God did not invent any of that. He intended our universe to be perfect, but our sin has caused a downward spiral of all creation.
So you are suggesting that the parasites which burrow their way into children's eyes making them blind were not the product of Intelligent Design. Did they evolve? Or is all the Sin slopping around in the world some sort of Mutagen. Turning innocent eye-worms into evil-eye-worms.
Quote:
Originally Posted by frugality
Here you are much closer to the mark. Jesus "for the joy set before him, endured the cross." He saw beyond death and saw his suffering as worth enduring because he loved us and didn't want to lose us.
Jesus denied himself many things in this life because he was looking toward the end result in heaven, when he would be reinstated fully as God the Son, having paid the ransom for all of us to be with him in heaven.
Sometimes you give up something you want here and now for something better later.
He either died or he didn't.
If he died *that* would be a sacrifice.
If he didn't then where is the sacrifice? Why was it such a big deal? Being nailed to a tree is the sort of thing some people do for fun.
You can't have it both ways. Whoever wrote this Bible was a lousy screenwriter. The character of God is totally different in the second half.
"Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion."
See, but that's just god being a dick again.
And define "unnatural" because homosexuality happens in nature all the time....
Wait.... does that mean gay animals go to hell too??
So you are suggesting that the parasites which burrow their way into children's eyes making them blind were not the product of Intelligent Design. Did they evolve? Or is all the Sin slopping around in the world some sort of Mutagen. Turning innocent eye-worms into evil-eye-worms.
Those kinds of creatures would exist, but be benign. As the bible says with regard to heaven and the new earth, "the lion will lay down with the lamb."
Quote:
Originally Posted by Carniphage
He either died or he didn't.
If he died *that* would be a sacrifice.
If he didn't then where is the sacrifice? Why was it such a big deal? Being nailed to a tree is the sort of thing some people do for fun.
The cross was one of the most excruciating forms of death known at the time. A good Roman crucifixion squad could keep a person alive on the cross for 3 days, while they pushed themselves up and down on the nails in their feet to draw each breath of air. Jesus also endured a flesh-removing scourging before that. Look up how the Romans did scourging sometime. The Passion of the Christ movie showed it well.
But that was nothing compared to the payment after he died. He spent an eternity in hell for each person who would be in heaven. He did it for me, and he did it for you if you accept it. They physical pain and death was just a shadow of the pain of separation from God that each one of us derserved.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Carniphage
You can't have it both ways. Whoever wrote this Bible was a lousy screenwriter. The character of God is totally different in the second half.
God shows his love much more in the second half, but it is definitely there in the first half. We even get a preview of Christ in Genesis, if you remember when God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, the son that he promised him and which was born miraculously to him in his old age. Abraham was just about to sacrifice his son when God stopped him and said, "now I know that you trust me because you would have killed your son for me." It was a picture of what God was going to do later when he sacrificed his own son for real.
Daddy, why do bad men get away with doing terrible things?
Here is a question for you: When bad things happen, why do you expect that things should be different?
The Muslim believes that when bad things happen, "it was Allah's will."
The Hindu believes that when bad things happen, "it was karma." There's no reason anything should be different.
The Buddhist believes that everying just 'is as it is' (Buddhism is essentially atheistic), and that our job is just to escape the physical reality and its evils.
Many indigenous beliefs just attribute it to bad spirits.
The Judeo-Christian worldview says that things were supposed to be right and good, but that the choice of God's creatures (including angels) to rebel against God's goodness is the ultimate cause.
So: If you think bad things shouldn't happen, are you asking this because you beliefs are rooted in the Judeo-Christian framework?
I totally agree that there are gradients of sexuality.
But my point continues to be that those don't change over time. If you greatly prefer men over women (or vice versa), that basic preference is not going to change over the course of your life.
No, I think you are wrong. The only people who would never change are the ones who are at the extremes. Preferences are not set in stone and exist on a sliding scale; although I'm sure we would agree, the closer you are to one of the poles, the less likely you are to change significantly towards the other.
God shows his love much more in the second half, but it is definitely there in the first half.
Or more realistically the writers of the second half, decided that that first season had not been a big success. The ratings were down. And decided to pitch the God character in a more positive light.
