Get Ready For New Requirements In Faith

[TAHAWK]

So someone argues with a straight face that religions whose religious awards are specifically recognized by BSA are about to be pitched out of BSA?

 

I get the "view with alarm" business, but do you expect others to get all wound up over the possibility that pantheists and Buddhists are going to be pitched out of BSA?  

 

I spent a third of his life in urban southern California, including twelve years in a troop that was almost all military dependents of vets from the Pacific.  I have spent the rest in urban northern Ohio staffing Baloo training, among other places, in a Buddhist temple in Euclid.  Probably looks different from,say, Georgia. 

[packsaddle]

MY knees are in great shape. No problems. I wasn't a lineman and I've been lucky enough to avoid the kind of stress that would cause one or both of them to break.

 

If I wrote some phrases in a book and a few thousand years from now a bunch of people were convinced they had deep meaning, would they really? Any more than they had when I wrote them in the first place?

If historians studied that book and my phrases and decided they were just poorly-worded descriptions of some food from my childhood, do you think those scholars would shake the faith of the faithful?

If I returned after, say, a couple of thousand years and tried to convince them it was merely a recipe passed down from grandma, would I be able to convince them? 

Given what I observe, I doubt it. 

 

Edit: TAHAWK, a Buddhist temple in Euclid vs Georgia? Really, you are making a comparison?   I think the concern is paritally for boys who haven't yet joined and whose families will confront this for the first time...with plenty of alternatives available...who may decide on the basis of what might be a misunderstanding of ambiguous words, that this is a niche they don't fit and can't fit...and just move on. It is just so unnecessary. 

Edited April 25, 2015 by packsaddle

[Stosh]

Homo erectus went extinct around 70,000 years ago. We have little-to-no knowledge of its genetics.

If the point you are trying to make is that H. sapiens seems to have similar characteristics, needs, interests, and tendencies today as we did way back in written history, I agree. The other monkeys haven't changed much either...except there are fewer of them and a lot more of us.

 

I stand corrected, homo sapiens, not homo erectus.  But in either case the point being no evolutionary dynamics have been found since they came on the scene.  Which wither 70,000 or 140,000 years ago, it makes no difference, both numbers are purely speculation because there is no way of accurately measuring it and there is no missing link evidence to give rationale where homo sapiens even came from. As far as scientific evidence is concerned, there are a number of missing links for all kinds of species.  It makes it kinda handy but if no one is looking closely it does make a great story. 

 

But of course in some people's minds and beliefs, this is all scientific proof.  

 

Of course if one is only speculating the mutations of species one could limit oneself to the philosophical treatise that both Socrates and Darwin have speculated, but neither are even offering any insight into the creation of anything, only the mutation of existing realities.

 

This Gnostic/Greek philosophy has been around for quite some time and I don't see it going away anytime soon.  Just another myth just like all the rest?  We call it Humanism or Atheism because Socrates as well as Darwin aimed their philosophies as anti currently accepted religious beliefs of the times, The pantheon of Greece in the case of Socrates and Christianity in the case of Darwin who was in fact a trained theologian by education which makes him knowledgeable on classic philosophy as well as theology.

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

I stand corrected, homo sapiens, not homo erectus.  But in either case the point being no evolutionary dynamics have been found since they came on the scene.  Which wither 70,000 or 140,000 years ago, it makes no difference, both numbers are purely speculation because there is no way of accurately measuring it and there is no missing link evidence to give rationale where homo sapiens even came from. As far as scientific evidence is concerned, there are a number of missing links for all kinds of species.  It makes it kinda handy but if no one is looking closely it does make a great story. 

 

But of course in some people's minds and beliefs, this is all scientific proof.  

 

 

Stosh, you're completely ignorant about evolution.  You didn't say anything about the long-term e. coli experiment, which is a repeatable experiment that demonstrates evolution.  You still can't understand that there are no "proofs" in science, and you try to bring in "missing link" nonsense.

[qwazse]

Just because I wanted to try out MultiQuote ...

 

Well partly. You are also the result of a momentary lapse in judgment by a man and a woman too, lol, same as the rest of us monkeys.

