Utterly Meaningless

When were Bibles common in schools? I don’t remember anything like that from school years in South Dakota or Missouri. Is this a sectional difference in the country?

The Truths contained in the Bible are the fundamental beliefs that the laws in America are based on.

Without the Absolute Truth contained in the Bible, there is no basis for morality or laws that tell us what is right and what is wrong. Therefore, the Bible should have an important place in the education of all children, including those attending public schools.

Mimi Rothschild

That’s utter nonsense, Mimi. The Bible is a religious document. The schools are supposed to be secular. Remember that pesky 1st Amendment? If there were no compulsory attendance laws you might have a leg to stand on. But since the kids are legally bound to attend, religious indoctrination is verboten.

As for Bibles being in schools– I attended g-schools in SC from 1974-1980. No Bibles. We did open school assemblies with prayer ITNOJ, though. That practice has ended. Thankfully. 🙂

Wrong again, Mimi, but that shouldn’t stop you from continuing to spout nonsense. Just remember, wanting what you say to be true, even wanting very sincerely, will never make it so.

The Bible is nothing more than a book with very poorly told stories. There is not absolute truth there, and you hypocrisy in not following all the laws in the book should shame you.

I’m pretty sure my pagan Celtic ancestors understood that theft and murder were bad things, and they did so without the benefit of the bible telling them so.

For that matter, Native Americans also managed to live in groups without killing each other off, without the benefit of the bible. In fact, the introduction of Christians into their ecosystem is what killed their civilization.

If the Bible isn’t the source of the morality and laws of America, what is the source of right and wrong?

Making personal statements about me when we have never met and you know nothing about me other than whatever you may have read on the Internet and the few posts I have made here is unfair.

I would ask you, Daryl, to moderate such inane and disrespect. I choose to participate in this dialogue, but will not participate if it becomes abusive ahd childish. We may dsagree but that does not give anyone a license to be mean and disrespectful. Isn’t one of th epurpose of your blog to have intelligent debate and discourse? To have that, posters should be reasonable and not attack people personally, especially when they have no knowledge or experience with the person they are attacking.

Daryl has already been through this. Part of participating here is actually reading what others wrote, regardless of their religious affiliation, or lack thereof. Right and wrong evolved, just like anything else. The tribes that didn’t kill each other over dinner had better survival rates than the tribes that did. Over millions of years, it becomes human nature for most of us to understand how to live in groups.

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I just get so annoyed by such comments…, the ultimate in Christian moralizing. As if no one knew the difference between right and wrong before the Bible came along? (And, might that be the 1st or 2nd Testament?) What is your source for this kernel of wisdom, Mimi? Any facts to back that up?

In my not so humble opinion, religion has caused many of the world’s evils. Think of all the wars fought over Christianity- were/are they moral?

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No Bibles in public schools- at least most schools get something right!

I meant to add… those folks who are so worried about a Bible in schools and the “slippery slop this nation is on” should take a look at our THIRD WORLD health care situation.

Today I went to the pharmacy and paid a $50 insurance co-pay for 14 ordinary D*** pills. Happily I had the money to pay for them.

Think of those good folks who cannot even read (the Bible or any other book, the school system having failed them) and who are routinely denied health care in our proud nation. Think of those people working 2 or more jobs and still unable to afford basic health or dental care! Slippery slope indeed!

If the Bible isn’t the source of the morality and laws of America, what is the source of right and wrong?

Why not simple human reason? We are intelligent (at least some of us are). We can ponder. We can observe. We can even remember the past instead of being condemned to repeat it.

I’d argue that any intelligent, rational, thinking animal over time would develop a set of moral codes very similar to what is found in the Bible (and every other ancient religious text, too).

Did you ever read Mere Christianity, Ch. 1 like I suggested before? Lewis goes into depth on this (though I believe he draws the exact wrong conclusion).

Why not simple human reason? We are intelligent (at least some of us are). We can ponder. We can observe. We can even remember the past instead of being condemned to repeat it.

