Hypothetical stuff...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse

 

No, you showed the sharing part, but you most certainly did not show cause and effect, and that's precisely the point. You'd like to have us believe it goes in one direction, but you've offered no proof whatsoever that it doesn't go in the exact opposite.

A complete and utter strawman, since it assumes that both early 'students of science' and 'monotheists' were self-aware of what set them apart from followers of other, more 'conventional' schools of thought at the time. Given that there's no reason at all to assume this, the apparent artificiality of the step from interest in science to monotheism is hardly a problem.

Just because you keep repeating it doesn't somehow make it true! To restate two points made I don't know how many times already, first, eastern societies DID develop science, just earlier stages of it, and second, just because later stages of science happened to develop in societies that up to that point had been mostly populated by Christians, doesn't mean it's Christianity itself that developed science!


You seem to be implying that without the message of Christianity, the 'poor masses' would have been so intellectually impoverished through the centuries between the founding of the Church of Rome up until the modern era that European society would have just imploded and crumbled away. I wonder if you have any idea just how patronizing that it is to the collective memory of the generations that came before us?


Fine, let's debate that more specifically. You seem convinced that Christianity stands head and shoulders above all other influences in shaping our mores and psyches right up to this day, I say the decline in its influence on them began centuries ago, and that the trend has been accelerating so hard in the past decades that we've reached the point where we can comfortably speak of it in terms of a mere historical quirk. To bring us back round to the original question then, would that give us a solid enough basis to state as you did that:
Answer yes by all means, but only if you're also prepared to say the same about a list of other things so long it would barely fit on this page. That's where your problem is Tony, you're bigging something up that stopped being relevant so long ago that pretty soon only ancient historians are going to care, so can you honestly say you're surprised when you get the reaction to it that you do, from people on this forum or anywhere else? I would hope by now you're beginning to understand why you shouldn't be.

 

which particular bits of the bible are you picking out?

thing is, the new testament gospels (matthew/mark/luke/john) tell the 'story' of Jesus life, these are accounts of what he did... and there were people that saw what he did, witnesses (water to wine.. healing the sick etc).
Even to him being seen by others from his resurection.

As far as I'm aware there's no other religion that has this form of 'proof' about what someone did.

Hence why it was written down... maybe a number of years after it happened, but still whilst people were alive that could remember it?

 

I don't read that as answering my question. But there is enough going on in thi thread without adding another dimension to it

dl

 

Do you actually believe that ?

 

 

I don't understand that point. Monotheism came first then the scientific worldview.


Christians didn't understand the difference between the Roman pantheon and Christ?!

No oriental culture did NOT develop science, they did some ad hoc experimentation but that is not the same.

I'm not saying that sciences genesis is the west is 'proof' alone but coupled with the similarities in Christian monotheism - and the 'seed' like properties of Christian monotheism - makes a strong argument.

Other cultures got some way in investigating the natural world but stopped, the west went further, one reason they had a religious culture which promoted and justified said investigation...it all made sense from a religious/intellectual point of view. Christianity provided a template.

It almost did crumble.

Of course.

There is not much which really deviates from the Judeo-Christian lineage if you like. Nazism, Communism were some examples, they failed.

So irrelevant you are wasting time arguing about it?

 

My thoughts on religion:
“If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed”
Quoted from the famous Christian, Adolf Hitler, how ironic.

 

Not The famous **** leader then?

How about vegetarian, dog lover, 'tash wearer....whatever group you are trying to denigrate?

 

Get a grip! I wasn't trying to denigrate any group, I was merely trying to be ironic. It wouldn't be ironic if I'd said famous **** leader, vegetarian, dog lover or 'tash wearer would it.

 

It seems you need an IQ sub 90 to be religious:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religio...elief_and_I.Q.

Terman's IQ classification:

Classification
140 and over Genius or near genius
120-140 Very superior intelligence
110-120 Superior intelligence
90-110 Normal or average intelligence
80-90 Dullness
70-80 Borderline deficiency
Below 70 Definite feeble-mindedness

 

Do you really think that is a reasonable example to quote?

Les

 

There was a very interesting programme about the speed of light yesterday.

Einstein said of course that that speed cannot be exceeeded. Because of similarities noted between on side of the universe and the other or at least as far as we can see, they are now saying that although Einstein was right in our part of the universe about the speed of light they say the on the outer parts of the universe the expansion is continuing at a speed greater than that of light! It is the only way they can explain the similarities they say. Otherwise there would have had to be one biggish bang followed later by another bigger one.

Les

 

Yes I do.

As far as I'm concerned it's as plausible as God created everything and as it happens he just so happens to look like Man - who of course at the time of the creation of the earth wasn't even the dominant species.

If Religions had a Dinosaur as their head honcho they would at least be plausible

 

To be fair to tony de wonderful, I doubt he is below 90. But I still think he's looking at it in so much depth that he's confusing some key points.

 

Interesting thread, if a bit bad tempered at times.

Anyway, how do you quote two separate pieces of text, and from two different posts? :Copy and paste, then do what with brackets, slashes etc?

 

If it's just quoting two seperate pieces of text from the same post, you could just copy and paste the brackets with the persons name, etc, I suppose.

But for quoting a few different posts, just click the 'multiquote' tab at the bottom right of the posts to highlight them, then click quote on the last one and it will take you to the reply page.

 

Am I on my own in that TDWs posts have me ...

TX.

 

Trial run because I've never done it before...

Yip that works.

 

I've seen D Brown predict the lottery numbers in advance, predict horses to win at the races 6 times "on the trot", play russian roulette & not die etc etc. Should we write a book & follow him religeously ...

TX.

 

It can't be exceeded simply because you'd then be able to travel back in time which of course is impossible. There are no instances of time travelers visiting us to date as far as I'm aware ...

TX.

 

I was ironically attacking your ironic attack.

 

Cheers Gelsga!

Edinburrra.

 

Edited for accuracy.

 

Erm what?

It can't be exceeded because the mass required to exceed the speed of light would be near infinite (mass and energy are intercheangeable). This would in effect slow down time to the outside observer but due to the time contraction inside you would not notice the difference as everything around you is doing the same.

 

IMO organised religion is only 2000 or so years old, it will die out just as quickly

 

How does that have any impact on what I said

TX.

 

There is nothing in the laws of physics to prevent time travel, in fact, time travel into the future is proven fact, Astronauts travel into the future all the time, the world record being held by the Russian cosmonaut Sergei Avdeyev.

 

Well you would have to least give a plausible subject. How can anyone answer the question given like that?

You never know of course, the head honcho could well be someone like that. Who are we to say?

Les

 

Eh? I did say back in time ...

TX.