Intelligent christians

[BungHole]

Originally Posted by Devotion

If everything about the sun was just a coincidental perception then... everything about the sun would be a coincidental perception.

Yes, and the beings that share this perception share one reality one Universe (this Universe). All others live in their own Universes that have their own version of reality, which they share with their equals, who have the same perceived reality.

Do you wish to elaborate on how everything has [a] mind? When I say mind, I am meaning brain. If you disagree that mind and brain are not one in the same, feel free.

Exactly. Of course, to be considered conscious/sentient as we know it, a creature must have a brain. But other vertebrates have brains, which must make them conscious/sentient also. And at that, a brain is just a circuit/system with energy flowing through it. And if everything has energy flowing through it, then everything has a system/circuit that could potentially be called a brain/nervous system. It's not that there is no energy flow, and therefore no consciousness, it is that there's is so simple/different then ours, there is no way for us to understand their "thoughts" and therefore, to us, they are not conscious. For all we know "inanimate objects" do have a perception, it's just there's is too simple, below our threshold. But like us, they still have energy flowing through them, and they serve a niche in this universe, simply because they exist. What makes a living being? The only tried and true definition seems to be a "complex" system (which discludes stuff like a virus) that can reproduce itself. Therefore, we are just a self sustaining chemical reaction, and that's it. Now how is that special? Doesn't the Earth sustain itself? Yes, but with the help of the sun, just like we need external resources/energy. So we need help to survive. Isn't that what makes stuff like viruses, and even lower stuff, like a piece of technology (no matter how simple) or natural object like a rock, not alive? That seems illogical to me. I know we need help in an essentially different way to reproduce, we have our own systems to replicate our DNA, but viruses need to hijack other's, technology needs to be made by men/animals, and natural objects need to be made by "abiotic" factors in their environment. But that's it, all they need is help from external sources to reproduce. And so do we, in a way. We still need our environment for this chemical reaction we call life to "survive." So how are we different? We just do it independently enough that we perceive a difference between us and them. Nothing is truly a "self sustaining" reaction. It's just, once some things gather enough resources, the reaction/process/survival can continue for quite awhile (like in a star, which can last billions of years on just it's own energy before it "dies", or an animal that takes over a month to starve to death, but it's us that perceives this difference in time). Therefore, everything is a living system, we are just too "anthropocentric" ( )to perceive it as so. Everything seems to reproduce itself into a slightly/very different form, and that's what makes everything alive, whether it is reproduced entirely by another "living" system, or it feeds off another and does it on it's own. You see the pattern here, cause I do. Everything is alive, because everything finds some way to serve a niche, become useful in the Universe, and therefore be replicated.

Point is, a brain really isn't as much as people think it is, and yet, it is much, much more.

[Trichocereus Pachanoi]

hehehe after my last post in this thread being somewhat ignored, I am beginning to wonder if I am the only person posting in this thread who has actually read the Summa Theologica and De Primo Principio.
Hehe.
Btw, Bunghole you should sign up over at http://catholicforums.fisheaters.com they get some pretty good discussion going on over there and not all of the members are Catholics. I would be intersted to see your viewpoints on some of their issues.

[Ambient]

Originally Posted by Trichocereus Pachanoi

hehehe after my last post in this thread being somewhat ignored, I am beginning to wonder if I am the only person posting in this thread who has actually read the Summa Theologica and De Primo Principio.
Hehe.

Wow, aren't you a special fellow?

I bet Jesus is going to give you extra brownie points for that one.

[Trichocereus Pachanoi]

Originally Posted by Devotion

Wow, aren't you a special fellow?

I bet Jesus is going to give you extra brownie points for that one.

Well, considering our justification is NOT BY FAITH ALONE, I think He probably will!

[Pancake]

You atheists always crack me up.
How on Earth could the Earth be over 6000 years old? Have you ever seen a book dating beyond even a thousand years?
Do you honestly think those dinosaur bones are real? Ya right, use your heads. Christian scientists have already proven that creatures that large can't even hold up that much flesh. And do you really think creatures that big could even move that much mass around? Time to go back to physics 101, lol.

Also, do a search for some DNA images. Look at them, and you tell me... is that the kind of thing that just happens into existence in a puddle of amino acids and goo?
It's called creation people, you might want to look into it, then pray for forgiveness for being so ignorant and short sighted.

[Rizzo in a box]

Originally Posted by Pancake

You atheists always crack me up.
How on Earth could the Earth be over 6000 years old? Have you ever seen a book dating beyond even a thousand years?
Do you honestly think those dinosaur bones are real? Ya right, use your heads. Christian scientists have already proven that creatures that large can't even hold up that much flesh. And do you really think creatures that big could even move that much mass around? Time to go back to physics 101, lol.

Also, do a search for some DNA images. Look at them, and you tell me... is that the kind of thing that just happens into existence in a puddle of amino acids and goo?
It's called creation people, you might want to look into it, then pray for forgiveness for being so ignorant and short sighted.

[BungHole]

Originally Posted by Pancake

You atheists always crack me up.
How on Earth could the Earth be over 6000 years old? Have you ever seen a book dating beyond even a thousand years?
Do you honestly think those dinosaur bones are real? Ya right, use your heads. Christian scientists have already proven that creatures that large can't even hold up that much flesh. And do you really think creatures that big could even move that much mass around? Time to go back to physics 101, lol.

