I'd say you are an agnostic and that this post doesn't say much about whether or not you are currently an atheist. At the point when you prayed you were not an atheist - but we humans are fickle, we're more than capable of believing or disbelieving something for 5 minutes. Especially if emotions are involved.

The labels aren't terribly important when it comes to your personal beliefs though. Individual differences often fit poorly into one-liner definitions. I think we humans often feel the need to "belong" to a label however, perhaps to feel that we belong or that we have peers? Indeed the labels can even become dangerous, because sometimes the labels become more important than the issue. Instead of "I think this, so I'm in the red team" we suddenly go "I'm in the red team, so I think this".

It's more when we start discussing things more generally (and perhaps objectively) that precision and consistency in definitions become more important.

Dunno where to place this quote so I'll paste here. Subsequent to the Scopes trial or the "monkey trial" as pictured by the New York Times, William Jennings Bryan, who was part of the prosecution team against Clarence Darrow and The American Civil Liberties Union wrote:


"Science is a magnificent force, but it is not a teacher of morals. It can perfect machinery, but it adds no moral restraints to protect society from the misuse of the machine. It can also build gigantic intellectual ships, but it constructs no moral rudders for the control of storm-tossed human vessel. It not only fails to supply the spiritual element needed but some of its unproven hypotheses rob the ship of its compass and thus endanger its cargo. In war, science has proven itself an evil genius; it has made war more terrible than it ever was before. Man used to be content to slaughter his fellowmen on a single plane, the earth's surface. Science has taught him to go down into the water and shoot up from below and to go up into the clouds and shoot down from above, thus making the battlefield three times as bloody as it was before; but science does not teach brotherly love. Science has made war so hellish that civilization was about to commit suicide; and now we are told that newly discovered instruments of destruction will make the cruelties of the late war seem trivial in comparison with the cruelties of wars that may come in the future. If civilization is to be saved from the wreckage threatened by intelligence not consecrated by love, it must be saved by the moral code of the meek and lowly Nazarene. His teachings, and His teachings alone, can solve the problems that vex the heart and perplex the world."[37]

He died five days after the trial and presentation of this letter.

I agree that science gives absolutely no framework for morals. It's not supposed to. But that doesn't mean that religion is necessary for that function. Humans knew murder was bad long before the ten commandments. Morals arise out of the fact that we form societies.

I have zero belief or time for religion, but I consider myself a very moral person and I know personally of many religious adherents who are morally bankrupt.

Justify this claim.

Historical attitudes

One of the oldest known prohibitions against murder appears in the Sumerian Code of Ur-Nammu written sometime between 2100 and 2050 BC. The code states, "If a man commits a murder, that man must be killed."

Awwwwww... you took the fun out of it. I wanted to see what W0X0F was going to come up with.

The "Code of Hammurabi" has been considered to be a moral code prior to the Decalogue but of course societies have, in the main, conduct rules which could carry an amount of punishment if crossed.

There is and was a moral cosmic tone which permeates the human soul throughout the ages but the Decalogue was different in the sense that the ancient Hebrew displayed the beginnings of an "individualization" in this code which was brought forth from higher realms.

The Decalogue speaks to conduct which works external nature, the world, . The commandment which speaks to "false gods" highlights this as these "gods" come from within the man whereas the ancient Hebrew was subscribed to "work the earth " and look to the "God of Nature" or the "Father God".

The Decalogue is about the "external" of man. This work was "heaven sent" or of a spiritual reality obtained through inspiration via Moses , the great initiate.

During ancient times there was an "atavistic clairvoyance" throughout people(s) to which leaders could and would bring happenings from the suprasensible realm for the functioning of the culture; the Egyptian Pharaohs could, through great seers, prescribe the cultural mores and in fact the warp and woof of the culture in and of itself.

The oft noted brutality of the Hebrew peoples in ancient war came about by inspiration from above as they were led by a higher realm to their accomplishments. One can say that "the ancient cultures", through this "atavistic clairvoyance" did deeds to which we, in our times, would consider poor form but in fact was ennobling within the exegesis of those times.

Getting to the point; the individual man was not spiritually individual, for want of a better word, as he was, in a sense, "guided" to these deeds and therefore the idea of "sin" was not germane for "sin" lies within the individual who is responsible for his acts and so long as this "atavistic consciousness" reigned, man was spared the knowledge of "good and evil" within his particular individuality. His responsibility was marginal and of course there were outliers.

The concept of "Ego" or "I" comes to the fore as many may see this as no more than a word, perhaps, Freudian, but none the less more like one who is "egotistical" or only acts within himself; the pejorative.

Aphoristically the "Ego" or "I" is the "God Within", the "Kyrios" , or even the "Lord" who is a "Body of Man". Just as we have a "physical body", a "life body", "a sentient body" we have the "Ego" as another, of the highest of Man. the "Ego" lives in the high spiritual realms and works through the other bodies to the earth and cosmos ion the development of the human soul.

The "Ego" is also the "baby" body for it first came to Man during the earth evolution whereas the other bodies were developed during previous incarnations which led to the earthly.

