Richard Dawkins

lone-traveler · Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2007 8:28 am Post subject:

Hi saibe, hold on P, I wrote this before I saw your question..

I know, now you think I'm wacked in the head..LOL..
what is the principle...what goes around comes around?
We have to pin the tail on the donkey..
Everyone in the OT has a part to play in the NT.
The OT is a shadow of the NT.
So if there are questions about who is who, then one must look and compare both.

lone-traveler · Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2007 8:52 am Post subject:

P1234567890 · Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2007 9:08 am Post subject:

lone-traveler · Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2007 11:15 am Post subject:

P1234567890 · Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2007 11:45 am Post subject:

But didn't God harden the Pharoah's heart so that he wouldn't heed the warnings???

The story really doesn't sit well at all with my conscience.

Another good example is when Lot offers up his virgin daughters to be raped by the mob outside his house. What kind of message does that send?
_________________
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."
-Blaise Pascal
"...with or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil -that takes religion..."
-Steven Weinberg
"I would bless my children with your destruction instead."
-Someone who shall remain anonymous.

lone-traveler · Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2007 1:14 pm Post subject:

P1234567890 · Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 8:58 pm Post subject:

But God didn't just make an example of the Pharaoh... He also killed A LOT of innocent Egyptians, including women and children... Where's the justice in that?

And what about Lot's daughters?
_________________
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."
-Blaise Pascal
"...with or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil -that takes religion..."
-Steven Weinberg
"I would bless my children with your destruction instead."
-Someone who shall remain anonymous.

lone-traveler · Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2007 5:46 am Post subject:

Hi P,

It's real hard trying to explain spiritual things to people that don't believe in spiritual things..that's for sure..
And the real hard part is, is the way I see things and understand them, goes against everything I have ever been taught by others.
God doesn't "kill" innocent people. God may remove them from this body we live in, but He only destroys the wickedness of the wicked.
I believe there's more to life than just what we see here and now. I guess you could say I agree in a kind of reincarnation. The physical features change, the names change, the places change, but those that inhabit new bodies, names, and places are given another chance to come back and get it right. If not, then they get put out with the dogs again. I believe that evolution is a shadow of a greater truth. We start out like animals in our actions and lifestyles and we move up the evolutionary chain until we become angels...or Man complete in God's image and likeness.
God is the master potter. If the clay isn't forming right, He breaks it apart and refashions it until it is made into what He wants it to be.
These people in Egypt...also a shadow...of the clay not turning out the way it should, so it is broken down and refashioned and tried again.
Some go through fire to be refined and made perfect. Because they don't keep their physical bodies doesn't mean their spirit is destroyed. It is given a new body and a new name.
What you see as an awful and gruesome act, I see as God fashioning the clay. Putting silver through the fire and burning off the dross. Putting wheat through the grinder and removing the chaff.
If you always look on the outward appearance of things, you will always miss the inward meaning.

So the justice taking place in Egypt is...
The people had become corrupted by sin. And they didn't listen to their maker and those sins came back to eat them up. So God took those pots that had been marred, broke them down, removed the bad parts, and began building them again.
And we just keep being built up and broken down until we are perfected by the potter who creates the vessels.

What about Lot's daughters?

God didn't hand them over to the wicked people. To be abused and raped and who knows what. God knew their wickedness and He knew that they wouldn't choose the good thing. Nevertheless it was offered anyways incase they chose to change their ways. They didn't.
There will never be a time when man can say, God didn't give me a choice to make the right decision. It's all there in black and white and they are evidences and testimonies against us. To be used in the court of law on judgment day.
And then again, maybe God put it in their hearts not to defile the women, thereby bringing even worse condemnation on themselves. The destruction of their very souls. So maybe it was the lesser of two punishments that they chose the men and not the women.

If they had chosen the women, and Sodom had been destroyed and the women in it, then when Lot escaped and hi-tailed it to the mountains, no seed would have continued in Lot's line. His wife had decided to turn back to Sodom and was destroyed. So the only way these two carried on the seed of Lot was to create children within the family line itself.

So the two covenants remain and spread across the earth once again. One older, one younger.
In which a new family line was created again. And I'm thinking that those people that were destroyed in Sodom got another chance to try again through Lot and his daughters children. New clay was made and being refashioned for the pots that were destroyed in the fire.

Mat 10:12 And when ye come into an house, salute it.

The angels that came to Lot's house.

