It was said in the Beginning that God gave substance and form its reality. Therefore, they are transient and destructible, just like memory. He is the primordial exemplification of Being. The Will of God is also a reality. Spirit cannot be seen or heard, but we know it's there. Like many Indian children, I grew up on the vast, varied, and fascinating tales of the Mahabharat. (...) a time when the lives of men and gods intersected. -The Palace of Illusions.
It's said Santa delivers presents to all the good little girls and boys. Are you trying to show how things that are said are to be taken seriously at face value? (Perplexed)
Is it faith taught by his/her elders? Is it personal experience? Did a supernatural entity actually speak with them?
Actually that was said later than the Beginning, if we mark the Beginning at some 13 billion years ago. There would have been no speech then, no air to carry the utterances, no vocal tract, no tympanic membrane or neural processes to emit or detect the speech, and most importantly, no language. So sayeth the legend, which necessarily negates the stated premise. Other kids grew up hearing tall tales about Paul Bunyon, or reading Treasure Island, or tracing the Great White Wolf as he scattered the stars against the desert sky. It's all very romantic, the stuff of great fiction. Reality is another thing--quite the opposite in fact.
Congratulations perplexio , you've already rounded up over half the usual suspects who haunt this forum to make sure no one expresses any religious or spiritual thoughts upon it. And then they ask me why I post on these science fora. Well, one reason is it ostensibly does have a religion section, or it would if these creatures would only let it. A better question is: do they really have nothing better to do than lie in wait for someone, anyone, to dare post a spiritual thought here so that they may leap upon it in order to prove their atheistic credentials once more? Boys, this is not science and objectivity: this is just you getting yourselves worked up again refusing to let anyone express an opinion you happen not to agree with. 'How to treat these?' Chris Q? Just let it be. Would it be such an awful thing for people to discuss the intersection of men and gods - on a religion sub-forum? If all you are interested in is 'the scientific viewpoint' there are plenty of other sub-fora here where you can discuss Science if you are indeed capable of that. I see this same group (quinnsong excluded) constantly flexing their robust disbelief, always knocking everyone else down; never having anything positive to say about anything but the scientific viewpoint, which they wouldn't recognize if it walked up and introduced itself to them (by name). Please. Enough already! Please, I'm begging you. Just butt out!
You mean anyone who posts regularly such as yourself? Oh, so you mean some mod is trolling Religion and banning people? I suggest you show your colors on that issue. The question is why you expect only religious posters to respond to you on a non-religious board. The question of Religion, where I left off in the discussion, is why people treat superstition, myth, legend and fable as historical narrative. If there were some way to encapsulate that into a heading shorter than "Religion" I would support a name change. Usually the people you seem to be referring to, who are advocating in favor of Religion, are just promoting Christian Fundamentalism. Some of them are downright mean hypocrites, expressing everything from overt racism to misogyny and restricting abortion to homophobia and hetero-only marriage, disparaging Darwin, arguing against Big Bang theory, evolution and climate change--and attacking science in general. I haven't yet met a person here who attacks science with more than about a 5th grade level of competency. But as far as I know that pretty well sums up the agenda of pro-religious posters in the Religion forum. That sounds pretty ominous. More than likely, people are just actively responding to posts as the see fit. Does the religious world view (particularly Fundamentalism) own "spiritual thought" or do atheists get to have them too? For example, dare I post the thought "The ethics and virtues of ancient Greece state the highest ideals any person can hope to live by" as representing a spiritual view? I leapt at the opportunity to express my views on who owns "spiritual thought". Is that what you meant by credentials? Like a title of ownership? *ahem* hello girls. A little sting of misogyny by omission. Welcome to Religion. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! The only person I've noticed getting worked up is the one who bans people for stating their opinions that superstition, myth, legend and fable should not be mistaken for historical narrative. That's a complaint against one mod. So take that up with the administration or just show your colors. If that intersection is to treat fiction as history then you should expect to be corrected. What other intersection are you referring to? The astral plane? Speaking of other forums, I think we have one for that. What forum is the proper place for me to correct a poster here who is conflating religious fiction with facts? What is shocking is the huge segment of the population flexing their robust dollars to campaign against science. Actually little people rallying behind the purses of Big Business, esp. Big Oil, just to try to hold social progress in check, since they find it "morally repugnant" to actually progress as a nation in virtue and ethics. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! That's a pretty good assessment of some of the most popular churches in America. Isn't calling a spade a spade positive? As opposed to having nothing to say but the anti-science viewpoint? Indeed honest dialogue about the fictions of religion require the presence of real experts in exegesis, but they seem not to have any interest in discussing their field with 5th graders. That leaves a handful of people who bothered to stay in school to give reasonably informed corrections to the mistakes posted by religious people. Was there a private discussion going on? I didn't get that memo.
