romansh

Certainly not for me. It has to make sense to me. Otherwise we can do all laws by referendum. (Brexit) Take vaccine passports. If somebody does not want vaccinations, fair enough. But if places ie shops, stadiums, borders, etc want proof of vaccination ... good. It depends what you mean by representing. When you go to a doctor, do you want her to do/recommend what you what her to do?

Here I disagree with you ... having run for local office (unsuccessfully) ... Who do I represent? The majority, the people who voted for me, what actually makes sense to me (I might change my mind with new info), the people who did not vote for me, the whole community, my fellow council members, the employees of the community? Would I implement policies to the benefit of the community but to the detriment of neighbouring communities?

While I would agree this is true ... it does seem positively strange you would enter a dialogue and debate thread and say this. But as you wish.

Here I might agree with you, but are you suggesting all our descriptions of reality like nihilism and Christianity are equally accurate? This does not make sense bearing in mind you had just earlier said So what forms of government is democracy worse than?

Better than some forms of Christianity? I am presuming you are from the US? If so, you should try it before you knock it. What forms of government are you suggesting?

I would argue yes ... That person might not be happy. But yes. Abortion is an excellent example. A government ideally does not ride roughshod over peoples wants. So here we might compromise. Men can be banned from terminating any pregnancies they might have and women might choose for themselves. But if the government does ride roughshod over women's rights then that government and the people that support the law should be prepared for the backlash. Absolutely. Yes and no. I can see why you don't. You have not yet really (it seems to me) fully explored the consequences of there being no free will. I completely expect you to carry on the good fight. That is your dharma. It seems to me as you are still seeing yourself somehow separate from the unfolding. I must admit at times I do too. But that is OK. It's like when we cut down a maple that was slowly bringing down a neighbour's retaining wall. I did not think the tree was somehow evil or bad, it was something that needed to be done. In the same way, I see the Texan government needs to be reigned in regarding it abortion legislation. So, who said anything about sitting back?

Interesting question .... Take a look at some Islamic states where apostasy is a crime? And the punishments can be pretty horrendous. The problem with government is it has to represent all the people, not just the chosen (majority). In the US the separation of state and religion was put in place to protect religions. The idea was so that one particular flavour of Christianity would not inflict its brand of nonsense on all the other flavours. (or so I am led to believe). I think in Christian terms it could be summarized as render unto Caesar. Of course some Christians want their cake and also want to eat it. I suggest, if you get chance, read Yuval Noah Harari's (I think) Homo Sapiens. In it he describes the Peugeot motor car company as a fiction. Similarly concepts like ownership and perhaps human rights are fictions too. And here we can add democracy and other forms of government. Of course they exist as concepts and these concepts are/were enacted. Now a so called racist, cannot help but be as they are ... they too are part of the universe unfolding. As are each of us, nature, the planets orbiting the Sun, suns orbiting the centre of the galaxy and the galaxy doing it thing with all the other galaxies. I've said before, semantically religion comes from the Latin to reconnect. Reconnect to what? God, one another, society, nature? For me it is to reconnect to the universe, understand our place in an unfolding universe. Enough waxing lyrical.

As a devout agnostic I can't help but assume there is a truth, but I also can't help but understand I don't have complete access to that truth. Overtime any truth I think I may have found will likely be need of revision. As to the Bible ... it's a lot of words for try and be nice to one and another. Is that a truth? Perhaps. Or more prosaically, “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” I like Joseph Campbell's take when talking to Myers. Myers says something like "Buddha shows you the way", and Campbell interrupts and says, "But its got to be your way".

If you really cared you might do some searching for evidence Wikipedia on the subject

Which is?

I think I was alluding to any aspect of reality, not that those aspects are somehow independent of any other aspect. But I think your "I live it" points to a reality. Most of the time I just do stuff. Sometimes I just think about things, come to conclusions, and then go on doing stuff. ie just live it. A new Nike slogan?

