All-Purpose Religion Thread

[Brumerican]

Yahweh =  "Hey Raphael, can you mind the stall for about 33 years "

Raphael = " Suppose so dude. Where you off?"

Yahweh = " Gonna nip down to earth and impregnate a girl without her consent so she can give birth to a hippy version of me, then I'll go a spread the word about my company"

Raphael = " Oooh . Who you going to tell ?"

Yahweh = " Just some random desert folk in an arbitrary country"

Raphael = " What about the Chinese and the Mexicans ?. Are you going to tell them too ?"

Yahweh = "Nah , they'll get a watered down version in 2,000 years time "

Raphael = " Oooh that sounds omniscienty"

Yahweh =  " Standard"

[chrisp65]

I don't know much about how science education standards in the Phillippines or China or S. Korea compare with here so I'll give that bit a swerve. I suspect they might actually be fairly good at it. It was the decline and fall I was referring to.

Having looked up the numbers, I hope for a similar clear decline in Villa's support.

 

[Brumerican]

6 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I don't know much about how science education standards in the Phillippines or China or S. Korea compare with here so I'll give that bit a swerve. I suspect they might actually be fairly good at it. It was the decline and fall I was referring to.

Having looked up the numbers, I hope for a similar clear decline in Villa's support.

 

Is suspect that the average joe who walks out of Mass on a Sunday in those countries wouldn't be able to tell you what a quark is or why the seasons happen .

The only thing those figures tell you is that these days the  Church has to rely on planting roots in areas we would consider to be less developed.

There are far less Christians now per human than there was 1000 years ago .

 

It's in decline .

It's end can't come soon enough.

 

[mjmooney]

2 minutes ago, Brumerican said:

Is suspect that the average joe who walks out of Mass on a Sunday in those countries wouldn't be able to tell you what a quark is or why the seasons happen .

The only thing those figures tell you is that these days the  Church has to rely on planting roots in areas we would consider to be less developed.

There are far less Christians now per human than there was 1000 years ago .

 

It's in decline .

It's end can't come soon enough.

 

Hopefully, along with Islam and all the others. 

[chrisp65]

yup, you're average english school kid is all over the maths behind your quarks and eliptical orbits

there have never ever in history been more christians than there are now and the number is increasing

 

statistics, eh

[Brumerican]

1 minute ago, mjmooney said:

Hopefully, along with Islam and all the others. 

Will be a bit tougher . 

 

1 minute ago, chrisp65 said:

yup, you're average english school kid is all over the maths behind your quarks and eliptical orbits

there have never ever in history been more christians than there are now and the number is increasing

 

statistics, eh

Because the global population is much larger today.

As a percentage it is far lower.

[Brumerican]

I learned about planetary orbits, the Earth's tilt and quarks in the 90's .

I've no idea what the Welsh do.

[chrisp65]

Well, clearly we're both convinced by our own statistic so this has probably run its course.

I can see that the number of christians has almost quadrupled in 100 years and is increasing.

You can see the earth's population is reducing the per centage of christians.

I don't think we're getting much further forward.

[Brumerican]

1 minute ago, chrisp65 said:

Well, clearly we're both convinced by our own statistic so this has probably run its course.

I can see that the number of christians has almost quadrupled in 100 years and is increasing.

You can see the earth's population is reducing the per centage of christians.

I don't think we're getting much further forward.

As a percentage of human population , it is less now than it was in the past . 

Your stat is meaningless. It only shows that the global population is now higher than it used to be.

The percentage of humans that are Christian now is lower than the past .

That is a decline . It's not open to interpretation .

 

 

 

 

[chrisp65]

I really don't know where else to go with this?

If Villa needed to quadruple the capacity of Villa Park, I guess some people could prove it as a decline.

I really am out now, I don't think either of us are going to convince the other. 

 

 

[Brumerican]

9 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I really don't know where else to go with this?

If Villa needed to quadruple the capacity of Villa Park, I guess some people could prove it as a decline.

I really am out now, I don't think either of us are going to convince the other. 

 

 

There is nowhere else to go with it ?

As a percentage of human population it is in decline .

It's not hard.

A small percentage of a large number could have a higher value than a large percentage of a smaller number. So what ?

What matters is the percentage.

[chrisp65]

Apologies, I hadn't realised you'd set the rule as per centage wins. Look, if you just need to be last to post on this, or you need me to concede, I'm happy with both, either. It's not a big enough deal for me.

A rise to it's highest number of followers ever, 2.2 billion, is clearly signalling decline.

You win, I'm out. 

 

 

[Brumerican]

1 minute ago, chrisp65 said:

Apologies, I hadn't realised you'd set the rule as per centage wins. Look, if you just need to be last to post on this, or you need me to concede, I'm happy with both, either. It's not a big enough deal for me.

A rise to it's highest number of followers ever, 2.2 billion, is clearly signalling decline.

You win, I'm out. 

 

 

Using percentage as the barometer was in place long before I was born .

That percentage has declined .( 2.2billion is less than  30% when it has been a higher percentage in the past)

It's in decline . 

I wouldn't say I'd won anything but I would say maths isn't your strongpoint.

 

If the population of Brum was 100, 000 today and 40,000 came to Villa park you'd say we had a 40% fanbase .

If in 10 years the population was 500, 000  and 10% of those attended games then sure Villa Park may see 10,000 more fans but it would reflect a massive decline in Villa fans within the population .