The "Ego" is that which leads man through "good and evil" as noted in the Old Testament with the story of Adam and Eve and of course Lucifer. The "Ego" came to man and the earthly at that time, Man renewed.Subsequently and through the ages there was a gradual loosening of the "Ego" from the suprasensible in that it was masked due to the gradual development of the human soul.

At around the time of Golgotha human beings had "crashed" to the earthly which means that the suprasensible was being totally lost to the human soul and the Christ Being came, at the perfect time, entered into the body of Jesus of Nazareth, lived as human for three years (3), died on the cross as human being and entered into the earth as the "Spirit of the Earth", sitting in the hearts of "all men".

Christ, the spiritual Guide or Template into the future of the redemption of the human soul'; not as "commandment" for Love does not come through coercion but Love is within freedom. The human being, in futuristic, manifests "freedom" as the word may be stated as "freehood" within Love manifest.

And so when a man states responsibility for his moral tone it is exactly what it is and the work of the individual man. His "Ego", immersed within 'good and evil" works within the template or the guide into the future of recurrent lives. He is within "religion" which is the return to the "spiritual world", as known by the ancients, but the "return" is refurbished man a divine being of births and deaths; the "Spirit Man" a work in progress.

Just to be clear, the religions as we know them, were brought forth by great "seers" for our replenishment and can offer sustenence as the individual man who works for his future state of being.

Its almost like you are just making **** up.

Since law typically represents the codification of a norm, we can also expect the norm to predate the law. Still, while law certainly is evidence for the point - the evidence of law is limited to written sources which is problematic so far back in history.

Anthropology alone would suggest that prohibition against murder is probably far older however. It is unlikely the neolithic revolution could have been happened with widespread acceptance for murder (early agricultural societies being fairly reliant on cooperation, after all). Beyond we can even state with fair degree of certainty that it is likely that tribal societies had strong norms in place against murder (which again is supported by looking at remote tribes today), because the potential for disaster for losing able bodies are so high for small groups.

But we can even go beyond that by considering that humans are irrevocably a social species. We can't even survive past childbirth without help, and helpful social interaction (in humans) is intrinsically linked to norms of friendship, social bonds and amicable behavior.

This isn't to say that those societies viewed all murder as bad. But that's a very rare rule. Even today very few societies follow it (though technically perhaps one would call it by some other name if it was seen as justified, but that's more a question of legal rhetoric).

Good post. Yeah i would think it goes back a long way.

Stephen Fry is being investigated for blasphemy in Ireland.

It was just some archaic law they had on the books from a different time in their history.

National treasure. It's almost against the law to mention SF without stating that fact

I live in a weird place.

The grass is always purpler on your side of the fence.

THREAD TOPIC REQUEST

From Religion and logic thread:

RGT could do with an interesting thread, I'd like to put forward a thread request: "The merits of YEC", between festeringZit and Aaron W.

I think such a thread would be interesting far beyond the title, e.g. festeringZit can have his position challenged that he and Aaron are in such agreement, and Aaron W. can put to rest the claim that he only points out errors made by atheists.

This isn't a joke post, I am quite serious that it would be genuinely interesting.

What say you?

Think festering is old earth rather than young earth but yeah it'd be an interesting discussion all the same

I'm game, though it might not be quite as interesting as you think. In my skimmings, I see "neo-Darwinism" thrown around a lot, which tells me that it's likely going to boil down to a philosophical overstatement of one side or the other.

I also have way less invested in the whole evolution debate. I tried going down that path once for fun, and ultimately decided it really just wasn't that interesting.

The problem is, I'm not a YEC, and have always stated such in this forum.

Quoting the Kalem Cosmological Argument and Mike Huckabee today in a worksheet in my discrete math class, for a section on valid and invalid arguments. Here is the huckabee quote:

Mr. Huckabee, for his part, responded with trademark humor. ``The Air Force has a saying that says if you’re not catching flak, you’re not over the target,'' he said. ``I’m catching the flak; I must be over the target.''

Good day

The horrible logic error aside, it does reflect the well used military tactic of looking for someone who shoots at you (no joke). But it's more an infantry thing, planes are expensive.

Shall we have a discussion about Bayesian priors?

Since the the wording was "I must", that seems unnecessary.

And regardless if it wasn't, and we ignored the fact that we are looking for the target... consider that flak likely starts well before you are over a target, though that error shouldn't be pinned on Huckabee.

I strongly oppose this selective moderation attempt. If you wanted to start actually doing some moderating of this forum, you should probably start with Aaron's relentless insults towards Mightyboosh, insults you have long ignored. As you should well know, off-topic discussions have happened on numerous occasions in this forum, which is great! We once spent a hundred posts talking about mcdonalds of all things. It is trivially easy to skim past a few posts, people do this all the time as multiple separate conversations occur in the same thread. There is simply no need to remove this conversation.

Why don't you start a thread called "Aaron W's Abuse of Mightyboosh", then this thread can actually stay on topic.

Have a blessed day.