Making him less smitey and more lovey gave them a USP when they broke away from the Six Pointed Star network.
No, I think you are wrong. The only people who would never change are the ones who are at the extremes. Preferences are not set in stone and exist on a sliding scale; although I'm sure we would agree, the closer you are to one of the poles, the less likely you are to change significantly towards the other.
Am I closer to one of the extremes then? Much closer?
I must be.
The razor wire with its quarter inch deep cuts into my chest, and the rusty barbed wire driving a centimeters into my abdomen, the weight of 4 teenagers pulling them tight as they wrapped them around my body and left me tied to a post near a farm in the outback almost naked on a freezing cold night when i almost died of hypothermia....
that wasn't enough to change me...
I'd like to see how easy it is to change others... must have taken a lot or they were further along the gradient...
Or more realistically the writers of the second half, decided that that first season had not been a big success. The ratings were down. And decided to pitch the God character in a more positive light.
Try reading the bible and asking yourself the question, "How could mere men come up with this?" Dozens of writers wrote the bible, yet God's character is unchanging throughout the whole 1500 years. The heaviest criticisms are levelled against the Jewish leaders! Often the argument against religion (or Christianity specifically) is that it's a power grab by the elite to subdue the masses. But if that's the case, why is the greatest criticism against the leaders, the 'shepherds of My flock'? If you can really divorce yourself from pre-concieved notions, I think you would see God himself in the text. Man could not have come up with it. Early writers fortold of things they had only had visions or impressions of, and those things later became fulfilled in Christ. The Dead Sea scrolls show that the bible of Jesus' time was already in place before he arrived. No one re-wrote the books to put the prophecies in there after the fact. The idea that God himself would pay the price for our sin is an idea completely foreign to man. Most cultures require the individual pay back for wrongdoings. God will take the pain himself for us. That's the reason that the bible has always been the best-selling book in the world, far above and beyond whatever book is #2 on the list.
No, I think you are wrong. The only people who would never change are the ones who are at the extremes. Preferences are not set in stone and exist on a sliding scale; although I'm sure we would agree, the closer you are to one of the poles, the less likely you are to change significantly towards the other.
Let's use an example. We'll call him Joe.
Joe prefers men over women, 66% to 33%. That means, all else being equal, he will usually pick a man over a woman.
Does that mean that if he picks a woman to date, he's no longer 66/33? No. It just means that woman was one of the 33% that he likes.
He did not change his sexuality at all.
Over time, he will pick more men than women, because he generally likes men better. It doesn't mean he will never pick a woman, and it doesn't mean he might not end up married to one.
His sexuality has not changed just because his current flame is a woman.
Here is a question for you: When bad things happen, why do you expect that things should be different?
So: If you think bad things shouldn't happen, are you asking this because you beliefs are rooted in the Judeo-Christian framework?
No!
What an unbelievably arrogant and insulting suggestion!
If someone takes my food, or harms my children, I don't need ancient Jewish myths to understand the injustice.
Where does right and wrong come from? Where does our inate sense of justice derive from?
It comes from compassion. It comes from seeing the other guy's point of view. It comes from being mindful that our actions have consequences. And we need enough brains to predict what those consequences are. This is what it means to be ethical.
That thinking-through-our-actions means that we need intelligence and judgement. What is right in one moment, might be wrong in the next. We can never be certain. We are always doubtful and cautious.
But Theists prefer their morality ready-rolled. For them it does not come from the head. It comes from a book of childish myths and cryptic stories. Things are fundamentally wrong or fundamentally right. And the book tells them to never ever doubt the truth of it.
This is why they act with certainty. Free from doubt. Which is why they are so very dangerous - and can do terrible harm without a second thought.
Where does our inate sense of justice derive from?
If you were Hindu, you would believe in the caste system, that some people are born better than others. You have every right to look down on the lower castes and to ignore their pain. They are lesser humans. You don't need compassion for those worthless people.
Judeo-Christianity is the faith that has given mankind its greatest sense of the equality of ALL human beings. Why did it take Mother Theresa of Calcutta to take care of the poor in the slums? Because she saw every human being as equally worthy, as a child of God. Their fellow Hindus did not. What she did was absolutely mind-boggling to the Hindus.
