Soldato
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Simple answer....... yes it is still relevant.
Is the bible still relevant today?
- Thread starter bhavv
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Exactly. I was asking the question above but neither Bhavv or lixxus wanted to answer. I agree with you regarding the cultural derivation of religious morality in the main, and would add that in fact it's more a 'social contract' that derives our morality than religion.
As I said it'd be of no pain to me to murder an old lady for her money, it'd benefit me greatly in fact. However, we tend to live by an unwritten contract. You don't hurt me, and I won't hurt you. We all know many people we are capable of overpowering and domineering, but there's always someone stronger out there. As such it's easier, and makes for a more successful society, if everyone hedges their bets and agrees to not attack others lest they also be attacked.
Of course people do breach this 'agreement' but that's where the justice system comes into things.
I'm sure you'll have no difficulty telling me all about how they held up science. Please be sure to lay all the blame at the feet of Christianity, as I'd hate to think that there were any other factors at work in holding up scientific progress during this period.
Go on, tell me all about it. I'm ready and waiting. I'm an eager beaver.
PS I'm not really a woodland mammal with enormous teeth and a comical paddle like tail that builds dams in rivers from the wood of fallen trees. That's another figure of speech. It just means that I'm keen as mustard. Ah, crap. I mean I'm on the edge of my seat with anticipation. Damnit. I'm champing at the bit. Hnnnggh.
Deleted member 54091
Deleted member 54091
I don't have any evidence. But nor do you lool
We cant see oxygen yet we know its exists and is all around us and we are breathing it.
I am saying with today's knowledge and understanding, which so far is still limited and we are still learning.
I think we can categorically say that religion has no place in today's society for advancing our species, but for dividing people and wasting peoples precious time in worshiping and worrying about nonsense.
Soldato
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When it comes to science, and why i don't kill someone to gain something I want, it is difficult to find a root cause, laws, empathy, upbringing, morality, sociology, wanting to belong in society all contribute, but none of these are directly assignable to science.
If I was moved to a society of savages, I would probably end up reverting to savage in order to survive, I don't think bhavv's pure science would save him from a savage society, yet he doesn't live in one, he lives in a society which generates laws and morals, and things that go against the grain of direct survival of the fittest. So I think there is a place for more than just science. Not sayign religion is necessary but science on its own isn't enough.
I don't need to provide evidence, and indeed on the whole the existence of God is an untestable hypothesis. It's not science. Several other claims in this thread, however, are very testable and simply falsehoods. For example 'The Bible says x' or 'Religion y died out because it was debunked'.
I need to remember I'm talking to the guy who, earlier in the thread, admitted he was wrong and that he didn't know what he was talking about because he knew next to nothing about the topic at hand. As I said (much) earlier in the thread, it helps to know about something before you start arguing about it. As such, while it's impossible to provide 'scientific' evidence for God as such (theological/spiritual evidence != scientific evidence), it is possible to ask people to back up related spurious claims.
You can, get it cold enough and you can pour the stuff...
That wasn't the dark ages...
Soldato
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Not trolling at all then, are we?
Are any of your family religions bhavv?
Would you defend you views here by stating them directly to your parents and grandparents?
Deleted member 54091
Deleted member 54091
How can you prove most is historically accurate when we have lost a lot of history.
The bible contains huge amounts of history, some we know like egyptian pharoes, some we only know from the bible but then have found in historical excavations, like Pilot. Then there's stuff like soddom and gamorah which everyone thought was a myth, but more and more evidence suggesting that it was In fact a real place and that fire did rain down from the skies, albeit from an air burst asteroid, not punishment from god.
I see the bible as a collection of folklore mixed in with teachings and other stuff. To dismiss the bible totally, because it has a connection with religion, is absolutely insane and makes no sense at all.
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Interesting don't you think that you can use a figure of speech and yet you lambast the religious for doing the same? Seems a touch, well, hypocritical don't you think?
I don't recall making any assertions requiring evidence... lool
A Christian might say the same for the effects of God's creation, or God's love etc. Once again, personal proofs related to spiritual matters are not related to, or necessarily compatible with, scientific proofs.
More to the point, saying (for example) that religion x died out because it was DEBUNKED is a provable hypothesis. You provided no proof. Other concepts - for example God - are not directly testable in this way.
It seems on the whole those worrying about nonsense, and who worships whom is the domain of the militant atheist. Most people, religious included, couldn't give a fig.
Also if you think religion can hold back society you're doing it wrong. Most religion actually extols investigation, research, testing and more testing and the re-evaluation of conclusions, even about the faith itself.It's not close enough, though, is it?
And if the same stuff happened during the dark ages, then you should be able to find something about it, surely.
Off you pop.
PS Don't actually explode. I just mean that you should run along now. I mean...
Most historians state with historical proof that very little of the bible is actually historically accurate.
Now where is your proof that they are wrong?
I suspect that the two are co-dependent on each other, less so in our more secular society, but secular laws and morals had their roots in cultural/religious ones.
It would be difficult to make a case that without religions spreading their beliefs and thus the respective cultures that the mechanisms would have been in place to allow for a more secular society, at least so quickly.
Religious belief and the search for God have pushed men to do great things, things that laid the foundations for science, art, literature etc whether they still would have without that sort of inspiration driving them who can say, but one thing is clear, in Europe, Christianity helped shorten the interregnum after the fall of Romans and has led to the creation of a largely integrated society with the mechanisms to allow secularism.
At least that is what the Chinese Government think after 50 years and hundreds of millions of dollars investigating Western Civilisation...
I think that religion, morals, culture are all manifestations of our innate social tendencies, as such it would be difficult to separate hem from each other, regardless of what the Militant Atheist lobby think.
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