The Christian Theology Education Thread

[Fullerene]

46 minutes ago, throbber said:

Exactly even the solar system which isn’t even scratching the surface of the milky way would take us 6000 years to get out of it we were to travel in the fastest craft we have available at this moment in time. It’s pointless.

The Voyager 1 spacecraft is only 19.4 hours away at the speed of light.  The nearest star (Proxima Centauri) is 4.24 light years away. 

[throbber]

7 minutes ago, Fullerene said:

The Voyager 1 spacecraft is only 19.4 hours away at the speed of light.  The nearest star (Proxima Centauri) is 4.24 light years away. 

It’s pish isn’t it?

[DA Baracus]

If god was real (it's not, the very concept is stunningly pathetic and utterly laughable) I'd demand that the piece of shit begged, on their knees, for forgiveness for their multiple reported atrocities.

[welshbairn]

58 minutes ago, Fullerene said:

The Voyager 1 spacecraft is only 19.4 hours away at the speed of light.  The nearest star (Proxima Centauri) is 4.24 light years away. 

The fastest spacecraft so far, the Parker Space Probe, travelled at a peak of 394,736 mph. If it kept going at that speed it would take around 1.5 million years to get to the other side of the Milky Way.

[GHF-23]

I don't believe in god, and have the normal issues with organised religion. I hope those who are religious find the peace and comfort it can provide, and I hope those who can't see the word religion without frothing at the mouth find something in their life to give them some peace as well. 

[milton75]

19 hours ago, jimbaxters said:

What makes it outdated though? Is it because Jesus was here over 2000 years ago or is it more because we have had generations of secular thinking now. Also, science and Christian beliefs are not anything like as far apart as you seem to think/cling to.

 

19 hours ago, jimbaxters said:

Let's be honest though. You have read about what has happened scientifically and believed it so essentially you have "faith" in what you have read or are told.

 

19 hours ago, jimbaxters said:

I was obviously talking about the deeper scientific discoveries. What I mean is science explains how the world works, which is a God given gift. It's not in contradiction to creation. 

I wasn't going to write what I'm sure many others have said better than I could, but this view of "science" really winds me up, and it massively misses the point. 

Over and over again in debates like this I see religious people (I'm sure you're lovely though, @jimbaxters ) talk about scientists as though they are a) a uniform group and b) a different species. They really aren't.

To answer above points in order:

1)
What makes it outdated though?
- Well, to start with for a large chunk of those 2,000 years, the average man in the street a) didn't have alternative answers to many mysteries in life, and b) might have gotten himself in quite a lot of bother if he went around questioning the church.
Instead, now, scientific method has proven (yes, really has proven) many things. We know the earth goes around the sun. We know that development of medicines can target and therefore cure or at least mitigate the effects of many diseases and ailments. Conversely, at no point ever has religion ever proven anything. It just hasn't. It speaks of miracles and the like, but bizarrely no-one has ever gone for a dip in Lourdes and regrown that arm that got chopped off.
So for those reasons, and myriad more, a great deal of the bible, and other religious texts, are outdated.

 

2)
Also, science and Christian beliefs are not anything like as far apart as you seem to think/cling to.
- I've seen this sort of thing said before and it always confuses me. Firstly, it very much reads as though followers are seeking to grant greater credence to their reliefs by suggesting that they align with science. This seems an odd paradigm as it means that tacitly or subconsciously they are aware that science is, rightfully, more respected than faith, but are unable to make the leap to actually using scientific method themselves.
Also, you said the following: "Science allows us to understand how the world works but there will always be too much to fully understand. There are plenty of scientists who have faith in a higher being", as though such people prove a wider point. They don't. All they prove is that people involved in the sciences remain just people; fallible, given to inconsistencies, hypocrisies, to compartmentalising opposing beliefs. If they applied scientific methodology to examining their religious beliefs they would find them wanting. 

 

3)
Let's be honest though. You have read about what has happened scientifically and believed it so essentially you have "faith" in what you have read or are told.
- There's a reasonable point here, but to make it accurate I can admit that I have faith that scientific discoveries are reviewed, tested, countered, etc. Sometimes theories are thought proven and then overturned. Sometimes the process was wrong or insufficient. Sometimes people even lie to get the result they're hoping for, but that's where peer reviews and re-testing comes in. Very few things stand alone and do not affect other things. If someone states that they have, for example, proven a theory that affects our understanding of an aspect of physics, it will either align with or challenge our understanding of many many dovetailing aspects of that area of study. It will be tested and examined. That is what we can have faith in, not in individual abstract proclamations.

