peoples' minds off (to the point of denying reality, such as people who refuse to believe that the Earth one big mega ball of evolution because they have faith that God made Adam and Eve and such) but faith also allows dangerous manipulation that has plagued humanity since the beginning. I don't see the big deal in faith because there's not any significant value in it. Maybe I should instead say it has no value ... anymore? Would that clear up where I'm coming from? I do recognize that faith was needed in history because we had little else to go off of. Now, there were some bloody wars that were conducted through faith's ability to manipulate, but I would recognize that it played its part in bringing us to where we are today. And where we are today, faith has no more use.

Actually you're only speaking about SOME people not all people.  Not everyone's faith will be the same and in cases like evolution it really doesnt matter.  Whether you are a christian that takes the bible literally or whether you're a christian that believes evolution is a tool of God.... it really has no effect at the end of a day.  The bible is very vague in these respects because how exactly we were created doesnt matter, love and truth and faith are what matters.  When we die, God isnt gonna judge us on whether we believed in evolution.  The 90yr old man who is dying on his deathbed really isnt concerned with whether evolution is true.

ALso your statement that faith isnt important "anymore"  has no value because we arent static.  There may be more wars, there maybe be other events.... heck forget the big scheme of things... faith is important as Edrico said in day to day life.  Faith is related to love, trust, hope, and courage.  Faith helps you to break out of your cultural norms.  It is said that a man with faith is freer than any other man, since it allows you to break away from cultural peer pressure.

Sure faith can be misused but so can fire.... has fire created more harm than good?  who knows... but nobody said this was going to be easy.  Unfortunately we cant open the console for the game of life and type in "easymode".  Faith has value and is needed, I'm not willing to throw out the baby with the bathwater, or to cut off my nose to spite my face.  Which is what you do if you eliminate faith altogether.

I'm holding faith to believing in something without any evidence,

The bible states that our greatest evidence that God exists... is our own existence.....you dont need hard evidence to have faith in something.... circumstancial evidence can provide clues and hints and is enough to influence someone without actually having their doubts removed, thus eliminating the need for faith altogether.  And as for your statements earlier about faith no being needed anymore.  I think faith in GOD wont be needed once Jesus returns ... but faith for other little things will always still be needed due to our lack of omniscience, and the fact that we will always have hope, trust, and love which are linked to faith.  Even if you arrive in Heaven you still have to have faith that you will always be there.... as there is no scientific way to test and prove it.

[Acriku]

As far as faith causing mroe harm than good, thats about as useful as saying that fire does more harm than good.  Its really subjective and has no real way to quantify such a thing.  So most likely any who passes a judgement on the dangers/benefits of faith is less likely to actually to give an accurate portrait of faith and more likely to mesh it into a sentence that fits their well entrenched ideology.  I personally disagree with you and think faith does more good than harm. For me atleast.

You might look at your life as the scope of what you're saying, but I am looking at the overall scope of the matter. Saying that the principle of believing in something without any evidence does more harm than good is actually very useful. I am denouncing the principle that believing in something without any evidence does more good than harm. I am doing that because it helps you get why I am so confused as to what the big deal about faith is and why people cherish to have it.

There is a saying that says without religion you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things but with religion you have good people doing evil things.  But they forgot to mention that with religion as well you have evil people doing good things and attempting to change into good people.... and you have good people trying to become even better people. 

Why do they become better people? Same reason why religion has helped in the history, by manipulating them with hopes of rewards like eternity or Heaven or virgins. If we all died in the end and nothing happened, and all the Bibles said that, then religion isn't very useful in helping "evil" people to become better beyond what self-help books can do.