Even the kids in Mexico and Nigeria would reach the same conclusion.

[Mark Albrighton]

[Brumerican]

I'd love to know how many of those 2.2billion are children who have been branded with the religion of their parents. 

Every single one of those people was born without a single idea in their head, yet they nearly always seem to follow the religion of their parents.

The only thing that stat shows me is condoms aren't selling well in developing nations.

 

[mjmooney]

One of the evolutionary advantageous characteristics of humans (along with pattern matching) turned out to be an awareness of causality. If I sit still that sabre-toothed tiger will eat me. If I plant this seed it will grow into a plant. We became obsessed with it. Everything had to have a reason. Like every small child even today, we kept asking... why? As Brumerican says, where we couldn't come with an obvious answer, we speculated, based on what limited data we had. The sun goes round a (flat) earth. Obviously. Something or somebody must be making it happen. Obviously. Everything had to have a cause... and a meaning. 

Some of us have never quite lost that belief. A word has a meaning. An equation has a meaning. An emotion has a meaning. Surely, the universe has to have a meaning, doesn't it? Well, no. It's a category error. Life is meaningless. Some people find that idea incomprehensible, or terrifying, or depressing. I don't. I find meaning where I need to, and I take happiness where I find it. Sometime in the next 20 to 30 years (at best), I'll be gone, kaput. A shame in a way, as I probably won't have read all the books I'd like to, or seen Villa win the league again, but hey ho. Not being alive before I was born was no problem, and not being alive after I die won't be either. 

[Brumerican]

3 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

One of the evolutionary advantageous characteristics of humans (along with pattern matching) turned out to be an awareness of causality. If I sit still that sabre-toothed tiger will eat me. If I plant this seed it will grow into a plant. We became obsessed with it. Everything had to have a reason. Like every small child even today, we kept asking... why? As Brumerican says, where we couldn't come with an obvious answer, we speculated, based on what limited data we had. The sun goes round a (flat) earth. Obviously. Something or somebody must be making it happen. Obviously. Everything had to have a cause... and a meaning. 

Some of us have never quite lost that belief. A word has a meaning. An equation has a meaning. An emotion has a meaning. Surely, the universe has to have a meaning, doesn't it? Well, no. It's a category error. Life is meaningless. Some people find that idea incomprehensible, or terrifying, or depressing. I don't. I find meaning where I need to, and I take happiness where I find it. Sometime in the next 20 to 30 years (at best), I'll be gone, kaput. A shame in a way, as I probably won't have read all the books I'd like to, or seen Villa win the league again, but hey ho. Not being alive before I was born was no problem, and not being alive after I die won't be either. 

Exactly . Finding your own meaning or purpose is far more profound than being a pawn in a deity's laughably bad experiment.   

[A'Villan]

On 15/07/2018 at 21:03, bickster said:

That simply isn't true

As yet there is not a single shred of evidence of Jesus' existence. Not one

Do you believe King Arthur existed? Both Roman and Jewish historians mention Jesus within decades of his supposed lifetime. Arthur on the other hand is apparently not even mentioned by major historical accounts of his time, he is first referred to 300 or 400 years later.

On 15/07/2018 at 23:30, Brumerican said:

 

"Jesus' death as a consequence of crucifixion is indisputable" - Gerd Ludemann, The Resurrection of Christ: A Historical Inquiry, 2004, p50.

"Frankly I know of no ancient historian or biblical historian who would have a twinge of doubt about the existence of a Jesus Christ" - Professor of Classical History and Archaeology Graeme Clarke, Brisbane Times, 2008.

"There is no scholar in any college or university in the Western world who teaches the classics, ancient history, new testament, early Christianity, any related field who doubts that Jesus existed" - Professor of Religious Studies Bart Ehrman, Freedom From Religion Foundation Lecture, 2014.

"One of the most certain facts of history is that Jesus was crucified on orders of the Roman prefect of Judea, Pontius Pilate." - Bart Ehrman, The Historical Jesus: Lecture Transcript and Course Guidebook, 2000, p162.

I am assuming you are referring to Horus when you say the similarities are pretty blatant?

Honest scientists will tell you that consciousness is one of the greatest mysteries in science, we don't really know exactly how it works, the  brain's involved in it in some way but we're not sure how. Nothing in neuroscience rules out the possibility that the analogy of the t.v signal to the t.v, is equally as likely as the computer stopping when the power gets cut off.

[mjmooney]

40 minutes ago, A'Villan said:

Honest scientists will tell you that consciousness is one of the greatest mysteries in science, we don't really know exactly how it works, the  brain's involved in it in some way but we're not sure how. Nothing in neuroscience rules out the possibility that the analogy of the t.v signal to the t.v, is equally as likely as the computer stopping when the power gets cut off.

And? Why leap from that to the whole God/Jesus thing? Non sequitur. 

As for your scientistists' quotes, I say to them: show me the evidence. 

The King Arthur comparison is a really good one, by the way - a classic example of how a tiny bit of barely documented oral history can be misinterpreted and spun into a huge legend. 

[bickster]

1 hour ago, A'Villan said:

Do you believe King Arthur existed?

No

1 hour ago, A'Villan said:

Both Roman and Jewish historians mention Jesus within decades of his supposed lifetime

Historians only start mentioning Jesus many decades after he supposedly died. See what I did there?

Great analogy between King Arthur and Jesus though, pretty much the same thing. Fiction with no contemporaneous evidence, both use magic too!