I'm just saying that you, being from the U.K., have developed a sense of right and wrong that is rooted in the Judeo-Christian truth, even if you yourself don't believe in the faith as a whole. The fact that you seek a certain kind of justice is evidence that the Judeo-Christian faith has had an effect on you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Carniphage
It comes from compassion. It comes from seeing the other guy's point of view. It comes from being mindful that our actions have consequences. And we need enough brains to predict what those consequences are. This is what it means to be ethical.
What is right in one moment, might be wrong in the next. We can never be certain. We are always doubtful and cautious.
But Theists prefer their morality ready-rolled.
That's funny....you give a definition of 'what's ethical' then say you don't want your morality ready-rolled (though you just defined a ready-rolled morality based on what you determine is ethical), then say 'we can never be certain of what's ethical'. That's rather wishy-washy, isn't it?
What an unbelievably arrogant and insulting suggestion!
If someone takes my food, or harms my children, I don't need ancient Jewish myths to understand the injustice.
Where does right and wrong come from? Where does our inate sense of justice derive from?
It comes from compassion. It comes from seeing the other guy's point of view. It comes from being mindful that our actions have consequences. And we need enough brains to predict what those consequences are. This is what it means to be ethical.
That thinking-through-our-actions means that we need intelligence and judgement. What is right in one moment, might be wrong in the next. We can never be certain. We are always doubtful and cautious.
But Theists prefer their morality ready-rolled. For them it does not come from the head. It comes from a book of childish myths and cryptic stories. Things are fundamentally wrong or fundamentally right. And the book tells them to never ever doubt the truth of it.
This is why they act with certainty. Free from doubt. Which is why they are so very dangerous - and can do terrible harm without a second thought.
C.
I wholeheartedly agree with this.
I've never understood why "religious" people say that I have no ethics or morality just because I don't believe in their version of God.
What makes those myths especially "childish" and what makes other beliefs less so?
I understand where your viewpoint comes from, and i used to agree with you.
Many are so reliant upon their beliefs that if they didn't have it ready rolled in front of them, they would fall apart. It is their strength, having that there. That could be a good thing, or in another circumstance, a massive limitation.
I personally am not limited to my belief system, but I agree with Christ's message as to me it seems accurate and probable. My ethics therefore are based not upon subjective cultural morality as defined in a good university study of philosophy (like mine ) but something which I expect to be a form of absolute morality.
Free from doubt? I am anything but. Critical thinking is my strong point.
But I do act decisively. Not with certainty, so much, but decisively. Unlike others, I choose not to condemn others. Not at all. I am the last person who has a right to do that. But I will act out of love, even if it hurts me greatly, with decisiveness because in my view it is most probable that the view I see as right is right, and therefore I must act on what has highest probability of being correct.
Joe prefers men over women, 66% to 33%. That means, all else being equal, he will usually pick a man over a woman.
Does that mean that if he picks a woman to date, he's no longer 66/33? No. It just means that woman was one of the 33% that he likes.
He did not change his sexuality at all.
Over time, he will pick more men than women, because he generally likes men better. It doesn't mean he will never pick a woman, and it doesn't mean he might not end up married to one.
His sexuality has not changed just because his current flame is a woman.
Not really sure what your hypothetical proves. You are trying to quantify some absolute, unmoving ratio of preference for one thing over another; which is overly simplistic and unreasonable imo. I content that people near the point of indifference between two states will find their preference more likely to shift than somebody who is closer to one of the poles. I guess we will have to agree to disagree.
I've never understood why "religious" people say that I have no ethics or morality just because I don't believe in their version of God.
God put morality in your heart so that you would seek him.
Non-religious folks have no way of describing why ethics and morality exist in mankind (since they do not exist in animals). If we each make our own morality, then there is no reason that anyone should rail against any religious person. Each morality is perfectly valid, and no one has anything to complain about, even bible-thumping. It shouldn't bother you one bit.
But if there is a moral law, there must have been a moral law giver.