The reason, in my opinion, that simple human reason as the basis for morality and distinguishing between right and wrong is totally inadequate is because human reason is tainted as a result of the tremedous evil in the world.

While we are created in God’s image, we are also fallen. Damaged and broken. This brokenness accounts for the wrong, bad and harmful choices we make and overall, the evils of society. Therefore, the theory that morality evolves just does not hold water to me.

I’m a scientist, Mimi. Prove that the existence of a moral code requires the existence of the Christian God. The simplest explanation (and the only non-magical one under discussion here) is that a moral code is a product of, and necessary for, civilization. Under Occam’s razor, that simplest explanation is assumed to most likely be the truth unless there is significant data indicating otherwise.

So, Mimi, what significant evidence do you have that the Bible is true?

Human reason is tainted by all the evil in the world? What evil is that? I don’t see the world as being especially evil. There are people who are true asses, and there are people who do things that could be considered evil. But there is a lot of good in the world. There are good people in the world.

I see the biggest evil as the desire by too many people to try to force everyone into their narrow view of morality. Jesus seemed to spend most of his time trying to convince people to be kind and respectful of the variety of the human experience. I also remember a whole lot of something about poor, downtrodden, needy.

The whole fallen, broken and damaged line doesn’t hold water with me. I was born the way I am. So, either I’m part of a process whereby the human animal is working to send its best bits on for the future of the human animal, or I’m a pawn in a game set forth by a god who lost every bit of control of his creation soon after thinking it into existence.

Hunger/Starvation
Poverty
Cancer
Murder
Theft
Rape
Extortion
Embezzlement
Corruption
War
Disease
Genocide
Environmental pillaging
Racketerring
Money laundering
Breach of contract
Lying
Government waste
Social abuse in schools
slavery
prostitution
child abuse
child labor
child neglect

just to name a few and you think the world is not an evil place?

I don’t know what world you are living in. I don’t think we have ever disagreed more….

Mimi

I’m with Sam. Evil as a living force is just as nonsensical as any other magical thought. Do people do things we’ve agreed to call “evil”? Of course. Do I believe that there is some created being that is the “Father of Lies” and tempts humans to do evil things? What do you think?

And just a bit more about “magical thinking.” From Wikipedia:

A common form of magical thinking is that one’s own thoughts can influence events, either beneficially, by creating good luck, or for the worse, as in divine punishment for “bad thoughts”. Freud reflected on these phenomena in his essay, “The Uncanny”… We can also make the opposite error: thinking that outside agencies can see into or influence our thoughts (paranoia).

Sounds a lot like “the Devil made me do it.”

“Power of Story is Layered, Even in Scripture”

Staying on the level of the literal wasn’t sinful, perhaps, but it was superficial.

Recognizing that there are at least two levels of meaning in scripture–I say “at least two,” because the spiritual level was frequently subdivided into subcategories such as moral, allegorical, and anagogical*–the Church Fathers also recognized that sometimes conflicts would arise as to how to interpret any given passage. On what level is it most appropriate to read some texts? If commentator A says literal, and Commentator B says spiritual, how to determine whose is the best reading?

I just made a similar point at Scott’s about The Golden Compass compared to other powerful stories from, say, CS Lewis, Shakespeare, JK Rowling.

This thread is like deja vu all over again.

Every thread involving Mimi is deja vu. The real question is why we keep encouraging her.

JJ at the link above had a really good comment that seems appropriate to this thread:

There are some literalists who apply their biblical inerrancy to homeschool politics. It’s not the rightness of the god they believe in that sets them apart. It is their need to believe in their own righteousness, and they will protect that at all costs. Pointing to their god and his commandments for living is what makes them feel right about everything and everyone. It is certain security and complete identity in a world they just can’t cope with well otherwise.

I’ve suffered through “discussion” with homeschoolers so obsessed with literalism and absolute, inerrant meaning that they come to hear anything I say as wicked devil-talk from JJ the antichrist. Literally! There are homeschool moms reading this right now who would shut me up or strike me down in their righteous zeal to “protect” the true, pure homeschoolers in their own tightly closed fold of belonging and belief, to keep the outside world at bay socially, economically, legally, culturally, educationally. A closed circle of them literally conspired to try it (shutting me up or striking me down) in the past, and felt very righteous about it too!

Such literalists as I have encountered are unable to see or hear a problem from alternate points of view, unable to ask and explore any question that god hasn’t already prescribed the definitive answer to. Their imaginations are nonexistent and they have little or no sense of humor, hence don’t and generally CAN’T connect comfortably on any social or learning level (much less a collaborative problem-solving level such as political action) except with similarly literal folk. I’ve known a couple afflicted to an almost autistic, sociopathic extreme and unfortunately that’s not hyperbole; I DO mean it quite literally.

It is hard to recognize them as different from any other homeschool individualists unless you pay attention and know what you’re looking for, and believe that it even exists. (I did not, it was just too absurd!) They will speak English and string common words together in ways that SEEM like reasonable discussion, unless you happen to get involved enough to ask questions, start to fisk what really is being said, extrapolate effects and express concern, etc. Then as the ugliness and perversion of literalism begins to show through their veneer of righteousness and moral pronouncements for all, they may collectively turn on you, in a frenzy of irrationality (like a barroom brawl) because literally nothing is more important than preserving their belief in their own righteousness, and you have just made yourself the most immediate threat to it.

It’s a singleminded kind of ruthlessness I guess you have to fall victim to yourself, before you can really accept that nice people could be possessed by it.
(OH – and they tend to repeat and repeat and REPEAT the same stubborn point or two endlessly, without considering what’s happened to advance the conversation since the first few hundred iterations . . .)

No offense though, either to present company or barroom brawls. 😉

Just for Sam who wrote:
Human reason is tainted by all the evil in the world? What evil is that? I don’t see the world as being especially evil.

Here’s a few facts about AIDS…still think the world isn’t :especially evil”?

In Canada from 1990 to 1999, The Laboratory Centre for Disease Control reported that a total of 108 children (aged 15 years and under) died from AIDS compared to the UNAIDS estimate that 500,000 children under 15 that will die from AIDS this year in sub-Saharan Africa.

Worldwide, about 6,000 youngsters become infected with the HIV virus every day, the equivalent of one every 14 seconds, according to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA). The majority are female.
The UN’s Global Summary of the HIV/AIDS Epidemic, December 2002 revealed that during 2002, 15,000 people died of AIDS in North America. In contrast, 2,400,000 adults and children died in the Sub-Saharan Africa.
South Africa has one of the highest numbers of children infected with HIV/AIDS. An Ante-natal Clinic Study reported that 22% of all pregnant women had HIV. They, in turn, birth an additional 40,000 HIV positive infants each year.
The UN’s Global Summary of the HIV/AIDS Epidemic, December 2002 reported that two-thirds of all HIV/AIDS cases are female. However, because of the benefits of education for women, the prevalence rates in pregnant women fell from 21% in 1998 to 15.4% in 2001.
The highest infection rates are in young adults between the ages of 15 and 24. In 2002, the University of Cape Town’s Center for Actuarial Research estimated that South Africa had a half-million living children who have been orphaned by the disease and without radical changes, that AIDS orphans will nearly quadruple by 2015.
A UN report predicts that AIDS orphans will constitute between 9 and 12% of South Africa’s total population by 2015.
Children on the Brink, a broad and comprehensive academic study for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), reveals that up to 800,000 children in South Africa have lost both their parents or their sole known parent—usually their mother—to AIDS.
By 2005, AIDS orphans (under the age of 15) are expected to reach 1 million and climb as high as 3 million by 2010.
In developing countries, the “orphan norm” is around 2% of children that are classed as orphans. In South Africa, the “orphan norm” is 17%.
Besides the rampant death rate among parents and care-givers, school systems lose up to four African teachers a day to AIDS. The high number of AIDS-related teacher deaths and the lack of schools in remote areas are contributory to the educational plight of the mushrooming number of at-risk girls and boys.

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Are you saying that the AIDS virus is evil?

And you never answered my question above.

I’m a scientist, Mimi. Prove that the existence of a moral code requires the existence of the Christian God. The simplest explanation (and the only non-magical one under discussion here) is that a moral code is a product of, and necessary for, civilization. Under Occam’s razor, that simplest explanation is assumed to most likely be the truth unless there is significant data indicating otherwise.

So, Mimi, what significant evidence do you have that the Bible is true?

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

The Genesis account of creation is the only version I have heard that makes sense to me as a thinking, rational person. I cannot take the humungous leap of faith necessary to believe that human beings and the rest of creation came from the mud in a catalysmic accident. To believe in the mud story takes a level of denial and a breach of intellect that I cannot muster.

Mimi

If the question is “Is the AIDS virus good or evil”?, I would answer that it is EVIL.

Do you think the AIDS virus is good, Daryl?

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

So you have no evidence to support your belief. Science wins!

Do you think the AIDS virus is good, Daryl?

It is neither. It is completely amoral. How can a non-thinking (in fact, barely living) virus be said to be good or evil? Does the virus have an intent other than the basic drive to perpetuate the species?

I find your choice of HIV particularly interesting, since it’s one of the few species (or strains, if you will) for which we can provide pretty reasonable estimates for when it evolved (late 70’s), where it evolved (Africa) and from what species it evolved (Simian Immunodeficiency Virus).

You asked the question!! So from now I will presume that when you ask a question it may be a trick.

I have not really answered your question about scientif evidence. No answer does not equal you win.

Sorry. I interpreted your non sequitur as an admission that you didn’t have any. I await your evidence, then.

//I await your evidence, then//

The phrase cold day in hell comes to mind here…

Why do you put so much FAITH in scientific evidence? It seems to me that science changes frequently. What did science do for you that makes you so loyal to it? What did God do or not do to you that has made you reject Him?

Why do you put so much FAITH in scientific evidence?

You obviously don’t know anything about science. If faith is the evidence of things unseen, science is the evidence of things SEEN. Faith and science are almost exact opposites.

It seems to me that science changes frequently.

Science doesn’t change. Hypotheses can change based on new evidence. But it’s still science.

What did science do for you that makes you so loyal to it?

Aren’t you writing your comments on a computer powered by an IC?

What did God do or not do to you that has made you reject Him?

In order to reject him I think I’d have to believe in him first.

Didn’t you tell me a week or so ago that you used to believe in God and used to consider yourself a Christian?

The wonders of the computer and all other creations based on science could not have happened, in my opinion, if we came from the mud. They happened because God gave us intelligence, creativity, needs that we seek to have filled (like my need to communicate to you, Daryl) and because He gave us LIFE.

I said that I tried to believe but had merely been fooling myself.

We agree that people are intelligent. You have to add another layer of complexity to explain it. I just have to show that I AM. Your explanation invokes magical thinking, and since you don’t appear able to get past that I believe this thread has run its course.

To answer your challenge asking me to produce scientific evidence of God, this writer says it best.

Is There Scientific Evidence for the Existence of God? How the Recent Discoveries Support a Designed Universe
Dr. Walter L. Bradley

Check out this article:
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Another interesting article titled “Scientific Evidence that God Created Life” by Thomas F. Heinze can be found here:

creati...fe.htm

This is inexplicable without the existence of GOD.

doesgo...e.html

Do you really believe that there is seperation of church and state in public schools right now? There is not. The religion of HUMANISM is being taught in public schools. This violates the constitution of the United States of America. To believe that schools or any facet of government is secular is to deny the fundamental basis of our morality and our right and wrong. As Lyn Stuter says “those who would say that schools today are without sectarian influence or control attempt to deny the religion of humanism that is the basis of education today”

newswi...r9.htm

That’s just plain dumb, Mimi. Next you’ll be claiming that atheism is a religion, too.

And Lyn Stuter doesn’t know her history. That language was added specifically to ban aid to CATHOLIC schools. Read up on the sordid history of Blaine Amendments.