But if what I wrote sounds preposterous to anyone reading this, try this one on: God made YOU in His image.

No so much preposterous as discrediting to Canus domesticus and Felix domesticus and their careful breeding program involving selection of monkeys, generation after generation, until they had a stock with insanely accurate throwing arms (all the better to defend against their wild-type cousins).

 

I am not sure that is accurate. Catholics (and Orthodox) view the books that Protestants call "apocrypha" (well, at least some of them) as canonical. Sentinel listed them above. And any well-formed Catholic will tell you that prayer for the dead can be justified from 2 Machabees 12.

As with most gross oversimplifications, accuracy is lost.

However, there are mutually cannonical scriptures that can be used to support that and other practices. (E.g., St. Paul recognized Corinthians who baptized for the dead.) And, within the "middle books" there are scriptures that refute that and other practices.

 

Key phrase in Catholicism scrabble, "well formed"

Or, perhaps "finely evolved" ...

 

Are you saying as God continues to make improvements on himself, my descendants will get those improvements also? If God went in for a nose job, my descendants will all have better looking noses also?.. Well maybe not that superficial, but perhaps God could work on that kneecap problem for Packsaddles... Cool..

Maybe, as such a creator evolves to overlook our foibles, your decendants will have blurrier vision, at least when it comes to noses!

 

 

You are assuming of course that God is done creating.  Maybe evolution is simply the method God chose to create.

 

So how then does one explain the continual genetic mutations attributed to evolution?  God didn't get it right in the first place?  Only the arrogance of man would assume such.

 

I suppose it also assumes "created in his image" is a physical attribute and not some other say spiritual attribute.

 

The image of you in the mirror is not you.  Only a reflection of you.

 

Only the arrogance of man would assume such.

 

This is where the wisdom of the human mind fills in the gaps... with assumptions.  

 

 

My general impression is that we moderns have wrongly treated imago dei metaphore as "reflection of god", which makes absolutely no sense because there is no discussion of reflections anywhere in the Pentateuch. What there is discussion of? Idols. And generally, when idols are mentioned, the word image is mentioned as well. It seems that most everyone at the time saw mankind (or at least this tribe of people) as helpless victims of circumstance (famines and war will do that to one's cultural identity). The writing is NOT in favor of discovering the one-true-God in mankind ... and the subsequent chapters attempt to make clear the opposite. Genesis opposes Man trying to discover itself in its depictions of the creation.

The Genesis writer(s) are saying that "Whatever pathetic picture we make of Mankind, at least it beats the snot out of your neighbor's idol. So stop being slaves to whatever else other people are worshipping these days."

 

Stosh, you're completely ignorant about evolution.  You didn't say anything about the long-term e. coli experiment, which is a repeatable experiment that demonstrates evolution.  You still can't understand that there are no "proofs" in science, and you try to bring in "missing link" nonsense.

The scariest part about the modern take on the Sacred Myth of Origin, is that it insists that that a supernatural event can be rationally explained. That it will be found scientifically that the current world snapped into being in seven rotations of our planet. In light of such a discovery, God would have to be believed. But, the human mind is a massive inference engine, and it will just as readily be able to explain how the flora and fauna could arise in a few short dates in the absence of a Creator.

Edited April 25, 2015 by qwazse

[Stosh]

Stosh, you're completely ignorant about evolution.  You didn't say anything about the long-term e. coli experiment, which is a repeatable experiment that demonstrates evolution.  You still can't understand that there are no "proofs" in science, and you try to bring in "missing link" nonsense.

 

So we're even, you're completely ignorant about "evolution" as well.  What you call evolution is nothing more than genetic mutations some of which benefit the species some which don't.  However, most become extinct over time.  New species are being found all around us.  And for the most part most of what we say is extinct is nothing more than mutational changes.

 

But what you call science, I call knowledge.  It is knowable.  It is measurable,  It is provable.  One's doesn't have to understand it, just know it.  If I drop a pen, I'm pretty sure it's going to hit the floor.  EXCEPT in outer space, then it doesn't go anywhere when I drop it.  All I know is there is no gravity to count on even though I have never been in outer space.  So because of that, I'll just have to believe it.