Try reading the bible and asking yourself the question, "How could mere men come up with this?" Dozens of writers wrote the bible, yet God's character is unchanging throughout the whole 1500 years. The heaviest criticisms are levelled against the Jewish leaders! Often the argument against religion (or Christianity specifically) is that it's a power grab by the elite to subdue the masses. But if that's the case, why is the greatest criticism against the leaders, the 'shepherds of My flock'? If you can really divorce yourself from pre-concieved notions, I think you would see God himself in the text. Man could not have come up with it. Early writers fortold of things they had only had visions or impressions of, and those things later became fulfilled in Christ. The Dead Sea scrolls show that the bible of Jesus' time was already in place before he arrived. No one re-wrote the books to put the prophecies in there after the fact. The idea that God himself would pay the price for our sin is an idea completely foreign to man. Most cultures require the individual pay back for wrongdoings. God will take the pain himself for us. That's the reason that the bible has always been the best-selling book in the world, far above and beyond whatever book is #2 on the list.
Oy, vey! Hey, L. Ron Hubbard wrote a ton of literature in his short lifespan, how do you know that he won't be the bedrock of belief for the next thousand years or so? Or perhaps it's the time for Mormonism. The point is, your beliefs today, colored by centuries of revision and your perceptions that have been shaped by our culture are certainly vastly different from the thoughts and the societal influences from whence these beliefs sprang. The stories, facts, beliefs and opinions set forth in this bible from which you can pick and choose a framework of reality (freeing the individual from critical thought) are rife with contradictions. But that is also the beauty of faith, isn't it? This illogical collection can only resolve itself through belief, it can never be resolved through reason.
Not really sure what your hypothetical proves. You are trying to quantify some absolute, unmoving ratio of preference for one thing over another; which is overly simplistic and unreasonable imo. I content that people near the point of indifference between two states will find their preference more likely to shift than somebody who is closer to one of the poles. I guess we will have to agree to disagree.
It was an example. The numbers are irrelevant.
The point simply being that if you prefer men, you prefer men. It doesn't change over time. Again, "preferring men" does not mean you don't ever date women or won't end up marrying one. It just means you prefer them, on average.
Again, that preference doesn't change over time. If it does "change", it's because of societal or family or religious pressures.
Comments
God did not invent any of that. He intended our universe to be perfect, but our sin has caused a downward spiral of all creation.
So you are suggesting that the parasites which burrow their way into children's eyes making them blind were not the product of Intelligent Design. Did they evolve? Or is all the Sin slopping around in the world some sort of Mutagen. Turning innocent eye-worms into evil-eye-worms.
Here you are much closer to the mark. Jesus "for the joy set before him, endured the cross." He saw beyond death and saw his suffering as worth enduring because he loved us and didn't want to lose us.
Jesus denied himself many things in this life because he was looking toward the end result in heaven, when he would be reinstated fully as God the Son, having paid the ransom for all of us to be with him in heaven.
Sometimes you give up something you want here and now for something better later.
He either died or he didn't.
If he died *that* would be a sacrifice.
If he didn't then where is the sacrifice? Why was it such a big deal? Being nailed to a tree is the sort of thing some people do for fun.
You can't have it both ways. Whoever wrote this Bible was a lousy screenwriter. The character of God is totally different in the second half.
C.
False. Romans 1:
"Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion."
See, but that's just god being a dick again.
And define "unnatural" because homosexuality happens in nature all the time....
Wait.... does that mean gay animals go to hell too??
So you are suggesting that the parasites which burrow their way into children's eyes making them blind were not the product of Intelligent Design. Did they evolve? Or is all the Sin slopping around in the world some sort of Mutagen. Turning innocent eye-worms into evil-eye-worms.
Those kinds of creatures would exist, but be benign. As the bible says with regard to heaven and the new earth, "the lion will lay down with the lamb."
He either died or he didn't.
If he died *that* would be a sacrifice.
If he didn't then where is the sacrifice? Why was it such a big deal? Being nailed to a tree is the sort of thing some people do for fun.
The cross was one of the most excruciating forms of death known at the time. A good Roman crucifixion squad could keep a person alive on the cross for 3 days, while they pushed themselves up and down on the nails in their feet to draw each breath of air. Jesus also endured a flesh-removing scourging before that. Look up how the Romans did scourging sometime. The Passion of the Christ movie showed it well.
But that was nothing compared to the payment after he died. He spent an eternity in hell for each person who would be in heaven. He did it for me, and he did it for you if you accept it. They physical pain and death was just a shadow of the pain of separation from God that each one of us derserved.
