Awww. I thought Jack Russell was yours! She's dead cute!

You still have a dog, though.

 

Frankly, it was just desperation, trying to fit a fairy tale with science to give the fairy tale some credibility.

The following cartoon with "miracle happens here" summed it up perfectly.

 

yes, this illustrates the problem I have with all this nonsense - as to me this verges on the Taliban

people can believe/think whatever they like. I have no problem with that btw

 

You've agreed with me in the past about the precious nature of love making and the sexual acts and yet when I object to the notion of the disabled being given special consideration you liken it to the Taliban. This seems odd. I cannot endorse disobedience amongst Christians, this would, by definition, be un-Christian. In fact I cannot encourage sexual immorality full stop. If you think this is akin to a totalitarian theocracy then I question your judgement.

https://www.scoobynet.com/non-scooby...her-trail.html

 

Sex is not a gift, though, is it? It's just a biological mechanism to allow procreation. If humans did sex and animals did something different, you may have a point, but they don't, so you don't.

 

You're not doing it right, Geezer.

 

Well you may be on to something there......

That would explain the snoring!

 

I was going to let this go, but feel compelled to follow it up. What exactly is your point here? I apologise in advance if this comes across as rude, but it strikes me that you feel you've unearthed some shattering revelation. Well you haven't, Ditch. Any serious scholar of Christianity or philosophy or both knows full well the relationship between Plato and the faith. The New Testament was written in Greek for goodness sake! Augustine was a Platonist! So, for the last time, what exactly is your point?

 

Nicely constructed argument that.

Or maybe it's gods gift to all creatures great and small?

 

What's your worldview, Neil?

 

in what sense? The religious perspective or a more global view?

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_view

The reason I ask is that most of us wear our heart on our sleeve in these threads, but I know nothing about you. Interested, that's all.

 

Look out, he's got a bible behind his back

 

No worries. It's understandable given I tend to spend more time challenging others views than stating my own. I guess it's down to an innate wanting to know why something/one does what they do.

Fundamentally I had the standard C of E Christian upbringing but religion was never really pushed as such at home. That combined with a scientific background has led me to a basically agnostic view on religion by all accounts.

 

My point is that you're just another educated idiot in denial.

Oh edit to add; It is actually a shattering revelation for the vast majority that don't know, FYI the vast majority of people are not scholars of christianity and believe the bollocks that people like you trot out with authority using their pretend intellectual superiority to intimidate those less well versed in reality.

 

I tink he's closer to de ogmore

 

Oh and just for the rest of you doubters.

See, I know exactly what I'm talking about, he's Plato's b1tch.

Game over.

 

For any of us to doubt, we'd first need to know what an 'educated idiot' is, and what they typically live in denial of ...

 

See EGO.

 

Thanks, Neil.

 

Very good, Duncan.

 

Ditch, thanks for the response. The whole of the Bible is influenced by the cultural norms of the day, this stands to reason. It was inevitable that Plato, such a giant of a man, was going to affect the way the early church fathers thought. He did after all play a pivotal role in shaping many of their minds.

I've referenced Augustine a couple of times in this thread, you only have to take a look at his 'Confessions' to note that he readily admitted to being a Neoplatonist before his conversion to Christianity. Inevitably Paul would have been exposed to Platonic ideas. This isn't new. To draw a parallel, the creation account was heavily influenced by competing stories in terms of its literary style, indeed there were even competing gods of whom Yahweh was "jealous" and who are explicitly written about in Scripture. All of these things are the consequence of the God-breathed Word being written by real men, in a real place at a specific and concrete point in time.

Now, why on earth should this prove revelatory to the layman? There are wheels in the Bible, they were invented by someone and there's language and pots and boats and laws and political policies and so on and so forth...all things and ideas and inventions that predated Jesus of Nazareth. Why aren't you all excited by the Babylonian influence on the Jews or the Canaanite influence on the same? After all Jesus was a Jew and would have inherited some of their cultural practices.

What I think you've done, Ditch, is picked up on an idea and developed it without really thinking it through. I admire your determination, but remember, original thinking isn't always right thinking. I'll pray for you tonight.

 

See Swati, oh ye of little faith. I think I have somewhat rattled mr JT.

I did actually write another less than polite reply but decided to delete it, because I'm actually a nice guy.

So now we all see what the mad man was talking about, remember when the world was flat and anyone that suggested otherwise was ridiculed. That's the cave.

Yet the man who defined the cave is the same man who defined christianity, strange world eh!

Not saying he was wrong, merely pointing out the duality.

Anyone else see how my questions were avoided until they burned EGO see it's the little things that you need to learn to pay attention to.

Opps I forgot to laugh again You think I have picked up ideas and not thought them through I'm not the one that thinks the bible is something to be followed and Jesus is my saviour.

I seriously struggle to understand how anyone that thinks they are smart could talk to me about it and keep a straight face, I even had some Jehovahs come round and it took me 2 questions to make them walk away.

 

This is baffling, Ditch. I'm not so much rattled as disappointed because it would actually be really interesting to talk about the relationship between Plato and Christianity. There's some reading for you below from the same Christian website as the opening link and the video I posted. I hope that when you read the links you'll start to realise that you haven't had a special insight or an original thought, it's all been done before.

http://biologos.org/blogs/brad-krame...”-part-1

http://biologos.org/blogs/brad-krame...”-part-2

Let me know what you think, Ditch.

 

Like I said, I did all of this when I was 15, I've no wish to go back, you stay there and enjoy yourself in your massage parlour.

 

You read Augustine at 15? Fair play! This does seem to contradict what you were saying earlier about education; perhaps I misunderstood you. Anyway, thanks for the chat.

 

The problem with articles like those, and the bible itself, is that they do nothing more then show that the bible is nothing except something to be interpreted. You can pretty much make it fit anything you want (and indeed, to a degree, it certainly has been!)

The bible is a deception, either a very good one, or a very poor one, depending on how kind you wish to be.

On the one hand, it is a very simplistic view of how we came to be, historically and scientifically inaccurate, self contradictory, stealing ideas from older religions.

On the other hand, it could be a very cleverly designed deception, hiding behind so many interpretations as to make it virtually impossible to disprove from a factual point of view, as the supporter will always fall back on "ah, but you are missing the point, that is not what it is saying".

This is essentially the position that JTaylor takes, whether by design, or whether it's because although he believes to a degree the literal bible, his education and command of language enables him to bypass the obvious pitfalls of the many holes in the story, and it's contradiction of history, geology, cosmology and biology and present it as something deeper.

The only insightful remark in those two articles was Augustine saying there was no time before creation, but that in itself is one good observation in an otherwise misguided view. Even a monkey will get something right if you give it enough problems......

At the end of the day, you can say anything you like, about anything you like, but if you cannot back it up, then it's worthless.

 

Hi,
You make the bible sound like a newspaper astrologers daily readings!
Cheers
Steve

 

It's about as relevant.......

 

You need to back to the guy that was socking it to Plato to find out where that comes from.