No, no diminutive. I've somehow managed to avoid them my entire life. OK then Kellerman it is. To relate what I’m saying back to the topic at hand though, all “facts” exist within a context and are subject to interpretation. While I am not exactly sure what you mean there is a framework, Warsaw is the capital of Poland but in a different time reference it could be Krakow. ???? So even if the vast majority of Christians believe that Jesus is the son of God and died for our sins, there are enormous variations in how that is interpreted and what that actually means for any given person interpreting it at any given time. Good we seem to be agreed that Christians have these two beliefs, otherwise to me there seems little point as labelling oneself as Christian. That there a large variety of interpretations reflects the evolution of memes does it not? I same with scientific facts. One of the things I do is disabuse medical professionals of the myths that they are sold in the name of “evidence based medicine” where “facts” have been interpreted to support clinical approaches, when in reality, those “facts” have been divorced from their contexts. Yes, you have repeated, what seems to me, your dysphoria around medicine often. I too agree, there seems to be a really poor reputation around pharmaceutical medicine. Doctors are human, and I suggest the general public should treat them as such. My area of scientific research was so specialized that even fellow scientists in my exact same discipline couldn’t understand it. Unless they studied the exact same subject for years, there only understanding of what we did was in how we explained it. My area of research was so esoteric my fellow researchers wouldn’t care. Sure, the objectives measures were available for anyone to see, but why we measured the way we did, why we categorized the way we did, why we analyzed the way we did, that was all up for interpretation. And if you were faulty in the way set up your measurements you could have been called on it. It’s all part of the process. A lot of science is just that, a collective agreement as to how to collect and process certain information. But there is a fair amount of subjective human judgement that goes into a lot of that, which influences the interpretation. And yet it is where the disagreements are that is interesting. No information just exists in a purely objective vacuum. Not science and definitely not religion. This sounds profound, but I don’t think it is. So sure, "Jesus died for our sins", but what does that even mean? The interpretation of what sin is can be so unbelievable broad, and typically has been heavily influenced by political convenience of the time. Meanwhile, there are perfectly valid interpretations of sin that don't even describe it as an individual failing, but more as a collective capacity for destruction. It does not matter so long as you believe it from a Christian point of view. Yet most Christians would posit that it is an individual failing. Otherwise, being crucified makes little sense. But you are right many confabulated explanations have been manufactured to meet one’s worldviews. An even more radical interpretation is that sin is the source of suffering, but that suffering isn't necessarily a bad thing, in fact, it's a crucial part of life, and that Jesus suffered to demonstrate divine suffering. That it's not so much forgiveness as enlightenment when we are able to connect to Jesus' experience. Again, you beg the question here. You assume sin exists. A western puritanical lense likes to cast it that we're a bunch of dirty, sinning dirt pigs who will never be good enough, no matter how hard we try, and the only way to be clean enough to enter heaven is to be forgiven for our horribleness by God, and that Jesus had to suffer immensely to compensate for our fundamental moral grossness. Luckily these people are not in my circle of friends or acquaintances. Having said that BC is the most non-religious province in Canada. But that lense isn't necessary, nor is it universal. Also, just because a western version of Christianity crushed almost all eastern Christianity historically through conquest, doesn't mean it's the most valid interpretation. So whatever belief/worldview you have ended up with is just the result of the relevant proximate forces? Again, context matters. There’s a historical context as to why the majority of Christians may have been taught to interpret scripture a certain way. See above There’s also a historical context as to why science is taught a certain way. A dear friend is an expert in cognitive bias in scientific measurement. His entire career involves picking apart the way things are supposedly “objectively” measured, which is mostly based on how things were done historically. I sort of agree, Human minds are not good at picking apart our cognitive biases. Except you and I of course. Kind of like the scientific measurement version of keyboards, which historically were designed to be as inefficient for typing as humanly possible for the purposes of slowing typists down so that the units wouldn't jam. And yet, in a world where fast typing is so valuable, we still use this historical, purposefully inefficient design. Hen pecking works for me … and the European keyboard is a pain after qwerty. Also, I think a lot slower than a good typist can type. So qwerty is not a rate limiting step for me. The world of "facts" is filled with these historical artifacts of judgement and approach. Which in turn influences how facts are gathered, and then those facts are interpreted through the lense of context of the time in which they are evaluated. Again sounds profound. The statements "Jesus died for our sins" and "the comet is X length and will come X miles close to earth" are far more similar than they seem on the surface, but once you start breaking down all of the historical and contextual factors that influence why those statements are made the way that they are, it becomes self evident that they are both subject to an enormous amount of historical and current interpretive factors. I really don’t think so. The distance will come with an error and probability estimate.

You seem to not be addressing my points Kellerman. Do you have a diminutive for Kellerman? The point I appear to be struggling to make is: for many if not most Christians the minimum belief is that Jesus was the son of god and that he was crucified and died for our sins. These, of course, are not essential beliefs for Progressive Christians. As far as I can tell, the minimum belief for a Progressive Christian, seems to be a belief that fellow called Jesus, possibly apocryphal, and had some useful insights on how to live. But all this is a digression from the topic.

