The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

Post by alphapapa » Sun, Nov 06, 2016, 5:48 AM UTC

CamperBob2 wrote: post #49

alphapapa wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean. Could you clarify?

It just sounds like you're holding priests to one standard of evidence, and scientists to another.

Well, first of all, you're assuming that priests have anything to do with this. In Christianity, they don't, because the role of priests was to intercede between God and humanity, and Christ has interceded once and for all, with the result that all people are equal before God. Anyone who claims to be a priest now is inserting himself between God and man.

Having said that, you seem to be implying that the same standard of evidence should apply to both science and philosophy/religion, which doesn't make sense. For example, trying to use a computer-related analogy, demanding scientific evidence for an afterlife would be like trying to access VM host memory from within a guest: what happens in the host happens outside the realm of the guest, and the guest cannot (or should not be able to, if properly implemented) directly access host memory.

The bottom line is that you cannot prove or disprove philosophy with science.

Post by CamperBob2 » Mon, Nov 07, 2016, 9:27 PM UTC

alphapapa wrote: post #51

CamperBob2 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just sounds like you're holding priests to one standard of evidence, and scientists to another.

Well, first of all, you're assuming that priests have anything to do with this. In Christianity, they don't, because the role of priests was to intercede between God and humanity, and Christ has interceded once and for all, with the result that all people are equal before God. Anyone who claims to be a priest now is inserting himself between God and man. Having said that, you seem to be implying that the same standar…

But you don't know anything about Christ that you didn't hear from other men. You can't claim to be a Christian while dismissing the priesthood with a rhetorical hand-wave like that.

Other faiths seem to have found workarounds for this problem. Islam, for instance, has no Nicene creed. There's just the "There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his prophet" thing. Instead, Muslims empower their imams to interpret the religion at the local level. This, of course, leads to violent conflict when leaders from different sects disagree with each other.

The progress made by Christianity over the centuries can arguably be credited to the prescriptive tradition shared by almost all of its denominations. Christ supposedly appointed Peter as his vicar on Earth. It seems perilous -- historically, if not spiritually -- to dismiss the importance of that act.

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution