I was reading some blogs and some of the comments I read got me thinking. Modern gene theory, population genetics and evolutionary biology all say that there isn't a magical point were a protohuman became a human. It's a gradual shifting from one to the other. No one even knows where this 'human' shift took place, where Neanderthal like us? Unlike us? Were they what most people would consider human? What about Homo Heidelbergensis? And Erectus?
There have been times in our history when the human population was small but it never hit only 2. This would show up as a genetic bottleneck that didn't happen. We can see in the Cheetah population that something like this did happen around 10,000 years ago so there is precedence for it.
If there was no, for lack of a better term, Adam and Eve... then there would be no original sin (which I always thought was silly idea.) But if there was no Adam and Eve or original sin... then what's the point of Jesus? There is no need for him, he becomes just an interesting idea... well an idea, I never really got why God had to personify himself and then get himself killed... for a sin he made up and forced on us. If he's punishing humans why aren't the humans redeeming themselves?
Anywho, here's an interesting article on 'free will'.
Best!
Brett
Sorry, I've been doped up on Nyquil the last couple of days so I haven't been on top of responding. Maybe that is a good thing for you? I don't intend to needlessly piss you off. For the most part you don't seem to want to know the whole truth if it goes against your preconceived materialistic views.
ReplyDeleteYou do have some interesting points on the original two people.
For instance CS Lewis my favorite Christian author did not believe in a literal Adam and Eve, of course most Christians do. And of course Lewis believed the central truths about Christ and the need for salvation.
Christianity rests on the person of Christ, and his life and death and resurrection. If you want to disprove Christianity you start with him and work outward.
The article on free will you posted is interesting. I did not watch the attached hour plus video.
It is cool to see how closely science and faith are when discussing free will and both must accept major areas on faith.
-Steve
Steve,
ReplyDeleteSorry you're feeling bad, it's going around Jess, has it now. I had it last week.
And what truth would that be Steve? The one you keep going on about and yet can provide no meaningful evidence? I'm not ignoring it, I'm asking for evidence, it's just that the evidence you provide is not anything remotely convincing to me. And I'm not the one ignoring a hundreds of years of research because your bible disagrees with it. That would be you.
No Steve, you start at the beginning. If the first part if false then everything else falls apart, because it's all built on the initial lie. SO if there was no Adam and Eve then where and why is there original sin? If there isn't, then no need fo Jesus.
LOL! That video was philosophers and theologians and I really think they are an outdated and useless bunch now. There is no free will.
Best,
Brett
The point of Jesus is so people get to say things like "Jesus is the reason for the season...Merry Christmas!" "Why are you saying happy holidays, that is sooooo disrespectful"."Everyone knows the only reason there's a holiday at all is because that's the day Jesus was born" and much other nonsensical BS.
ReplyDeleteSorry I needed to vent, I just got done with a discussion about Christmas where the other party insisted that he didn't believe in winter solstice,and that the U.S government picked Dec 25 to celebrate Jesus birth and made a holiday out of it.I'm also a flat out liar for "suggesting" that Christians adopted the holiday and many of it's customs from pagans and Jesus is actually NOT the real reason for the season.
Excuse me now,I need to go read some Nietzsche and take a shower to get the blatant ignorance off of me.
LOL! Fatboy, that just proves the point that watching Fox News makes people stupid (it is nice to have a study that backs that up!) It's so perfect that the US picked the date.. cause you know Santa, like Jesus is an American!
ReplyDeleteI think that might require 2 showers for that kind of stupid!
Best,
Brett
It's so perfect that the US picked the date.. cause you know Santa, like Jesus is an American!
ReplyDeleteYou know for all my life and still today I always just associated the traditional portrayal of Santa as being completely German. Not sure why
but I could easily picture him in Lederhosen with a vest surrounded by buxom elves and hoisting a frosty mug of beer.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI love that Christmas comes at the end of the year, it is a wonderful way to refocus your life and reflect on the previous year all the while being surrounded by friends, family, and an atmosphere of good cheer.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting so many people inside and outside the Church gets so carried away with the date, seasons, and origins of the practice of Christmas. I find the origins and various rituals intriguing, but for me they do not distract from the enjoyment of the Holidays.
Christians celebrate Christ’s birth and non-Christians celebrate the better qualities of man and the hope of a better tomorrow.
I hope Brett you and Jess get over your colds and are back up to 100 percent soon.
Back to the original post on free will, I as a Christian believe in free will and the moral culpability of individuals. I believe we are more than the sum of our physical attributes.
I am curious, and this isn’t a trap or a trick question, what is the atheist’s view on moral culpability. That is to say, if you are nothing but a slave to chemical reactions in your physical form, you never do anything but what your body must do. Every action could be ascribed to a chemical imbalance or a genetic origin. In other words a mass murder being the sum of his environment and genes is no more morally wrong than a crocodile. Or for instance when at the Nuremberg War Trials, the members of the Third Reich argued that what they did was justifiable because their cultural standards were upheld and just different from the Allied forces; but they were still condemned because they were found to be guilty of crimes against a higher law which bound and sat over all humanity, regardless of culture or what was deemed legal.
Is there any wrong action which is not directly related to a materialistic cause? Is it determined by a role of some cosmic D&D multi-sided dice?
steve, (not sure which one this is!)
ReplyDeleteSlowly, I thought it was over but it's crept back in again (which remind some to get some Vit. C!) Jess seems to be on the mend as well, thanks for asking!
Ah, but you see, the greater good is all culture. Everyone has there own set of morals, (and please remember that there were people and they had morals long before Christians showed up, and most of the world has) but there are cultural morals that say the Christians have or the Jews have, and then there are National morals that the countries have. And there appears to be world morals that seems to be the common morals of all nations. Where the Nazis had there own set of morals these clashed with the rest fo the world. The only reason they were put on trial is because they lost. There was no higher power who came and said anything. These morals were the laws that were agreed upon by the nations.
I'm not quite sure what you getting at with that last question. I might just be slow today. Can you clarify?
Best,
Brett
here's an interesting article on empathy and alturism in rats:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=jailbreak-rat
Are these the basis of morals? Rodentia is the closest group to the lemurs, which lead to monkeys and apes (us included.) So the base of our morals is far, far older than an religion. Interesting article.
Best,
brett