You can't have it both ways. Whoever wrote this Bible was a lousy screenwriter. The character of God is totally different in the second half.
God shows his love much more in the second half, but it is definitely there in the first half. We even get a preview of Christ in Genesis, if you remember when God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, the son that he promised him and which was born miraculously to him in his old age. Abraham was just about to sacrifice his son when God stopped him and said, "now I know that you trust me because you would have killed your son for me." It was a picture of what God was going to do later when he sacrificed his own son for real.
And define "unnatural" because homosexuality happens in nature all the time....
You're arguing that, essentially, "because it happens in nature, it's natural."
Pedophile have urges to have sex with children. Is this 'natural'? If it is, then why do we say it's bad?
Daddy, why do bad men get away with doing terrible things?
Here is a question for you: When bad things happen, why do you expect that things should be different?
The Muslim believes that when bad things happen, "it was Allah's will."
The Hindu believes that when bad things happen, "it was karma." There's no reason anything should be different.
The Buddhist believes that everying just 'is as it is' (Buddhism is essentially atheistic), and that our job is just to escape the physical reality and its evils.
Many indigenous beliefs just attribute it to bad spirits.
The Judeo-Christian worldview says that things were supposed to be right and good, but that the choice of God's creatures (including angels) to rebel against God's goodness is the ultimate cause.
So: If you think bad things shouldn't happen, are you asking this because you beliefs are rooted in the Judeo-Christian framework?
You're arguing that, essentially, "because it happens in nature, it's natural."
Pedophile have urges to have sex with children. Is this 'natural'? If it is, then why do we say it's bad?
"natural" or "normal?" I would think those are two independent states.
I totally agree that there are gradients of sexuality.
But my point continues to be that those don't change over time. If you greatly prefer men over women (or vice versa), that basic preference is not going to change over the course of your life.
No, I think you are wrong. The only people who would never change are the ones who are at the extremes. Preferences are not set in stone and exist on a sliding scale; although I'm sure we would agree, the closer you are to one of the poles, the less likely you are to change significantly towards the other.
God shows his love much more in the second half, but it is definitely there in the first half.
Or more realistically the writers of the second half, decided that that first season had not been a big success. The ratings were down. And decided to pitch the God character in a more positive light.
Making him less smitey and more lovey gave them a USP when they broke away from the Six Pointed Star network.
C.
No, I think you are wrong. The only people who would never change are the ones who are at the extremes. Preferences are not set in stone and exist on a sliding scale; although I'm sure we would agree, the closer you are to one of the poles, the less likely you are to change significantly towards the other.
Am I closer to one of the extremes then? Much closer?
I must be.
The razor wire with its quarter inch deep cuts into my chest, and the rusty barbed wire driving a centimeters into my abdomen, the weight of 4 teenagers pulling them tight as they wrapped them around my body and left me tied to a post near a farm in the outback almost naked on a freezing cold night when i almost died of hypothermia....
that wasn't enough to change me...
I'd like to see how easy it is to change others... must have taken a lot or they were further along the gradient...
Or more realistically the writers of the second half, decided that that first season had not been a big success. The ratings were down. And decided to pitch the God character in a more positive light.
Try reading the bible and asking yourself the question, "How could mere men come up with this?" Dozens of writers wrote the bible, yet God's character is unchanging throughout the whole 1500 years. The heaviest criticisms are levelled against the Jewish leaders! Often the argument against religion (or Christianity specifically) is that it's a power grab by the elite to subdue the masses. But if that's the case, why is the greatest criticism against the leaders, the 'shepherds of My flock'? If you can really divorce yourself from pre-concieved notions, I think you would see God himself in the text. Man could not have come up with it. Early writers fortold of things they had only had visions or impressions of, and those things later became fulfilled in Christ. The Dead Sea scrolls show that the bible of Jesus' time was already in place before he arrived. No one re-wrote the books to put the prophecies in there after the fact. The idea that God himself would pay the price for our sin is an idea completely foreign to man. Most cultures require the individual pay back for wrongdoings. God will take the pain himself for us. That's the reason that the bible has always been the best-selling book in the world, far above and beyond whatever book is #2 on the list.