 

All your evolutionary projections and speculations are simply not substantiated and for the most part don't even start at the beginning,  They jump into the middle of the discussion at about the pond-scum stage and mutate from there.  The philosophy of the argument is flawed.  Has been since the time of Socrates and it was the scientific world that was first on the scene objecting to Darwin's philosophical treatise on the speculation of where humans came from.  

 

Explain to me the source of life from an evolutionary perspective?  Can't, never has been seen, never has been proven, most scientists don't even know where to begin.  But it's here in two distinct forms.  As for the Evolutionists... Well, it just happened.  Good answer!

 

The Gnosticism part of humanity has always been a day late and a dollar short to the reality that surrounds us.

 

And how did it all start?  The Big Bang (now under review) and how long ago was that? And it was measured how?  And what caused it? And if one wants to know how all this lays out, just ask an Evolutionist.  They have all the "real" answers, just like those who profess the "real" answers of religion.  

[packsaddle]

So we're even, you're completely ignorant about "evolution" as well.  What you call evolution is nothing more than genetic mutations some of which benefit the species some which don't.  However, most become extinct over time.  New species are being found all around us.  And for the most part most of what we say is extinct is nothing more than mutational changes.

 

This is so incredibly wrong I'm not sure where to begin but evolution is much more than genetic mutations. Yes, mutations occur and they are important for introducing variations in traits and yes, most mutations are not passed on. But evolution is a process that acts on existing traits as well, not just mutations. Yes, we still find new species here and there but today this is more common in the microbial world. But the catalog of known extinctions are not mutational changes but true extinctions. Just ask the passenger pigeon or carolina parakeet, just for example. 

 

But what you call science, I call knowledge.  It is knowable.  It is measurable,  It is provable.  One's doesn't have to understand it, just know it.  If I drop a pen, I'm pretty sure it's going to hit the floor.  EXCEPT in outer space, then it doesn't go anywhere when I drop it.  All I know is there is no gravity to count on even though I have never been in outer space.  So because of that, I'll just have to believe it.

 

Science is a process, a way of improving our understanding. But Merlyn is right, scientists don't often use the word 'proof'. Everything is always open to revision or improvement and 'proof' is mostly applied in the realm of mathematics. There are plenty of ideas that we hold today that have not been proved. There are plenty of ideas that scientists thought they knew in the past and since then we have discarded those ideas because evidence and application showed us a better way to explain or understand. The idea that a person can "just know" science without understanding it is a claim made by persons who do not, in fact, 'know' science. 

 

And just to clarify, it is possible to achieve weightlessness while in orbit. However, that orbit is achieved BECAUSE gravity is still acting on the object at all times, no matter where it is in space. There is no distance limit for the gravitational force. If you are not moving at a velocity sufficient to achieve orbit around this planet, you AND the object you drop will both see the earth's surface fairly soon.

 

All your evolutionary projections and speculations are simply not substantiated and for the most part don't even start at the beginning,  They jump into the middle of the discussion at about the pond-scum stage and mutate from there.  The philosophy of the argument is flawed.  Has been since the time of Socrates and it was the scientific world that was first on the scene objecting to Darwin's philosophical treatise on the speculation of where humans came from.  

 

What projections are you talking about? I didn't read any such thing in Merlyn's post. The pond scum thing...wow. Some of the most successful and elegant organisms are found in pond scum. Does it make more sense to have arisen by supernatural forces from dirt?

 

Explain to me the source of life from an evolutionary perspective?  Can't, never has been seen, never has been proven, most scientists don't even know where to begin.  But it's here in two distinct forms.  As for the Evolutionists... Well, it just happened.  Good answer!

 

Evolution merely explains changes. It does not provide much more than some clues about the origin of life which is, as of yet, an unanswered question. If you have a testable theory about the origin of life, please explain what that is and how it can be tested.

 

The Gnosticism part of humanity has always been a day late and a dollar short to the reality that surrounds us.

 

I have no idea what this means.

 

And how did it all start?  The Big Bang (now under review) and how long ago was that? And it was measured how?  And what caused it? And if one wants to know how all this lays out, just ask an Evolutionist.  They have all the "real" answers, just like those who profess the "real" answers of religion.  

