Yes, you'll continue taking credit for every Christian who made a discovery, even if they ran into conflicts with the religious authorities regarding their work, and even if St. Thomas Abbey was more about 'research' than anything religious oriented.

@ Putin

1st rofl great joke

2nd Once again I'm not attempting to credit Christianity with those discoveries. The scientists made them as a result of their training as scientists. The point is that Christianity is not inherently anti-Science, nor are Christians explicitly called upon to be so.

Still, just in going by what you've said here, if St. Thomas Abbey was more about research than religion, and if it were operated as an Abbey. In this particular case it was a Church funded research center. The Church allocated donations and tithe money like it does for any monastery. Regardless of which authorities wanted it shut down the Church did not do so. It's still in existence today. Nobody would have to do anything so dramatic as to burn it down as you suggested. The monastery belonged to the Church and was run only at the Church's blessing. A blessing that was never revoked. Whatever authorities conflicted with them they lacked the authority to shut the operation down when clearly the hierarchy of the Church could have done so.

Probably a good tim to say that the point isn't about the support of the church for science, because that comes and goes. The point is that Christians (without much in the way of qualifying remarks like "some Chirstians" or "a few Christians") have been characterized as backward, and science hating in this thread and basically troggs even holding Insane beliefs (although that was implied more than overtly stated) by some in this thread. The day to day reality I see of the majority of Christians that I come into contact with these caricatures just don't seem valid. Which was my only point, and I thought a pretty conservative one.

**for the majority** left out a word there.

Professor : You are a Christian, aren’t you, son ?
Student : Yes, sir.
Professor: So, you believe in GOD ?
Student : Absolutely, sir.
Professor : Is GOD good ?
Student : Sure.
Professor: Is GOD all powerful ?
Student : Yes.
Professor: My brother died of cancer even though he prayed to GOD to heal him. Most of us would attempt to help others who are ill. But GOD didn’t.How is this GOD good then? Hmm?
(Student was silent.)
Professor: You can’t answer, can you ? Let’s start again, young fella. Is GOD good? Student : Yes.
Professor: Is satan good ?
Student : No.
Professor: Where does satan come from ?
Student : From … GOD …
Professor: That’s right. Tell me son, is there evil in this world?
Student : Yes.
Professor: Evil is everywhere, isn’t it ? And GOD did make everything.Correct? Student : Yes.
Professor: So who created evil ?
(Student did not answer.)
Professor: Is there sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things exist in the world, don’t they?
Student : Yes, sir.
Professor: So, who created them ?
(Student had no answer.)
Professor: Science says you have 5 Senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Tell me, son, have you ever seen GOD?
Student : No, sir.
Professor: Tell us if you have ever heard your GOD?
Student : No , sir.
Professor: Have you ever felt your GOD, tasted your GOD, smelt your GOD?Have you ever had any sensory perception of GOD for that matter?
Student : No, sir. I’m afraid I haven’t.
Professor: Yet you still believe in Him?
Student : Yes.
Professor : According to Empirical, Testable, Demonstrable Protocol,Science says your GOD doesn’t exist. What do you say to that, son?
Student : Nothing. I only have my faith.
Professor: Yes, faith. And that is the problem Science has.
Student : Professor, is there such a thing as heat?
Professor: Yes.
Student : And is there such a thing as cold?
Professor: Yes.
Student : No, sir. There isn’t.
(The lecture theater became very quiet with this turn of events.)
Student : Sir, you can have lots of heat, even more heat, superheat, megaheat, white heat, a little heat or no heat. But we don’t have anythingcalled cold. We can hit 458 degrees below zero which is no heat, but wecan’t go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold. Cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold.Heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it.
(There was pin-drop silence in the lecture theater.)
Student : What about darkness, Professor? Is there such a thing as darkness? Professor: Yes. What is night if there isn’t darkness?
Student : You’re wrong again, sir. Darkness is the absence of something.You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light. But if you have no light constantly, you have nothing and its called darkness,isn’t it? In reality, darkness isn’t. If it is, well you would be able tomake darkness darker, wouldn’t you?
Professor: So what is the point you are making, young man ?
Student : Sir, my point is your philosophical premise is flawed.
Professor: Flawed ? Can you explain how?
Student : Sir, you are working on the premise of duality. You argue thereis life and then there is death, a good GOD and a bad GOD. You are viewing the concept of GOD as something finite, something we can measure. Sir,Science can’t even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism,but has never seen, much less fully understood either one. To view death asthe opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot existas a substantive thing. Death is not the opposite of life: just the absence of it. Now tell me,Professor, do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey? Professor: If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, yes,of course, I do. Student : Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?
(The Professor shook his head with a smile, beginning to realize where the argument was going.)
Student : Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at workand cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavor. Are younot teaching your opinion, sir? Are you not a scientist but a preacher?
(The class was in uproar.)
Student : Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the Professor’s brain?
(The class broke out into laughter. )
Student : Is there anyone here who has ever heard the Professor’s brain,felt it, touched or smelt it? No one appears to have done so. So, according to the established Rules of Empirical, Stable, Demonstrable Protocol,Science says that you have no brain, sir. With all due respect, sir, how do we then trust your lectures, sir?
(The room was silent. The Professor stared at the student, his face unfathomable.) Professor: I guess you’ll have to take them on faith, son.
Student : That is it sir … Exactly ! The link between man & GOD is FAITH.That is all that keeps things alive and moving.
Glad you took out the einstein part, or else you'd just look like an idiot