Mat 10:13 And if the house be worthy, let your peace come upon it: but if it be not worthy, let your peace return to you.

They stayed that night because it was the only house worthy to stay in.

Mat 10:14 And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet.

They left the city in the morning, not looking back.

Mat 10:15 Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city.

I don't believe the people of Sodom and Gomorrah heard the gospel. Rather, I don't believe the people understood the message. In which case their ignorance will be weighed against those that do hear and do understand the message of the gospel. And it will be more tolerable for them in the day of judgment for that land...bodies of who were destroyed,dust, versus the cities...those in which we live in now and still are alive, will be judged.

Because we say we See, therefore our sin remains. Because we hear the message and we are not ignorant and yet we keep doing the same things.
But those that are blind and do not hear and understand the message, God will destroy their evil works yet I believe they have another chance to change.
They may start out on the outside of the gate of heaven and be given another opportunity to climb up that evolutionary chain from beast to Man.

Ecc 3:18 I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts.
Ecc 3:19 For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all [is] vanity.

Rom 12:3 For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think [of himself] more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.

do beasts have faith?
Is a dog a beast?

Mat 15:25 Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me.
Mat 15:26 But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast [it] to dogs.
Mat 15:27 And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table.
Mat 15:28 Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great [is] thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.

It's hard P, explaining things that are spiritual in a physical world where some don't believe in the spiritual world.
Like trying to explain that swords mean words, and poison from serpents are lies from men's lips.
That arrows are tools that God uses to deliver his message. They strike at the heart and reveal the intentions of the heart. That the land is the people, and the wheat that grows in it is the doctrines and teachings we eat and live on. That some wheat is good and some not so good. That they need to be put through the grind and thrashed and kneaded and baked and eaten. Being careful not to put in yeast that inflates the teachings or doctrines and obscures the true bread.
And adding oil to the wheat which is the spirit to the words and making unleavened bread, or good sound doctrine.

How can anyone explain something to someone when they don't want to see what it spiritually means, and they only want to understand and try to rationalize the physical understanding?

God is Spirit. His words are spiritual. We are to understand them with a spiritual mind. The physical is the chaff that needs to be thrashed from the seed so the truth can be revealed of what's inside us, not outside us.

The bible is both the seed and the covering of the seed.
First the seed with the covering is planted. The covering dies and falls off. Then the seed which is inside begins to grow into all kinds of herbs and trees and fruits....

But you can't plant an uncoated seed, because it is the coating that protects it from rotting and being eaten by insects. It's a protection for the seed until it is time for it to grow. So is the OT...covering..and the NT...seed.
Now when new things are grown, they also have seed within themselves. And we take the fruit, and the seed with the coating and plant it in the land, and then it begins again.

Let's try it this way..

You start out in head start/kindergarten/first grade...
You become a master of all kinds of degrees. Highly intelligent and you have learned everything there is to know about everything.

you have a child.

Does this child begin with the same intelligence that you already have because it has already been learned by you?

Or..

Do you send your child to headstart/kindergarten/first grade to learn those things for themselves?

Not all children are able to go from first grade to high school graduation without having put time into learning the basics first. Some children grasp things easier and faster and can skip a grade or two, but they still need to learn the fundamentals.

What we have today is people saying that because they have learned all the knowledge there is to learn that we don't need to send our children to school to learn, they can just become doctors and lawyers and scientists because it's already in the parent, therefore it must already be in the child.

I believe all children have to learn just like the parents...one grade at a time. And sometimes we have to take refresher courses because we don't retain everything we've learned. Lifelong educational college.

so anywho....

Each one of us is Adam. Each one must eat of the tree of knowledge. Each one must go into Egypt and come through the red sea. Each one must go through the wilderness, recieve directions on how to live and behave.
Everyone falls down, there is none perfect no not one, we all make mistakes. We all fight in the sandbox, we all argue with the teacher and our parents, we all say life isn't fair, we all have a rebelious nature (some worse than others), we all mature over time, (most do), and then when we have children we raise them according to what we believe is good for them.

Everything in the bible is given to us as an example (and those who were made examples) to teach us of who we are, where we came from, how we got where we are, and where we're going. And how life goes on even after we are dead and buried. Carried on by the seeds we sow in the lands we create through our children, and their children, and their children's children.
For thousands of generations...world without end.

We are not just a physical existance, we are spiritual too.

Hugs P,
you know me...long winded..