 

OK, I guess that means you don't have a different theory after all. Scientists do not know these answers. Why do you think they do?

Edited April 25, 2015 by packsaddle

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

Packsaddle has explained things very well, stosh, so I'll just echo his reply.  Evolution really is what scientists say it is, you don't get to redefine it to explain that it really isn't evolution.  That e. coli experiment really is an example of evolution in the lab, and it's repeatable.

[Stosh]

 

So we're even, you're completely ignorant about "evolution" as well.  What you call evolution is nothing more than genetic mutations some of which benefit the species some which don't.  However, most become extinct over time.  New species are being found all around us.  And for the most part most of what we say is extinct is nothing more than mutational changes.

 

This is so incredibly wrong I'm not sure where to begin but evolution is much more than genetic mutations. Yes, mutations occur and they are important for introducing variations in traits and yes, most mutations are not passed on. But evolution is a process that acts on existing traits as well, not just mutations. Yes, we still find new species here and there but today this is more common in the microbial world. But the catalog of known extinctions are not mutational changes but true extinctions. Just ask the passenger pigeon or carolina parakeet, just for example. 

 

Getting rid of a species is not the issue, coming up with a new one is more difficult to explain.

 

But what you call science, I call knowledge.  It is knowable.  It is measurable,  It is provable.  One's doesn't have to understand it, just know it.  If I drop a pen, I'm pretty sure it's going to hit the floor.  EXCEPT in outer space, then it doesn't go anywhere when I drop it.  All I know is there is no gravity to count on even though I have never been in outer space.  So because of that, I'll just have to believe it.

 

Science is a process, a way of improving our understanding. But Merlyn is right, scientists don't often use the word 'proof'. Everything is always open to revision or improvement and 'proof' is mostly applied in the realm of mathematics. There are plenty of ideas that we hold today that have not been proved. There are plenty of ideas that scientists thought they knew in the past and since then we have discarded those ideas because evidence and application showed us a better way to explain or understand. The idea that a person can "just know" science without understanding it is a claim made by persons who do not, in fact, 'know' science. 

 

And just to clarify, it is possible to achieve weightlessness while in orbit. However, that orbit is achieved BECAUSE gravity is still acting on the object at all times, no matter where it is in space. There is no distance limit for the gravitational force. If you are not moving at a velocity sufficient to achieve orbit around this planet, you AND the object you drop will both see the earth's surface fairly soon.

 

I don't need to know how it works, I just see that it does.  It's not even an issue of faith.  What would bother if I dropped my beer and it didn't head for the floor.  

 

All your evolutionary projections and speculations are simply not substantiated and for the most part don't even start at the beginning,  They jump into the middle of the discussion at about the pond-scum stage and mutate from there.  The philosophy of the argument is flawed.  Has been since the time of Socrates and it was the scientific world that was first on the scene objecting to Darwin's philosophical treatise on the speculation of where humans came from.  

 

What projections are you talking about? I didn't read any such thing in Merlyn's post. The pond scum thing...wow. Some of the most successful and elegant organisms are found in pond scum. Does it make more sense to have arisen by supernatural forces from dirt?

 

Gravity doesn't make sense to me, but I know it works.  The hand of God doesn't make sense to me, but then I believe it works.  Having an entire complicated, co-existent world with all of it's intricacies be the result of happen stance doesn't make sense to me either.  Simple probability to get to this point would be impossible to calculate.  I read somewhere that the probability of having DNA naturally occur would take longer than the best estimate back to the Big Bang.  Sounds like either something intervened or we're pretty darn lucky.

 

Explain to me the source of life from an evolutionary perspective?  Can't, never has been seen, never has been proven, most scientists don't even know where to begin.  But it's here in two distinct forms.  As for the Evolutionists... Well, it just happened.  Good answer!

 

Evolution merely explains changes. It does not provide much more than some clues about the origin of life which is, as of yet, an unanswered question. If you have a testable theory about the origin of life, please explain what that is and how it can be tested.

 

Explains the changes or promotes itself as the only truth as to how these changes happen.  That sounds like religion using scientific verbiage to try and give it credence.  

