If gays marry, churches could suffer

[Engineer61]

I saw this pop up a couple of places ...

 

I don't know what "God's Law" is ...

 

... for I am not God.

 

... because the Bible was written by men ... men who are not God

 

... and then rewritten several times by or for other men ... like King James ...

who are not God ...

 

... then those interpretations we reinterpreted by the likes of Smith, Young,

Swaggert, Bakker, Wright, Schuller, Humbard, Jones, Jeffs

... who are not God ...

 

... and occasionally by a Luther or King ... who are not God ...

 

[Beavah]

I don't know what Nature's Law is, for I am not Nature...

 

But I have faith in the findings of Newton and Einstein, even though they were men.

 

I believe in the findings of Maxwell and Bohr and Watson and Crick, even though they too were only men.

 

I know that the science I learn is only from copies of copies, reinterpreted by teachers, far removed from the original data and those who made the discoveries decades or centuries ago, often in a different language than the one I speak.

 

 

Science was written by men. Fallible, imperfect men. I know the Science I have learned is not Nature itself, and describes the Laws of Nature only imperfectly.

 

But I trust it enough to get on an airplane. I trust it enough to take medications that I do not fully comprehend. I believe it's close enough to make use every day of electricity, and radio signaling, and chemical combustion. I put my life at risk daily crossing bridges and entering buildings engineered based on mere men, relying on other men, none of whom were Nature itself.

 

And yeh know what? It seems to work OK.

 

Beavah

 

[skeptic]

Yeah Beavah!

[moosetracker]

Beav said - But I trust it enough to get on an airplane. I trust it enough to take medications that I do not fully comprehend. I believe it's close enough to make use every day of electricity, and radio signaling, and chemical combustion. I put my life at risk daily crossing bridges and entering buildings engineered based on mere men, relying on other men, none of whom were Nature itself.

 

The science has the history of being proved or disproved.. Things have improved over time, and other things have gotten worse..

 

They improve with medicine hopefully within test labs, but sometimes with death and deformed babies. People are living longer, but people are much more dependent on pills to get them through the day than ever before, some necessary, some not.. A lot more people on anti-depressants with warning labels of (it might increase thoughts of suicide.. Hmmm.. not so anti-depressant if it does that).. Well anyway people are living longer.

 

Airplanes have come a long way since the Wright brothers, along with other transportation methods. Faster, sleeker, less gas, better safety features so Beav can put his trust in them.. But, they are always changing, you cannot put your trust in the fact that todays model will be anything like what will be bought 10 years from now..

 

Technology is always changing.. The only thing you can trust in is that the computer you buy today is either already outdated, or will be next month..

 

Some things have gotten worse as people prove it is cheaper to make something using sub-par materials or if construction is good enough to meet code, using sub-par methods.. Take an antique handmade chest of drawers over todays manufactured ones.. We are now a throwaway society because manufactures build them that way, it is cheaper and they make more money off you if you have to buy a new whatever every 2 to 5 years rather than be able to use your whatever for a lifetime..

 

The only thing you can count on with science is that it is constantly evolving and changing..

 

Now that is all with science that you can put your trust in, because there are ways to prove things with experimentation.

 

The Bible is suppose to be the word of God.. There is no proof that it ever was.. It has been changed over the years sometimes by well meaning souls believing they knew what God meant, or somehow God forgot to mention, so he added it for him.. Sometimes by people with their own agenda, who wanted an army that would follow them on a mission. There is no way to prove any of it.. If part of it is truly the word of God, how do you separated it from what was added to it.. And here is a question, if there is something that is truly the word of God as he believed thousands of years ago, who is to say that over the next thousands of years, he has not rethought things and has some different ideas?

 

What is it that God really wants us to do, what will make him happy and proud of us? No one really knows, I cannot prove that what you believe is wrong, you cannot prove that what I believe is wrong.. Neither of us can prove that what an atheist believes is wrong.. Or any of the other multitudes of religions out there that is not the same as our own beliefs.. And you sorry but you cannot prove that you are right by thumping the bible at me.. And even if you do thump the bible at me and quote the passages that prove your beliefs, someone else can either reinterpret those very same passages to mean something totally different, or find different passages in the very same Bible that they interpret to disprove you.

 

 

 

[packsaddle]

I appreciate Beavah's thoughts because I actually state something along those lines for my classes. The ultimate test of an idea or concept and in most cases, the best (perhaps only) way to determine their value is through application. If they don't work they are quickly discarded or modified.

 

Science doesn't 'prove' much of anything. Mostly what we try to do is take the overflowing abundance of really great ideas out there in the world and subject them to tests to determine as objectively as possible, which ones are INcorrect. It is the iterative process of rejecting ideas in this manner while tentatively retaining others that allows us to painstakingly arrive at improved ideas and concepts (in support of those wonderful technologies which thankfully work well enough for Beavah to trust them). Me, I just hope that Boeing is far enough removed from Microsoft so those planes don't crash as often as my computer.