No, I think you are wrong. The only people who would never change are the ones who are at the extremes. Preferences are not set in stone and exist on a sliding scale; although I'm sure we would agree, the closer you are to one of the poles, the less likely you are to change significantly towards the other.
Let's use an example. We'll call him Joe.
Joe prefers men over women, 66% to 33%. That means, all else being equal, he will usually pick a man over a woman.
Does that mean that if he picks a woman to date, he's no longer 66/33? No. It just means that woman was one of the 33% that he likes.
He did not change his sexuality at all.
Over time, he will pick more men than women, because he generally likes men better. It doesn't mean he will never pick a woman, and it doesn't mean he might not end up married to one.
His sexuality has not changed just because his current flame is a woman.
Here is a question for you: When bad things happen, why do you expect that things should be different?
So: If you think bad things shouldn't happen, are you asking this because you beliefs are rooted in the Judeo-Christian framework?
No!
What an unbelievably arrogant and insulting suggestion!
If someone takes my food, or harms my children, I don't need ancient Jewish myths to understand the injustice.
Where does right and wrong come from? Where does our inate sense of justice derive from?
It comes from compassion. It comes from seeing the other guy's point of view. It comes from being mindful that our actions have consequences. And we need enough brains to predict what those consequences are. This is what it means to be ethical.
That thinking-through-our-actions means that we need intelligence and judgement. What is right in one moment, might be wrong in the next. We can never be certain. We are always doubtful and cautious.
But Theists prefer their morality ready-rolled. For them it does not come from the head. It comes from a book of childish myths and cryptic stories. Things are fundamentally wrong or fundamentally right. And the book tells them to never ever doubt the truth of it.
This is why they act with certainty. Free from doubt. Which is why they are so very dangerous - and can do terrible harm without a second thought.
C.
Where does our inate sense of justice derive from?
If you were Hindu, you would believe in the caste system, that some people are born better than others. You have every right to look down on the lower castes and to ignore their pain. They are lesser humans. You don't need compassion for those worthless people.
Judeo-Christianity is the faith that has given mankind its greatest sense of the equality of ALL human beings. Why did it take Mother Theresa of Calcutta to take care of the poor in the slums? Because she saw every human being as equally worthy, as a child of God. Their fellow Hindus did not. What she did was absolutely mind-boggling to the Hindus.
I'm just saying that you, being from the U.K., have developed a sense of right and wrong that is rooted in the Judeo-Christian truth, even if you yourself don't believe in the faith as a whole. The fact that you seek a certain kind of justice is evidence that the Judeo-Christian faith has had an effect on you.
It comes from compassion. It comes from seeing the other guy's point of view. It comes from being mindful that our actions have consequences. And we need enough brains to predict what those consequences are. This is what it means to be ethical.
What is right in one moment, might be wrong in the next. We can never be certain. We are always doubtful and cautious.
But Theists prefer their morality ready-rolled.
That's funny....you give a definition of 'what's ethical' then say you don't want your morality ready-rolled (though you just defined a ready-rolled morality based on what you determine is ethical), then say 'we can never be certain of what's ethical'. That's rather wishy-washy, isn't it?
No!
What an unbelievably arrogant and insulting suggestion!
If someone takes my food, or harms my children, I don't need ancient Jewish myths to understand the injustice.
Where does right and wrong come from? Where does our inate sense of justice derive from?
It comes from compassion. It comes from seeing the other guy's point of view. It comes from being mindful that our actions have consequences. And we need enough brains to predict what those consequences are. This is what it means to be ethical.
That thinking-through-our-actions means that we need intelligence and judgement. What is right in one moment, might be wrong in the next. We can never be certain. We are always doubtful and cautious.
But Theists prefer their morality ready-rolled. For them it does not come from the head. It comes from a book of childish myths and cryptic stories. Things are fundamentally wrong or fundamentally right. And the book tells them to never ever doubt the truth of it.
This is why they act with certainty. Free from doubt. Which is why they are so very dangerous - and can do terrible harm without a second thought.
C.
I wholeheartedly agree with this.
I've never understood why "religious" people say that I have no ethics or morality just because I don't believe in their version of God.
I understand where your viewpoint comes from, and i used to agree with you.