 

4)
I was obviously talking about the deeper scientific discoveries. What I mean is science explains how the world works, which is a God given gift. It's not in contradiction to creation. 
The point here is that religion typically works backwards, and the rationale for most things ultimately comes down to "God made it that way". Science isn't here to magically come up with all the answers. It's a gradual process, and sometimes, often, that journey meets a dead end and has to go elsewhere. When an experiment disproves a result that was hoped for it is actually as much of a positive achievement as if it proved the result, and that's what people often don't seem capable of seeing. It's not about coming up with a solution; it's about testing and testing and testing, and stripping out the things it can't be. It might never definitively prove the answer to something, and that's fine. It's perfectly acceptable for the answer to be "we still don't know", and to merely posit "most likely" theories.
The other point to bear in mind here is that many things that science has observed and proven, e.g. aspects of evolution, the age of the planet, etc., were previously explained by religious doctrine. In fact there are still parts of Christianity that believe in Young Earth Creationism. And for those parts that don't, they simply shift position. All of a sudden "it's obvious" that Adam and Eve is meant to be allegorical, but if I'd been alive in 15th Century Spain and had gone around talking about sharing DNA with apes and there also having once been neanderthals and so on, I'd have found myself in deep shit in a dungeon somewhere.
The point here being, and this goes back to Point 1,  that over 2,000 odd years (and differing time periods for other religions) many things have been proven or disproven using scientific methodologies. Chances are that at some point we'll find evidence of basic life having existed on Mars and if and when that happens this planet will be shown to not even be unique there either. We're not special. Just conceited.

 

[Fullerene]

2 hours ago, welshbairn said:

The fastest spacecraft so far, the Parker Space Probe, travelled at a peak of 394,736 mph. If it kept going at that speed it would take around 1.5 million years to get to the other side of the Milky Way.

Actually it would take longer.  The centre of the galaxy is a supermassive black hole and you would probably want to avoid that. 

I would allow maybe 3 million years to allow for this detour.

[welshbairn]

12 minutes ago, Fullerene said:

Actually it would take longer.  The centre of the galaxy is a supermassive black hole and you would probably want to avoid that. 

I would allow maybe 3 million years to allow for this detour.

Could you not use it as a sling shot to speed up?

P.S. You might have to save all your jobbies to drop into the black hole as you swing round.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penrose_process

Edited September 3 by welshbairn

[Fullerene]

24 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

Could you not use it as a sling shot to speed up?

P.S. You might have to save all your jobbies to drop into the black hole as you swing round.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penrose_process

Well only if you can calculate how much this will slow down the rotation of the supermassive black hole.

[welshbairn]

4 minutes ago, Fullerene said:

Well only if you can calculate how much this will slow down the rotation of the supermassive black hole.

Probably by as much as a fly hitting the windscreen will slow down a train, a more than zero amount.

[coprolite]

26 minutes ago, Fullerene said:

Well only if you can calculate how much this will slow down the rotation of the supermassive black hole.

This is where religion comes in useful. God is omniscient so you can just ask her.

[Fullerene]

Just now, coprolite said:

This is where religion comes in useful. God is omniscient so you can just ask her.

She said 42.

[coprolite]

Just now, Fullerene said:

She said 42.

Seems to be the answer to everything these days

[Granny Danger]

3 hours ago, GHF-23 said:

I don't believe in god, and have the normal issues with organised religion. I hope those who are religious find the peace and comfort it can provide, and I hope those who can't see the word religion without frothing at the mouth find something in their life to give them some peace as well. 

That’s a nice sentiment and one that’s hard to disagree with.  But amongst such people you will also find coercive bigots because they follow/support religions that are coercive and bigoted.

[Wee-Bey]

The poundshop Dawkins act is always pretty funny tbh.

[jimbaxters]

34 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

That’s a nice sentiment and one that’s hard to disagree with.  But amongst such people you will also find coercive bigots because they follow/support religions that are coercive and bigoted.

So is it better to just hate or ridicule everyone who professes a faith?

[MazzyStar]

29 minutes ago, Cheese said:

The poundshop Dawkins act is always pretty funny tbh.

More tragic than funny tbh

[CityDave94]

38 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

That’s a nice sentiment and one that’s hard to disagree with.  But amongst such people you will also find coercive bigots because they follow/support religions that are coercive and bigoted.

Plenty of bigots who don't follow any religion.

[Fullerene]

56 minutes ago, coprolite said:

Seems to be the answer to everything these days

Maybe but I know some people who think 56 is the answer and refuse to be in the same room as anyone who thinks 42 is the answer.

[GordonS]

7 hours ago, CityDave94 said:

Would you agree that good and evil does exist though?

Not as absolutes, no. They're just labels we use to describe behaviour we approve of or hate and they mean very different things to different people.

To those in charge of Afghanistan, hijacking planes and flying them into buildings was good. To most of us it was evil. For much/ most of the world teaching children that it's ok to be gay is evil, to me it's good.