Orally?  I'm sorry but the dead sea scrolls refute that, the disciples were literate (Mark was a doctor)

Okay mr Christian, let's not forget that your Bible includes the Old Testament, which is thousands of years older than the New Testament. And the New Testament itself is a book comprised of different chapters that were all voted to be included in the Council of Nicea, with many chapters left out, with many differences decided on (was Jesus a man or son of God? etc). Those separate chapters were copied and copied and copied over and over and over throughout history by hand, that could've been easily added on by different people without nobody knowing. They were vulnerable to anybody who believed it happened differently. Not to mention that they were written at least 40 years after Jesus died, since Mark (the first gospel account written) talks about the destruction of the Jewish temple which happened in the year 70 CE. Also, there's nothing known of the "authors" and whether or not Mark is really Mark or Matthew is really Matthew.

they saw Jesus in their lifetimes, and they were fully capable of writing the gospel in their lifetime,

Well, when you consider that Jesus' lifespan was thirty years give or take, starting at 0 C.E., ending at ~30 C.E., and nothing was written of Jesus' life until at least 40 years after his death, which means at least 70 years after he was born, is this really eye witness testimony? The only literature we know about of Jesus in the 40 year gap were of Paul's letters, which do not include Jesus' life as a human being but rather just the talks of his resurrection and ascension. Then 40 years later at least, they begin to write about it? We're not even sure if each book was written by one person only. It could very easily have been multiple authors collaborating or one adding to another.

i.e. eye witness testimony.  Also given that Moses had direct contact with God and wrote scripture..... thats as direct as you can get.  Its been re-written but we have the deadsea scrolls to match current versions today.  Also given the fact that most of the re-writing was done by monks who believed it was their life's purpose to correctly transcribe the Word of God flawlessly and that if they failed they would have commited a horrible sin, shows to me that worrying about huge omissions or faulty transcription really isnt a worry.

Pure speculation. The dead sea scrolls do not match current versions of the Bible - where did you read about this? I'm very interested. As far as historians are concerned, the only part of the Dead Sea Scrolls that is argued to match anything of the Bible is a small passage that might be a verse from the chapters of Mark. Yet, the argued passage is so damaged that the only complete word in it is the greek word for "and". Hardly  a match. More like grasping for straws. To date, the Dead Sea Scrolls mention nothing of Jesus nor refer to any of his Followers as mentioned in the New Testament - despite the scrolls thought to have been written during the life of Jesus.

[Edric O]

The New Testament itself is a book comprised of different chapters that were all voted to be included in the Council of Nicea, with many chapters left out, with many differences decided on (was Jesus a man or son of God? etc).

I take exception to that, because it is an utterly false urban myth that has no basis in reality. The historian in me is driven up a wall every time people butcher the historical truth to such an extent.

The content of the Bible was not on the agenda for the Council of Nicea. There was no "vote" on the books of the New Testament - there was not even any discussion regarding the books of the New Testament. They were already well established by that time. Likewise, the divinity of Jesus was not in question. The Council of Nicea never even considered the idea that Jesus might have been just a man - what they did discuss was the question of whether Jesus was the equal of God the Father or merely the first and greatest of His creations. In other words, the question was not "Jesus as either God or man", but "Jesus as either God or super-angel". They did vote on that, and decided that Jesus was indeed God - by a margin of over 250 to 2.

Wikipedia has a very informative article on the subject (I normally don't recommend wikipedia, but this is one of their better articles, with numerous citations and sources):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea

The agenda of the Council of Nicaea was as follows:

1. The Arian question (whether Jesus was God or a kind of "super-angel");

2. The celebration of Passover (the modern date of Easter was decided);

3. The Meletian schism (whether to admit back into the Church those people who renounced Christ under torture);

4. The Father and Son one in purpose or in person;

5. The baptism of heretics;

6. The status of the lapsed in the persecution under Licinius.

The purpose of the council was to resolve disagreements in the Church of Alexandria over the nature of Jesus in relationship to the Father; in particular, whether Jesus was of the same or merely of similar "substance" as God the Father. St. Alexander of Alexandria and Athanasius took the first position; the popular presbyter Arius, from whom the term Arianism comes, took the second. The council decided against the Arians overwhelmingly (of the estimated 250-318 attendees, all but 2 voted against Arius). Another result of the council was an agreement on the date of the Christian Passover (Pascha in Greek; Easter in modern English), the most important feast of the ecclesiastical calendar. The council decided in favour of celebrating Jesus on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox, independently of the Bible's Hebrew Calendar (see also Quartodecimanism), and authorized the Bishop of Alexandria (presumably using the Alexandrian calendar) to announce annually the exact date to his fellow bishops.