Also, do a search for some DNA images. Look at them, and you tell me... is that the kind of thing that just happens into existence in a puddle of amino acids and goo?
It's called creation people, you might want to look into it, then pray for forgiveness for being so ignorant and short sighted.

Oh my God, you're so right! I have seen the light! I officially believe in genesis!

[Headspin]

Originally Posted by Pancake

You atheists always crack me up.
How on Earth could the Earth be over 6000 years old? Have you ever seen a book dating beyond even a thousand years?
Do you honestly think those dinosaur bones are real? Ya right, use your heads. Christian scientists have already proven that creatures that large can't even hold up that much flesh. And do you really think creatures that big could even move that much mass around? Time to go back to physics 101, lol.

Also, do a search for some DNA images. Look at them, and you tell me... is that the kind of thing that just happens into existence in a puddle of amino acids and goo?
It's called creation people, you might want to look into it, then pray for forgiveness for being so ignorant and short sighted.

You piss me off.


Anyway, I don't see why a Christian couldn't be intelligent. Any human with any belief can have intelligence. Faith in a religion shouldn't really have a deciding factor in one's ability to think abstractly, its just guided by some sort of faith. Like if we happened to be talking about carbon dating or a specific species of dinosaur, God would have no place in the topic, even if I was a Christian.

[Ambient]

Originally Posted by Trichocereus Pachanoi

Well, considering our justification is NOT BY FAITH ALONE, I think He probably will!

Shut up and pay attention.

hehehe after my last post in this thread being somewhat ignored, I am beginning to wonder if I am the only person posting in this thread who has actually read the Summa Theologica and De Primo Principio.
Hehe.

I am beginning to wonder how relavent the fact that you have read these two works is. I think a proposition like "faith without works is dead" rather than admiting the egoistic nature of glorifying your own achievements in a misapropriate context would be a cop out, mr. christian.

In before "im a fallen inept dirty sinister fleshly temptable original sinner" cop out.

[TheDarkRodent]

Originally Posted by Zeze838

First of all, the Bible is not a science textbook. The first reason is because the bible does not change. Science textbooks change all the time. The second reason is that the Bible was not written to explain scientific principles. It was written to explain the human problem and how God solved it.

Logical arguments like carbon dating? I will give you the short version of why some don't trust it.

The estimated ages are given based on comparing C-14 levels in whatever they're testing to the levels we see today. We don't know what the C-14 levels in the atmosphere were when such-and-such died. google it around a bit. I'm sure you'll find a lil somethin'-somethin'
________________________

How do I back the world being 6K years old? Well first of all, the days of creation were literal 24 hour days. God made the sun after he made plants. Thought that one was obvious (yet some fellow Christians disagree with me. Go figure! lol). If God made Adam and Eve as fully grown adults then why couldn't he make the earth look aged as well? People who expect things to look 6K years old should also expect God to have created Adam and Eve as fetuses instead of adults.

Remember. If God is god he can create things. He is not bound by the laws of physics. He wrote them. If God couldn't, he wouldn't be all powerful.
___________

As for why do I believe in the Bible? The same reason I believe something I hear on the news. The disciples died for what they knew was the truth. Dying for something doesn't prove what you believed was true. But if you were there. If you walked with Christ. Followed Him. Witnessed his resurrection alongside a lot of other people, I'd say that's pretty good evidence that these men knew what they were talking about and what they died for.

So in other words because it says so in a book that has been translated and edited to suit the purposes of rulers and clergy alike for thousands of years and because MSNBC/CNN/FOX/ABC/NBC does not lie?

[dysik]

well, im in australia and went to a catholic school. the catholic church no longer teaches the old testament (and most of the new) to be taken literally. they seem to teach a balance of science and religion. more like "yeah the big bang may have happened, and god engineered it so that we were created for today" type thing.

so it seems its not all christians who are retarded, just "christians". ie: americans....

[007GoldenShower]

I went to a catholic school here as well. We always had debates with the Brothers about the bible and they always stressed it was never meant to be taken literally, especially the OT.

To know that a lot of people out there sincerely believe a higher being created everything always astounds me.

[Trichocereus Pachanoi]

dysik, what you are referencing is a direct result of the masonic infiltration perpetrated by the alta vendita, which resulted in the second Vatican Council. This is the reason that the novus ordo missae is heteredoxical, as well as virtually everything taught in post-conciliar Catholic schools.
darkrodent, while most protestant sects and the like have mutated the texts of the scripture, to suit whatever erroneous doctrines they have concocted, my Vulgate reads the same as it did when St Jerome compiled it, a direct translation from the original languages into Latin.
devotion, the relevance is not that i have read the works; it is the works themselves. the Dominican... I mean, OP, postulated that one could not be intelligent and Christian - the two were mutually exclusive poles, so to speak. IMHO, St Thomas Aquinas was pretty intelligent, as was John Duns Scotus. However, mentioning this to people who have not read their works is rather pointless, as nobody is likely to take my word for it.
One should certainly not glorify one's own achievements, for good works should be done for the doing not for the telling.
Justification by faith alone is a heresy, which is denounced in the Sacra Scriptura itself.