So it didn't get across very well the first time but you know what would be crazy? If we all respected everybody else's beliefs

''If we all respected everybody else's beliefs ''

Yeah that would be good in an ideal world. Here, however, the theists appear to be fair game for ridicule by those who assume that they know better. There is a nasty kind of arrogance about this particularly when Mujus comes across as being such a nice guy.

Anglican, I tend to agree with you that "Christians should not be in the power business," or was that Putin? If we said "to be a government leader you have to be Christian," we'd get tons of people saying that they're Christian just to get into power, as happened with Constantine when he imposed "Christianity" on the Roman Empire.

Today's Bible reading is John Chapter 14, in which Jesus tells his confused disciples that he is going away but that he will ask the Father to send the Holy Spirit. One verse that stands out to me is John 14:27: "I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don't be troubled or afraid."

Oops here's the link: John Chapter 14.
http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Jhn&c=14&v=1&t=NLT#1

Personal note: For those who are concerned that Christians are getting "beat up" in this thread, my intention was not to try to answer every possible objection to Christianity, but rather to put out the original source, the Bible, in manageable chunks, so that people can read it in context (often for the first time, I suspect), and judge for themselves. Also, I have made no secret of the fact that I have muted several of the players with the most objectionable language, and don't feel the need to debate with them. Other Christians are welcome to debate them either in this thread, in other threads, or everywhere. I'll weigh in when I have time and something to say, and continue to post daily Bible readings. I just love the book of John. But re someone's assertion that the Bible was written/edited by the early Roman/Byzantine church, if that were the case, it would be a total whitewash, which it's not--It's the true story of God's interactions with real humans in all his glory and all our weaknesses, and every archeological discovery (such as the Dead Sea Scrolls a few decades back) show us that the Bible we have today is 99.9% identical to the oldest versions we have--well before Constantine's time.

And the books of the Bible were written over thousands of years, not produced by a committee acting at the direction of a particular ruler. Just thought I'd throw that in.

"Professor : According to Empirical, Testable, Demonstrable Protocol,Science says your GOD doesn’t exist. What do you say to that, son? "

You fail at understanding science. Science will never prove anything, it is a mechanism to test theories, and by finding those which fail a test (something they predict failing to live up to experiment) and rejecting them, we are able to build up a collection of theories about reality; approximations which we assume are flawed but close enough to be useful within the paramters we are currently able to test.

God as a concept is largely untestable, and thus outside of our current understanding.

It is not disproven by science, though it is entirely possible that God is an unneccesary human invention, this to is, i fear, an untestable hypothesis.

And even if we can come up with a test which proves that man can create the idea of God; this doesn't prove that any particular God is a human-made fiction.