[Acriku]

From what I've read on the subject, the General Council was to quell the heresy brought by Arius' teachings that taught that Jesus was created, like every other human, thus a man. The opposers at the Council declared Jesus to instead be fully divine, thus the son of God or a divine being. You're saying this is wrong? Am I interpreting this incorrectly? You're right on the other aspects of the Council, but those were not as controversial or well known as Arius' role in the Council was. I was unable to find where I learned of the leftover chapters, as it was something I read a while back (probably two years ago).

[Edric O]

From what I've read on the subject, the General Council was to quell the heresy brought by Arius' teachings that taught that Jesus was created, like every other human, thus a man.

That is not entirely correct. Arius did not say that Jesus was merely a man. What he said was that Jesus was a created being (like humans or angels), but not just any other created being. According to Arius, Jesus was the first and greatest of God's creations. Arius said that God created Jesus first, then God and Jesus together created the Holy Spirit, then God went on to create the Universe.

Therefore, the difference between Arianism and Trinitarian Christianity (which believes that Jesus is an eternal part of God) isn't all that great. You could say that the difference lies in their answer to the question, "did Jesus have a beginning?"

[GUNWOUNDS]

Thanks for clearing that up Edrico, I've been meaning to research that further.

[Acriku]

Thanks for clearing that up Edrico, I've been meaning to research that further.

Of course, while that is cleared up, you have the rest 90% of my post to respond to. Happy posting...

[Darth Kwisatz]

Did anyone record minutes at the Council of Nicea? Are they extant beyond references to wikipedia?

[Egeides]

Of course, while that is cleared up, you have the rest 90% of my post to respond to. Happy posting...

You have the rest 100% of my two posts to respond to 8)

[Acriku]

You're jumping on parallel lines here, so maybe it'd help to situate this evidence/science thing better:

Science uses the empiric to bring some set of "world properties", and you then believe in that property as you take a plane/else (it will fly, etc.).

Could you point where you see the impossibility of using this same principle for any discipline (politics, theology...) in this world?

I'm not asking if you think it's reliable out of natural sciences or whattever, just asking the question itself.

My bad, I got caught up in other people's replies. Are you saying here that the method in science is practically used in theology and other teachings? Can you elaborate on this principle?

[Egeides]

Every discipline ends up with its own technical methods, but the basic is the same to me.

You have the empiric world, you get a bunch of measures on it (in controlled environment or not), and then you take this bunch to extrapolate it to cases of the same kind which haven't been met yet (like tommorrow's sunrise, or the sunrise on the other side of the planet).

Said otherwise:

Micro: Evidence that a given chemical reaction will happen: experiments done earlier.

Middle: Evidence that things will be coherent later: experiments (chemistry plus all other "Micro" areas added together) done earlier.

Macro: Evidence that things to be met will be coherent later: experiments done earlier (including the "Middle" one, repeatedly).

This macro here, meant as totally or absolutely macro, is to the theological level. Exact same principle. Clear, or not?

[Acriku]

If the macro can be theological, what evidence do you speak of that allows things to be coherent later?

[Egeides]

Empirical. This is what I tried to show with my "Micro", "Middle" and "Macro" example (but apparently messed it up). I'll try otherwise with a kind of example:

On a specific topic: Empirical information are gathered and from it is observed a common principle (= coherence between empirical elements).

Within the field of this topic: Empirical information about each "topic" within the field is gathered, and a coherence between those is observed.

Between fields: Empirical information is gathered and ... fun, eh?

Over time, space, etc.: Same thing. Even for the "etc."

Same goes for someone who never studied sciences with the more precise methods we now have access to, it is the same principle applied in life. Same world, same rules.

To comprehend this further, one needs to study the formation of sciences (Leibniz in the present case, but for a more complete map let's say Newton, Voltaire, Bacon, Descartes - hey, that's my favorite Cartesian! -), or alternatively the Confucean concept of Li.

(ok, I'm getting tired so I'll extrapolate that to dreams now. good night)