 

I would argue that because it is inherently skeptical of ideas, science is inherently conservative. It tends to retain ideas that work and remain skeptical of replacements until they have survived the scientific process. Not many do. We don't hear much about the failures (unless they've been hyped in advance like cold fusion was).

 

I'm also sympathetic to Moosetracker's suspicion regarding medications, etc. In that sense, if there was lack of sufficient regulation to require rigorous testing, big pharma might, just might, sell a product for which the claims are false and the product could be downright dangerous. For a free-market person like me, this is an ethical conundrum. I would like not to regulate businesses. But if we allowed the market to work completely freely, then the 'feedback' would have to come at the expense of dead bodies. In this particular case I see the need to avoid that mechanism because I recognize that if the only motivation to produce a product is profit, there will be little or no incentive to apply the scientific process.

So the conflict arises from the apparent need to force business to engage in a truly conservative process, science, to take a skeptical view of its own creations, in order to protect people.

 

And therein lies the dynamic balance between the free market approach and the regulatory approach. And somehow, Beavah maintains indefatigable confidence...at least I think he does.

 

Edit: and speaking of 'evolution', the above has almost nothing to do with gay marriage. Marvelous!(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

[Trevorum]

I really wish I could sit down and share a beer with you guys sometime.

[Engineer61]

"But I trust it enough to get on an airplane."

 

My father didn't ... and he built airplanes for a living ... he would fly on business if required...with a huge insurance policy in place. But he and my mother never once flew for leisure.

 

BTW...technically speaking an airplane is not science, but and application of science...there is a difference.

 

 

Science is not "invented" it is a documentary of what has been observed based on the implementation of theories of how things work using a predetermined method, "Scientific Method". These result of these activities become Scientific Fact, based on the analysis of the observed results. Theories that cannot be examined in this way remain theories...not fact. Indeed new scientific fact is derived either as and extension or rebuttal of prior scientific fact.

 

We (Humanity) believe that God exists, primarily because our conscious minds needs Him, or some other deity to exist to explain what we cannot yet comprehend.

 

As Hawkings realized, "One can imagine that God created the universe at literally any time in the past. On the other hand, if the universe is expanding, there may be physical reasons why there had to be a beginning. One could imagine that God created the universe at the instant of the big bang, or even afterwards in just such a way as to make it look as though there had been a big bang, but it would be meaningless to suppose that it was created before the big bang. An expanding universe does not preclude a creator, but it does place limits on when he might have carried out his job!"

 

Many books have been written about God ... most by those engaged in an effort to control the masses using the fear of God's vengeance.

 

Even early science was controlled and restricted by the Church to prevent them from losing control of the masses through scientific revelation. (Galileo, DaVinci and many others.) And modern science suffers from the manipulation of politicians and powerful economic influences.

 

 

[Beavah]

Oh, pish tosh. Most of da early astronomers of Galileo's day, including that fellow Copernicus were churchmen. Modern science and da whole modern university system were built on the foundation provided by Christendom. There's a reason why graduates wear robes with monks' hoods, eh?

 

There's no such thing as "Scientific Fact". There's just observed and measured reality and our made-up theories to explain and predict that reality. Da observations and measurements aren't "facts", they're data. Data that can be good or bad, precise or imprecise, noisy or clean.

 

Over time, made-up theories that seem to do a good job explaining or predicting get written down, passed along, taught to others. New made-up theories come along constantly. String theory anybody? Some last for a bit, others even a generation or two. But as packsaddle says, da ones that stand the test of time the longest are the ones viewed as the most useful. And they're da ones we use to make decisions, design aircraft, trust bridges.

 

Not a lick of difference between that and theology. The beliefs that stand the test of time, the ones that get written down and passed on to others are the ones that are viewed as the most useful, that have best contributed to human understanding and are most supported by the data of human experience with the divine. As one early rabbi said of early Christendom, "Let it be. If it is from man, it will fade with time. If it is from God, nothing we do will ever stop it." And those successful theories are da ones most people refer to or trust in when making decisions.

 

Many books have been written about God ... most by those engaged in an effort to control the masses using the fear of God's vengeance.

 

Yah, hmmmm.... Yeh know, I've been a faithful fellow all my life, and I can't say that I've actually read a single one of the books yeh think constitute "most" of those written about God.

 

Let's try an experiment, shall we? Go to your local bookstore, to the religion and spirituality section. Select a truly random sample (or if it's small enough, take a look at each book in turn). I'm willin' to bet my life's savings that yeh won't find that "most" of the books match your claim. In fact, I doubt that a truly random sample will find even one that does so. If it does, I'll lay odds that it's some flash-in-the-pan "modern" preacher runnin' off at the mouth, not anything that has stood the test of time.

 

[Venividi]

>Not a lick of difference between that and theology. The beliefs that stand the test of time, the ones that get written down and passed on to others are the ones that are viewed as the most useful, that have best contributed to human understanding and are most supported by the data of human experience with the divine.

 

I gather that you are not of a conservative protesant denomination with a strict interpretation that the bible (the protestant bible) is the inerrent word of god. With every word literally true. Thus, as it was explained to me by denomination headquarters, is why one of MS Lutheran's positions is that the world/universe is relatively young, all physical evidence otherwise not withstanding. No explanation as to why physical evidence makes it look to be old, but speculation was offered that perhaps god wanted it to look old.

 

My view is that is one example of a belief that denies the test of time. (and one example of why I left the denomination). I do recognize that there are people with a bumpersticker philosophy of "The bible says it, so I believe it, and that settles it", and such denominations are a perfect match for them.

 

 

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

Beavah writes:

Over time, made-up theories that seem to do a good job explaining or predicting get written down, passed along, taught to others. New made-up theories come along constantly. String theory anybody? Some last for a bit, others even a generation or two. But as packsaddle says, da ones that stand the test of time the longest are the ones viewed as the most useful. And they're da ones we use to make decisions, design aircraft, trust bridges.

 

Not a lick of difference between that and theology.

 

I like this quote by Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller:

If every trace of any single religion were wiped out and nothing were passed on, it would never be created exactly that way again. There might be some other nonsense in its place, but not that exact nonsense. If all of science were wiped out, it would still be true and someone would find a way to figure it all out again.

 

That's the difference.

[Eagledad]

>>The Bible is suppose to be the word of God.. There is no proof that it ever was.

[moosetracker]

Maybe successful, but at what? I agree with Engineer.. Successful at controlling the Masses..

 

At least that is the only thing that can be measured.. And since less & less people are attending church, and more & more churches are closing, and few people entering into that vocation, I think it is time to sit down and rewrite or reinterpret the Bible soon.

 

Edited to add: I guess another success it has is if it makes people feel more secure.. What they feel more secure about is personal to them.(This message has been edited by moosetracker)

[skeptic]

Please do not forget that in the Scouting context, none of this is connected, except as personal beliefs of a particular scouter. ALL religious ideas are acceptable, as long as they admit something greater than ourselves; and that direction is determined at the family and personal levels. So, the Bible is only one of the many possible sacred texts that may or may not apply to this discussion.

 

I truly do not get how so many continue to not fully understand this very important aspect of Scouting. Yes, a unit sponsored by a specific church or other religious institution may have special requirements for their members; but the members can still choose to accept or not. They may decide to go elsewhere if they feel uncomfortable with their unit; but the idea of God, in the broad, more ephemeral definition, is a personal decision, period.

 

And, if one is not able to admit some form of personal belief beyond self, then he should look outside of the Scouting program. It is a choice.

[moosetracker]

Very true skeptic..

 

Beav can believe in the Bible and every rule his church creates.. I can not believe in the Bible or any rules of the church, yet still believe there is a supreme being.. But not sure what it is.. In our likeness? Really a man? I can believe in some sort of life after death, though I don't see angels in clouds.. I know part of this belief is because it gives me comfort.. And my husband can be born into a faith that he believes in about half of what they do and questions or does not believe in the other half. Since he was born into it, noone made him sign something stating he had to believe in it all..

 

All comes back to the question of why some people can try to tell you their belief is right and yours is wrong, and try to prove it by quoting passages from the Bible, or their Pope, biship, minister, or Dalai Lama..

 

Which all goes back to people trying to prove they are right in their belief that homosexuality is a mortal sin snd those who are are not morally straight so can not join the BSA, and their attempts to prove it.. They are only right for their own belief, but they can not force their belief onto the world as fact.. And although BSA has chosen a side, that is not proof either, because the BSA is not God either.. It just means that they are not respectful of everyones religious beliefs..

 

If someone takes comfort in the Bible.. Great.. If they can inturpret something out of it beneficial to their beliefs, or makes sense of their world or gives them comfort and joy.. Great!.. But don't tell me I have to believe in it because it is documented proof, even if it has stood the test of time..

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

skeptic writes:

ALL religious ideas are acceptable, as long as they admit something greater than ourselves

 

I disagree, as far as BSA membership requirements go; the BSA requires a belief in a god, not merely "something greater than ourselves".

 

And, if one is not able to admit some form of personal belief beyond self, then he should look outside of the Scouting program. It is a choice.

 

I'm quite sure that the vast majority of atheists have "some form of personal belief beyond self", but are rejected because they don't believe in any gods.