Hey orathaic,

That's true, there tends to be at least the impression of that kind of distortion on both sides. The wish that " science will one day put an end to all this mess" that I've heard at least the tone of from some over the years on one part. The assertion that this or that theory isn't valid because it contradicts this or that particular religious stance on the other.

If I understand you correctly it's like setting up an experiment that would show that the Big Bang could have happened without being set up by an outside force. The experimenter would be the outside force that cannot be written out of the experiment.

I'm no scientist myself but I think that both science and religion suffer from friction between the two. The last thing we need is a significant part of the population thinking that science is a danger to them. For no other reason that it would cut down on the number of researchers out there doing the work that has brought so much good ot the world.

Well, i think the way i'd put it is, any experiment to prove that the big bang *could* happen on it's own, doesn't prove it necessarily *did* happen on it's own.

If you allow that God can do anything, a priori, then any possible theory with God doing something is valid, (not testable, and thus not scientific, but not disproven by science)

My problem with starting out assuming God can do anything is that this doesn't add any explainatory value - it doesn't add to our understanding - an example would be explaining the weird result of quantum mechanics by saying 'God can do anything' and leaving it at that; instead of trying to build a coherent mathematical model to make predictions even in the weird and wonderfully unpredictable world of quantum mechanics.

It is more like science is saying 'piss off we're busy trying to understand stuff, and your religious stuff isn't helping' - oh it only sounds like that when a scientist is being attacked for a theory... Many Theistic Scientists believe their work is helping to reveal some subtle aspect of God's creation...

Sure I can agree with that. My own side of that earlier was that for me at least religion isn't about explaining the world outside. I don't think that most Christians are heading to Church on Sunday with a sincere desire to be told how they got here and why everything is as it is. Those are questions for which science is very well suited to answer. The questions for religion in my exerience are more along the lines of How do I deal with x situation and what is the right thing to do in situation y.
In that case a very long line of Christians have dealt with similar problems and that wisdom has proven to be useful to me many times.

That's kind of why I said earlier that the two don't necessarily have ot be at odds. It's an oversimplification, because for me there are more reasons to be a Christian than merely advice on personal matters, but that example should at least show how I'm thinking about it.

Mujus, and all the Christians I've (likely) offended in essentially stating my belief that the Bible is man-made, manufactured, and wholly immoral...

I'd invite you to chime in on my new "Philosophy Weekly" thread, as it sort of pertains to the battle of ideas right now, and, well, I crashed your party a bit...

Only fair if I gave you an invitation to come and voice your opinion on my thread, so, there it is, you're more than welcome to come and debate your views there.

:)

Thank you for the invite, Old Ben--I may just do that, after finals week that is.

Reading the Bible in itself is not a sign that people are 'disturbed'.
There are futher tests that can be done to check:-
1) Mention your wife is having twins, wait for a response and then tell them she's getting an abortion
2) Show them pictures (or evn better a video) of your son/daughter/friend/family member in a loving and passionate embrace with somebody of the same sex, then invite them to the Wedding ceremony and watch the hypocrisy ooze out
3) Strike up any general conversation about a religion that is not theirs, tell them why you respect it and how much better it is, it will send them apoplectic
So I'm the first to admit not all God-botherers are a nuisance to society but there are little signs and techniques to weed out the nutters.
So my question is, what is so wrong about one man of the cloth grooming and seducing children (some call it sodomy, others call it rape or paedophilia). Is it the act itself or the fact that the church constantly try to cover these issues up, which is the bigger crime?

So merely disagreeing with any of those three points makes one a nutter and a nuisance to society?

For instance, what if I responded as such:

1) Really? That's sad is there anything I can do to help you out? I know it must be a trying time. If you're interested I know of some resource centers in the area that can give the two of you options. The choices are certainly yours and I'll be there to help out whatever you decide.

2) a) thanks for the invitation but I really don't know them that well. I'll certainly send a gift.
b) sure I'll be there.

3) You're thinking of becoming a Jainist, let me introduce you to my friend Anish. He can probably tell you more about it that I can.

