Psalm 14: Who was Jesus' grandpa?

[Delphinus]

We have all heard religious people look to science in a facile attempt to prove their particular creator, the most common one being the Big Bang. Although many religious people reject the Big Bang theory, the ones who do not reject it see it as proof for their position because 'the universe had a beginning'. Ignoring the obvious fallacy here, they then jump to the wild conclusion that if the universe had a beginning then it must have had a beginner. How do they justify this wild claim? By arguing that the precision of the Big Bang was too precise to come about by chance. At this point it is only a matter of time before they misquote Stephan Hawking. They say: 'If the rate of expantion, one second after the Big Bang, had been smaller in one part in a hundred thousand, million, million, the universe would have recollapsed before it ever reached its present size.' They may also bring up arguments about how perfectly the electromagnetic force constant is to the gravitational constant, and if the electromagnetic force constant was stronger by 1 part in 40 million, or whatever, then the force of gravity wouldn't be strong enough to form stars and planets.

It's worth noting that if conditions hadn't been correct for human life to emerge, then we wouldn't be asking about how improbable and impossible it was for it to happen. There's an irony here, and it's that this is the only universe we can see. It's impossible to tell whether there've been other universes without humans or whether there are other universes without humans. Arguing about it is basically the same as saying "but i never win the lottery so how come someone wins it every week"

[Kodos]

Well, also, however improbable the big bang or human evolution are, both events need only have happened once. Most events, no matter how low the probability, have a good chance of happening when they have a timespan of billions of years in which to happen.

[Kodos]

And they successfully covered up the majority of it, while the rest of it was missed by people like myself? Look, I've heard about the molestation cases, and believe them, but are there seriously enough of them to claim what you're claiming?

I dislike double-posting, but I literally just noticed this post, and I feel there's enough content to warrant a post rather than an edit.

Yes. There have been many, many, cases and there has been a concentrated effort ranging from literally the lowest ranks of the church to the very top, as the Pope himself has been actively involved in it.

So, yes. When an international organization takes measures from it's lowest ranks to its highest to protect and enable child molesters, I think it is fair to call that organization an international conspiracy of child molesters.

If any other organization on the planet with the possible exception of an ultra-wealthy conglomerate did what the Roman Catholic Church has done it would be universally despised and probably the target of concentrated governmental attempts to dismantle it.

[Fenn]

And it's things like this that make me feel both guilty and furious. How could I, and so many others, be so oblivious to this? I was about to demand sources but why bother, I have yet to provide a single source for the last 2 years I've participated in these threads. In fact, I'm inspired to make a new thread soon related to this...

[Kodos]

Because people like to say "look all the good the Church has done!" which is to say nothing. The Church bears part of the responsibility for the AIDS pandemic in Africa due to their misinformation campaigns, have protected and enabled child molesters, and has cut funding to organizations like UNICEF when it dared to provide abortions to child victims of war-rape. All this without even touching the RCC's track record on LBGTQ and women's rights.

As I said, I think the Catholic Church is the second most harmful organization we as a species have ever produced. Only the Republicans beat them out, and only because - again - you literally cannot be more harmful than omnicide in perpetuity.

[Fenn]

Off-topic, I get it, but what's with the whole omnicide thing? Are we talking all Republicans or extremists here?

[Kodos]

The Republican party's campaign of misinformation and denialism in regards to the crisis of climate change is going to be responsible for the death of every living thing on this planet. We are not talking about The Day After Tomorrow. Global flooding and ecological meltdown are kind of a best-case-scenario by some of the more recent projections. We're more looking at "Venus 2: Electric Boogaloo". The death of every living thing on the planet, and the creation of conditions incapable of supporting life. The death of everything, forever.

I don't think you can top that. And even without that, I think the Republicans have enough of a bodycount and wretched values to still take the cake. They are comparable to Nazis only in unfavorable terms.

EDIT: But that is for another thread.

[corastaur]

Sooo this is on topic with religion but it's off topic with the current discussion... so if you want just ignore me and continue. I'm taking this religion and gender class this quarter, and a bunch of the readings have been by feminists or sort of reviews of literature that was written by feminists. What they've been trying to argue is that modern day religion (especially christianity, judaism, islam etc) are all I guess male-centric. In christianity, as the main example, you have the second creation story where man is created first in the image of god and woman is created second (not necessarily in HIS [God is referred to exclusively as male] image) and by the fall women are essentially evil temptresses who need to be put into submission. There are multiple arguments raised varying from God being exclusively male alienates one half of the human race from ever really feeling "close" to god, we need to start thinking of God in female metaphors as well (or exclusively in female metaphors according to some people) in order to even things out, some even argue for a return to goddess worship as the only way women can be sort of at one with themselves.

Aaaaanyway I thought the idea of religion being gendered was interesting, especially since it wasn't anything I had ever thought about. It's interesting to think about to what extent it really does affect our culture, and also just whether or not it can or should be changed.

But yeah, that was just my little tangent. I'm just having fun with this class and wanted to share

[ClockHand]

There are very few "religions" that are female centered, mostly are from Africa. But at the end this is prove that religion is made by man and it's a reflection of the men who did it in the past.

[Regantor]

Reminds me of a silly conversation I had with a street preacher this one time. She was trying to berate evolution by saying "What, you think your mother is a monkey? That's rediculous!"... to which I could only respond "You think my mother was made out of a guy's rib!"

There were actually christian guys who went nuts back in the fifteenth century, when somebody dissproved the myth that males even had less ribs than females (in the De humani corporis fabrica). Modern medicine says you can have extra ribs, but they are actually more common in females... Which I can only assume means god must really, really not want us to believe in him. :p

Anyway. Chaos theory basically supports all your standard kami and cosmic horrors, as well as a christian god (Using the same "We wouldn't be arround without the big bang" arguement.)... but that still doesn't mean there is any point in following or worshiping him. If everything that is written down is just symbology, then you likely aren't following it correctly anyway, making the entire exercise entirely pointless. Better a man who goes out jogging than a man who prays to loose weight. That's the basis of why I can't follow any of it, personally.