Yes, with a little bit of understanding, eg game theory we can understand that helping others also helps us. Reality is far more fun, than trying to get some ancient text to fit your worldview. Yes without hate either, or desire, envy, shame, pride. Just being. The meaning we bring is illusory, in the sense that any meaning has come from outside of ourselves. Every atom is either stardust or remnants of the Big Bang. All ideas are brought in from the environment gestated in our brains and regurgitated. It is bloody amazing.

This is fair enough, but I would argue evangelicals would not consider progressives as Christians. Even Episcopalians look worriedly askance at the likes of Spong. First principles ... we take a look at the world around us, the universe even, from the very small to the very large and get a sense of what reality might be, bearing in mind we never get to see it directly. Quite possibly. Do they deny its existence? And if so, can they call themselves Christian in any common sense of the word? If by this you thought I meant all of it then I would agree with you. If you think I meant the vast majority then, I don't agree with you.

So the whole of Christianity is predicated on "a shaky concept". Why are so many Christians attached to some literal interpretation of this shaky concept? Would we not be better off going back to first principles observing the world and moving on from there?

Of course if science has got it right (accurate), and that the taking of the "fall" literally then is a suspect concept, then this does put "salvation" and its need on very shaky ground.

While all this is very interesting, if you like that sort of thing; for me the question is, "How do we deal with reality today?" Sort of the topic here.

Clearly the poster has not thought this through. ie a celibate priest by definition would be considered asexual by his definition ... assuming a he.

So if some has a singular and intense desire for people of the same sex but are celibate, they are not homosexual? See ... here you say desire is a lifestyle ... So is pedophilia a life style or an act? Make up your mind. What ???? You seem to be incapable of not conflating gender and sex. Biological sex is simply an XX and XY binary with very rare exceptions with other combinations of X and Y chromosomes. Regarding gender, for me this gets a bit more complicated. What environmental forces are at at play for people to have/feel a gender that is not in line with their chromosome inheritance. Some argue it is societal, whereas my bet it is ultimately chemical. Incredible lack of understanding of how one's biases are fogging one's argument.

it's rom Fine I will consider you an agnostic from now on. But when you say things like your church does not think it can know god ... Something similar anyway. I assume you buy into this notion to some degree. But then your church to some degree is begging the question. Having said that, theism and agnosticism are not mutually exclusive. Erh what ... I understand the words ... but definitely can't reconcile your behaviour with them? There's nothing "wrong" with your behaviour. Not caring and spirituality seem difficult to squeeze into the same can, at least for me.

I can't find the quote, but in effect its said In science, theories and laws are the same thing; it's just that theories cannot be reduced to a pithy sentence. Of course there are loads of other opinions on the internet. Just on the science spectrum we have ... speculation, hypothesis, theory. Evolution is no less "true" than than the first law of thermodynamics. It might even be more true. No disagreement here, but the dictation of say the periodic table did not cease to be science, once it became known. No perhaps not, but we do run experiments to corroborate "facts". And here I use facts in your sense of information. Again ... this would lead one to an agnostic position. At least in my opinion. Again you seem to argue for a form of agnosticism. And as a devout agnostic I agree with you here. Our understanding is provisional. Definitely true I hope from a science point of view. Is it true from religious or perhaps even a spiritual point of view? But speaking of arrogance, I suspect Newton's laws are a good enough approximation, to engineer homes, cars and planes. I trust the first and second laws of thermodynamics, though occasionally I might check energy conservation still holds. I don't think we are too far apart. Just that what you seem to see as a weakness I see as a strength. The obscene hubris and arrogance you allude to is thrust upon scientists by people who don't understand science. But if you mean "fact" as an absolute truth, then I think you are beating a strawman mercilessly.

Well as a partially retired scientist ... this would depend a lot on what we mean by fact. If for example the precipitation of a metal increases with pH then this in a very broad sense is a fact. You could repeat it the experiment in your laboratory. Generally this type of experiment can be repeated with such precision we can generate tables of solubility products. This appears to be a fact. Now of course apply the solubility products outside of their intended systems can be problematic and we find solubilities may deviate. This is where we might start to hypothesize.

My apologies, again I am assuming things about you that I should not.

I suspect we are finding meaning where there is none. Similar to beauty and horror, good and evil. I feel a Tim Minchin youtube coming on if we are in need of some eloquent persuasion.