Crazy, if you responded as such you wouldn't be half as Crazy as you think. But there are people out there who think they are respectable members of our society that would have a problem with these issues

Today's Bible reading is John Chapter 15
http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Jhn&c=15&v=1&t=NLT
in which Jesus tells his disciples why the world hates them:
18 “If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first. 19 The world would love you as one of its own if you belonged to it, but you are no longer part of the world. I chose you to come out of the world, so it hates you. 20 Do you remember what I told you? ‘A slave is not greater than the master.’ Since they persecuted me, naturally they will persecute you. And if they had listened to me, they would listen to you. 21 They will do all this to you because of me, for they have rejected the one who sent me. 22 They would not be guilty if I had not come and spoken to them. But now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 Anyone who hates me also hates my Father. 24 If I hadn’t done such miraculous signs among them that no one else could do, they would not be guilty. But as it is, they have seen everything I did, yet they still hate me and my Father. 25 This fulfills what is written in their Scriptures [fn1] : ‘They hated me without cause.’"

"Crazy, if you responded as such you wouldn't be half as Crazy as you think. But there are people out there who think they are respectable members of our society that would have a problem with these issues"

I'd counter that the ability to say "this is right and that is wrong" is what makes us have a society at all, it's the ability to hold your own convictions and not necessarily the ability to force them upon others that makes on respectable. Respectable is such a subjective term though. I'm not sure what you necessarily mean by it. There are many people who are respectable members of society right up until society finds out they are downright depraved. I'm not so much concerned with being a respectable member of society as an asset to it.

I can be an asset to society by holding to my own convictions and loving others even if I deeply disagree with them. As I said yesterday we are at our best when we love and care for others and at our worst when we are grasping for a way to force others to accept Christianity. Christianity stands on it's own, it was never meant to be an exclusive club. It's when we buy into the rhetoric that there is something to be ashamed of about it that we make the mistake of trying to use political power to protect it.

Let me ask you this in return. How much of the rhetoric in this thread appeared at least on the surface as an attempt to ridicule and embarass people who disagreed? In my opinion it isn't the fact that we have disagreements but how we handle them that makes us respectable or not. Having a problem with any of those issues, or even voicing your opposition to any of them, doesn't disqualify you from being respectable. Otherwise you're merely choosing to respect people who agree with you over those who don't. What makes you respectable, again in my subjective book, is how you handle yourself in the disagreement.

Also a great and timely post by Nigeebaby as pertaining to the Bible post of the day.

Are we as Christians called to be respectable and loved by the world? Christ warns us no. He's speaking to an audience who all but one went to excruciating deaths for preaching His word. Still when coupled with yesterday's reading we are called upon to love them anyway. Sucks doesn't it? Flies in the face of prosperity theology, this one. We are called upon to love our enemies with no promise that they will love us in return. Yet when it's done well. As an alternative to the violent strivings of the rest of the world, it is compelling. I think it serves as a reminder that we need to turn the other cheek. It's some of the brightest moments in 20th Century history alone when people came to a problem with the ackowledgement that "We'll be beaten and scorned, but we'll stand firm together." It has worked for Christians and non-Christians alike. For example we have the earliest Christians, Gandhi, MLK jr., Cesar Chavez. Gandhi pointing out that Christ was an influence. MLK sayingthat Gandhi was an influence, etc.

Of course if rarely works very well for the leader. Which makes the warning that much more pertinent. The world doesn't like those who don't play by the rules, and the rules seem to demand violence. Christ himself and most of his apostles executed. Ghandi and MLK jr. assassinated. The odds are definitely not in your favor, but by the same token the changes made peacefully are among the most longstanding.

Crazy, you make some very astute points, such as the one about how we handle ourselves "in the disagreement." I also like your comment that "Christianity was never meant to be an exclusive club," but I'd like some clarification on that one, because I believe, as Jesus put it, that he is "the way, the truth, and the life," and that no one comes to the Father except through him. Of course if you mean that anyone and everyone can become a Christian, without regard for previous condition, I agree completely.

That's what I was saying. Christianity from the beginning was a group set out to include as many as possible and very few were turned away.

I think Mujus is spot on when quoting John rather than the other three.
I personally loved the Bibles but out of all of them John was the true writer ......... Paul, George & Ringo could hardly string two sentences together !!