 

The Gnosticism part of humanity has always been a day late and a dollar short to the reality that surrounds us.

 

I have no idea what this means.

 

It means the wisdom of humanity has always been a day late and a dollar short.  Many truths have been found to be lacking in their understanding at the time.  The universe revolves around the Earth, and that was after the world was proven not to be flat.  How much do we not know today that 1,000 years from now people will be scratching their heads thinking, how dumb were these people?

 

And how did it all start?  The Big Bang (now under review) and how long ago was that? And it was measured how?  And what caused it? And if one wants to know how all this lays out, just ask an Evolutionist.  They have all the "real" answers, just like those who profess the "real" answers of religion.  

 

OK, I guess that means you don't have a different theory after all. Scientists do not know these answers. Why do you think they do?

 

Of course I have a different theory after all.  Scientists do not know the answers but there are an awful lot of them that believe in a supreme being like I do.  And I never said I thought they had all the answers.  Evolution is the philosophical belief that somehow this really is the "truth" and all religions are myths.  Socrates expounded on this and it got him nowhere.  Darwin was just another of a long line of Socrates disciples expounding on the same subject getting yet nowhere just like all the rest.  He did get a lot of converts, but there are still more people who believe in a supreme being than the non-theists, atheists, gnostics and agnostics out there.  Humanism (Gnosticism) under the disguise of such things as evolution have become the State Religion in America.  The Gnosticism religion has been around for a long time, it's nothing new.

 

[TAHAWK]

 

 

Edit: TAHAWK, a Buddhist temple in Euclid vs Georgia? Really, you are making a comparison?   I think the concern is paritally for boys who haven't yet joined and whose families will confront this for the first time...with plenty of alternatives available...who may decide on the basis of what might be a misunderstanding of ambiguous words, that this is a niche they don't fit and can't fit...and just move on. It is just so unnecessary. 

I am simply acknowledging that spending your life in different areas among different people has an impact of how you view things.  Buddhists don't look so outside-the-limits when you tent with them for years and use their holy places just like those of Methodists, Baptists, Catholics and the LDS.  That's all.  How that offends escapes me. 

Edited April 26, 2015 by TAHAWK

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

Evolution is the philosophical belief that somehow this really is the "truth" and all religions are myths.

 

 

 

No, evolution is a change in allele frequencies over time.  It doesn't refer to religions at all (or "truth", for that matter).

[packsaddle]

I am simply acknowledging that spending your life in different areas among different people has an impact of how you view things.  Buddhists don't look so outside-the-limits when you tent with them for years and use their holy places just like those of Methodists, Baptists, Catholics and the LDS.  That's all.  How that offends escapes me. 

 

And I agree.

[NJCubScouter]

Evolution is the philosophical belief that somehow this really is the "truth" and all religions are myths.

That's incorrect. Many people believe evolution is fully compatible with religion. See for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theistic_evolution

 

Of course, evolution is also compatible with atheism, agnosticism, beliefs in higher powers without a religion, etc.

[Eagledad]

Man has not proven that humans came from a frog, dog or even a monkey. Just because man can simulate it in ideal lab conditions doesn't mean otherwise.

 

It's interesting NJ of how we think differently, when i read how God created the earth and gave responsibility to man, I don't see mans arrogance. Instead I see God as the perfect engineer who created everything in a logical sequence for a self perpetuating life. It's just that free will corrupts. Free will without omniscience is like rust taking over machinery.

 

Barry

[AZMike]

I am not sure that is accurate. Catholics (and Orthodox) view the books that Protestants call "apocrypha" (well, at least some of them) as canonical. Sentinel listed them above. And any well-formed Catholic will tell you that prayer for the dead can be justified from 2 Machabees 12.

Jesus also referenced and quoted from the deuterocanonical texts, of which He was obviously aware. As the Old Testament was included in the canonical Christian Bible (after much discussion and debate - some early schools of Christianity (the Marcionites) insisted it should not be, and that the God of the Israelites was not the God of the Christians), one of the keenest arguments for the inclusion of the OT texts was that they prefigured, prophesied, and were referenced by Christ and the apostles. For those reasons alone, it makes sense to include the deuterocanonical texts.