Lone
_________________
Joh 15:14 Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.
Joh 15:12 This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.

Colter · Rabid Pit Bull Joined: 20 Mar 2007 Posts: 409

Forum,

I watched some of the Dawkins videos who also spoke here at the University of Virginia last year. I have some responses to Dawkins propositions.

* Dawkins is able to gain traction among contemporary thinkers because he does seem to speak to the secret doubts that people have had about certain facets of religion. Religion is always the last institution to change and lacks mechanism for admitting when it has been wrong. At least the scientific method forces change when new facts are discovered. Religion tends to ignore new scientific data and marches on in a kind of "bubble" then dares to persecute scientists.

* Within religion itself (the Bible) we can see an evolution of spiritual thought or revelation. Each new expansion of truth is met by persecution by those who stubbornly hold fast to the former teachings.

* Dawkins makes the oft repeated mistake of drawing absolute conclusions from the position of near infinite ignorance of origins and destinies. Being finite it's absurd to draw conclusions of final value.

The following is an extrapolation from the Urantia Revelation which effectively refutes Dawkins one sided approach to viewing the cosmos or reality.

THE VULNERABILITY OF MATERIALISM

How foolish it is for material-minded man to allow such vulnerable theories as those of a mechanistic universe to deprive him of the vast spiritual resources of the personal experience of true religion. Facts never quarrel with real spiritual faith; theories may. Better that science should be devoted to the destruction of superstition rather than attempting the overthrow of religious faith--human belief in spiritual realities and divine values.

Science should do for man materially what religion does for him spiritually: extend the horizon of life and enlarge his personality. True science can have no lasting quarrel with true religion. The "scientific method" is merely an intellectual yardstick wherewith to measure material adventures and physical achievements. But being material and wholly intellectual, it is utterly useless in the evaluation of spiritual realities and religious experiences.

The inconsistency of the modern mechanist is: If this were merely a material universe and man only a machine, such a man would be wholly unable to recognize himself as such a machine, and likewise would such a machine-man be wholly unconscious of the fact of the existence of such a material universe. The materialistic dismay and despair of a mechanistic science has failed to recognize the fact of the spirit-indwelt mind of the scientist whose very supermaterial insight formulates these mistaken and self-contradictory concepts of a materialistic universe.

Paradise values of eternity and infinity, of truth, beauty, and goodness, are concealed within the facts of the phenomena of the universes of time and space. But it requires the eye of faith in a spirit-born mortal to detect and discern these spiritual values.

The realities and values of spiritual progress are not a "psychologic projection"--a mere glorified daydream of the material mind. Such things are the spiritual forecasts of the indwelling Adjuster, the spirit of God living in the mind of man. And let not your dabblings with the faintly glimpsed findings of "relativity" disturb your concepts of the eternity and infinity of God. And in all your solicitation concerning the necessity for self-expression do not make the mistake of failing to provide for Adjuster-expression, the manifestation of your real and better self.

If this were only a material universe, material man would never be able to arrive at the concept of the mechanistic character of such an exclusively material existence. This very mechanistic concept of the universe is in itself a nonmaterial phenomenon of mind, and all mind is of nonmaterial origin, no matter how thoroughly it may appear to be materially conditioned and mechanistically controlled.

The partially evolved mental mechanism of mortal man is not overendowed with consistency and wisdom. Man's conceit often outruns his reason and eludes his logic.

The very pessimism of the most pessimistic materialist is, in and of itself, sufficient proof that the universe of the pessimist is not wholly material. Both optimism and pessimism are concept reactions in a mind conscious of values as well as of facts. If the universe were truly what the materialist regards it to be, man as a human machine would then be devoid of all conscious recognition of that very fact. Without the consciousness of the concept of values within the spirit-born mind, the fact of universe materialism and the mechanistic phenomena of universe operation would be wholly unrecognized by man. One machine cannot be conscious of the nature or value of another machine.

A mechanistic philosophy of life and the universe cannot be scientific because science recognizes and deals only with materials and facts. Philosophy is inevitably superscientific. Man is a material fact of nature, but his life is a phenomenon which transcends the material levels of nature in that it exhibits the control attributes of mind and the creative qualities of spirit.

The sincere effort of man to become a mechanist represents the tragic phenomenon of that man's futile effort to commit intellectual and moral suicide. But he cannot do it.