Many are so reliant upon their beliefs that if they didn't have it ready rolled in front of them, they would fall apart. It is their strength, having that there. That could be a good thing, or in another circumstance, a massive limitation.
I personally am not limited to my belief system, but I agree with Christ's message as to me it seems accurate and probable. My ethics therefore are based not upon subjective cultural morality as defined in a good university study of philosophy (like mine
Free from doubt? I am anything but. Critical thinking is my strong point.
But I do act decisively. Not with certainty, so much, but decisively. Unlike others, I choose not to condemn others. Not at all. I am the last person who has a right to do that. But I will act out of love, even if it hurts me greatly, with decisiveness because in my view it is most probable that the view I see as right is right, and therefore I must act on what has highest probability of being correct.
Let's use an example. We'll call him Joe.
Joe prefers men over women, 66% to 33%. That means, all else being equal, he will usually pick a man over a woman.
Does that mean that if he picks a woman to date, he's no longer 66/33? No. It just means that woman was one of the 33% that he likes.
He did not change his sexuality at all.
Over time, he will pick more men than women, because he generally likes men better. It doesn't mean he will never pick a woman, and it doesn't mean he might not end up married to one.
His sexuality has not changed just because his current flame is a woman.
Not really sure what your hypothetical proves. You are trying to quantify some absolute, unmoving ratio of preference for one thing over another; which is overly simplistic and unreasonable imo. I content that people near the point of indifference between two states will find their preference more likely to shift than somebody who is closer to one of the poles. I guess we will have to agree to disagree.
I've never understood why "religious" people say that I have no ethics or morality just because I don't believe in their version of God.
God put morality in your heart so that you would seek him.
Non-religious folks have no way of describing why ethics and morality exist in mankind (since they do not exist in animals). If we each make our own morality, then there is no reason that anyone should rail against any religious person. Each morality is perfectly valid, and no one has anything to complain about, even bible-thumping. It shouldn't bother you one bit.
But if there is a moral law, there must have been a moral law giver.
Try reading the bible and asking yourself the question, "How could mere men come up with this?" Dozens of writers wrote the bible, yet God's character is unchanging throughout the whole 1500 years. The heaviest criticisms are levelled against the Jewish leaders! Often the argument against religion (or Christianity specifically) is that it's a power grab by the elite to subdue the masses. But if that's the case, why is the greatest criticism against the leaders, the 'shepherds of My flock'? If you can really divorce yourself from pre-concieved notions, I think you would see God himself in the text. Man could not have come up with it. Early writers fortold of things they had only had visions or impressions of, and those things later became fulfilled in Christ. The Dead Sea scrolls show that the bible of Jesus' time was already in place before he arrived. No one re-wrote the books to put the prophecies in there after the fact. The idea that God himself would pay the price for our sin is an idea completely foreign to man. Most cultures require the individual pay back for wrongdoings. God will take the pain himself for us. That's the reason that the bible has always been the best-selling book in the world, far above and beyond whatever book is #2 on the list.
Oy, vey! Hey, L. Ron Hubbard wrote a ton of literature in his short lifespan, how do you know that he won't be the bedrock of belief for the next thousand years or so? Or perhaps it's the time for Mormonism. The point is, your beliefs today, colored by centuries of revision and your perceptions that have been shaped by our culture are certainly vastly different from the thoughts and the societal influences from whence these beliefs sprang. The stories, facts, beliefs and opinions set forth in this bible from which you can pick and choose a framework of reality (freeing the individual from critical thought) are rife with contradictions. But that is also the beauty of faith, isn't it? This illogical collection can only resolve itself through belief, it can never be resolved through reason.
Not really sure what your hypothetical proves. You are trying to quantify some absolute, unmoving ratio of preference for one thing over another; which is overly simplistic and unreasonable imo. I content that people near the point of indifference between two states will find their preference more likely to shift than somebody who is closer to one of the poles. I guess we will have to agree to disagree.
It was an example. The numbers are irrelevant.
The point simply being that if you prefer men, you prefer men. It doesn't change over time. Again, "preferring men" does not mean you don't ever date women or won't end up marrying one. It just means you prefer them, on average.
Again, that preference doesn't change over time. If it does "change", it's because of societal or family or religious pressures.