If the universe were only material and man only a machine, there would be no science to embolden the scientist to postulate this mechanization of the universe. Machines cannot measure, classify, nor evaluate themselves. Such a scientific piece of work could be executed only by some entity of supermachine status.

If universe reality is only one vast machine, then man must be outside of the universe and apart from it in order to recognize such a fact and become conscious of the insight of such an evaluation.

If man is only a machine, by what technique does this man come to believe or claim to know that he is only a machine? The experience of self-conscious evaluation of one's self is never an attribute of a mere machine. A self-conscious and avowed mechanist is the best possible answer to mechanism. If materialism were a fact, there could be no self-conscious mechanist. It is also true that one must first be a moral person before one can perform immoral acts.

The very claim of materialism implies a supermaterial consciousness of the mind which presumes to assert such dogmas. A mechanism might deteriorate, but it could never progress. Machines do not think, create, dream, aspire, idealize, hunger for truth, or thirst for righteousness. They do not motivate their lives with the passion to serve other machines and to choose as their goal of eternal progression the sublime task of finding God and striving to be like him. Machines are never intellectual, emotional, aesthetic, ethical, moral, or spiritual.

Art proves that man is not mechanistic, but it does not prove that he is spiritually immortal. Art is mortal morontia, the intervening field between man, the material, and man, the spiritual. Poetry is an effort to escape from material realities to spiritual values.

In a high civilization, art humanizes science, while in turn it is spiritualized by true religion--insight into spiritual and eternal values. Art represents the human and time-space evaluation of reality. Religion is the divine embrace of cosmic values and connotes eternal progression in spiritual ascension and expansion. The art of time is dangerous only when it becomes blind to the spirit standards of the divine patterns which eternity reflects as the reality shadows of time. True art is the effective manipulation of the material things of life; religion is the ennobling transformation of the material facts of life, and it never ceases in its spiritual evaluation of art.

How foolish to presume that an automaton could conceive a philosophy of automatism, and how ridiculous that it should presume to form such a concept of other and fellow automatons!

Any scientific interpretation of the material universe is valueless unless it provides due recognition for the scientist. No appreciation of art is genuine unless it accords recognition to the artist. No evaluation of morals is worth while unless it includes the moralist. No recognition of philosophy is edifying if it ignores the philosopher, and religion cannot exist without the real experience of the religionist who, in and through this very experience, is seeking to find God and to know him. Likewise is the universe of universes without significance apart from the I AM, the infinite God who made it and unceasingly manages it.

Mechanists--humanists--tend to drift with the material currents. Idealists and spiritists dare to use their oars with intelligence and vigor in order to modify the apparently purely material course of the energy streams.

Science lives by the mathematics of the mind; music expresses the tempo of the emotions. Religion is the spiritual rhythm of the soul in time-space harmony with the higher and eternal melody measurements of Infinity. Religious experience is something in human life which is truly supermathematical.

In language, an alphabet represents the mechanism of materialism, while the words expressive of the meaning of a thousand thoughts, grand ideas, and noble ideals--of love and hate, of cowardice and courage--represent the performances of mind within the scope defined by both material and spiritual law, directed by the assertion of the will of personality, and limited by the inherent situational endowment.

The universe is not like the laws, mechanisms, and the uniformities which the scientist discovers, and which he comes to regard as science, but rather like the curious, thinking, choosing, creative, combining, and discriminating scientist who thus observes universe phenomena and classifies the mathematical facts inherent in the mechanistic phases of the material side of creation. Neither is the universe like the art of the artist, but rather like the striving, dreaming, aspiring, and advancing artist who seeks to transcend the world of material things in an effort to achieve a spiritual goal.

The scientist, not science, perceives the reality of an evolving and advancing universe of energy and matter. The artist, not art, demonstrates the existence of the transient morontia world intervening between material existence and spiritual liberty. The religionist, not religion, proves the existence of the spirit realities and divine values which are to be encountered in the progress of eternity. UB 1955
_________________
Micah denounced "the rulers who judge for reward and the priests who teach for hire and the prophets who divine for money." He taught of a day of freedom from superstition and priestcraft, saying: "But every man shall sit under his own vine, and no one shall make him afraid, for all people will live, each one according to his understanding of God."

P1234567890 · Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2007 9:04 pm Post subject:

saibe · Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 3:04 am Post subject:

Lone,

where in the bible does it say we or some are reincarnated?
Are you using the word in the sinse of we go to our heavenly home with God, he then gives us