Child's request to make Wooly Mammoth state fossil of SC blocked by two Creationists-R

I'm not going to get into the tallies, but he engages in a roster of despicable acts throughout, either inciting or directly. I don't really even see the mercy/grace either, most of those are just sort of "nahh, don't slash your son's throat, Abe, just kidding" variety of "mercy" or the "yeah I just killed every living sentient & non-sentient thing in the world, but hey here's a rainbow!" story of redemption . Not to mention all the other genocides. Frankly I don't really get how you balance the scales with that kind of stuff

Even if you just take these as non-literal stories/parables to teach a message - they're pretty awful. A parable should put things in terms somebody can understand and apply; these things just beg more questions. Hearing some of these stories now (espeically as an adult, i learned them as a child obviously) is just kind of baffling.

But really I don't even get that - killing your son/self horribly to save us from our present and future sins? I just have a hard time associating that with mercy even if it made logical sense. There's a lot better parts of the NT which deal with mercy IMO, but the horrible death scene isn't one of them.

 

I understand your skeptisms, I really do. And I respect you a ton for debating me with civility, that's not something you see a lot of on here when religion is the topic. At any rate, we could go on all day and I have a ton of work to do, so #bewell bro. And I sincerely mean that.

 

From a recent Wall Street Journal article -- take note everyone here mocking religion because they are 'too smart for that'.

4. Take Religion Seriously

Don't bother to read this one if you're already satisfyingly engaged with a religious tradition.

Now that we're alone, here's where a lot of you stand when it comes to religion: It isn't for you. You don't mind if other people are devout, but you don't get it. Smart people don't believe that stuff anymore.

I can be sure that is what many of you think because your generation of high-IQ, college-educated young people, like mine 50 years ago, has been as thoroughly socialized to be secular as your counterparts in preceding generations were socialized to be devout. Some of you grew up with parents who weren't religious, and you've never given religion a thought. Others of you followed the religion of your parents as children but left religion behind as you were socialized by college.

By socialized, I don't mean that you studied theology under professors who persuaded you that Thomas Aquinas was wrong. You didn't study theology at all. None of the professors you admired were religious. When the topic of religion came up, they treated it dismissively or as a subject of humor. You went along with the zeitgeist.

I am describing my own religious life from the time I went to Harvard until my late 40s. At that point, my wife, prompted by the birth of our first child, had found a religious tradition in which she was comfortable, Quakerism, and had been attending Quaker meetings for several years. I began keeping her company and started reading on religion. I still describe myself as an agnostic, but my unbelief is getting shaky.

Taking religion seriously means work. If you're waiting for a road-to-Damascus experience, you're kidding yourself. Getting inside the wisdom of the great religions doesn't happen by sitting on beaches, watching sunsets and waiting for enlightenment. It can easily require as much intellectual effort as a law degree.

Even dabbling at the edges has demonstrated to me the depths of Judaism, Buddhism and Taoism. I assume that I would find similar depths in Islam and Hinduism as well. I certainly have developed a far greater appreciation for Christianity, the tradition with which I'm most familiar. The Sunday school stories I learned as a child bear no resemblance to Christianity taken seriously. You've got to grapple with the real thing.

Start by jarring yourself out of unreflective atheism or agnosticism. A good way to do that is to read about contemporary cosmology. The universe isn't only stranger than we knew; it is stranger and vastly more unlikely than we could have imagined, and we aren't even close to discovering its last mysteries. That reading won't lead you to religion, but it may stop you from being unreflective.

Find ways to put yourself around people who are profoundly religious. You will encounter individuals whose intelligence, judgment and critical faculties are as impressive as those of your smartest atheist friends—and who also possess a disquieting confidence in an underlying reality behind the many religious dogmas.

They have learned to reconcile faith and reason, yes, but beyond that, they persuasively convey ways of knowing that transcend intellectual understanding. They exhibit in their own personae a kind of wisdom that goes beyond just having intelligence and good judgment.

Start reading religious literature. You don't have to go back to Aquinas (though that wouldn't be a bad idea). The past hundred years have produced excellent and accessible work, much of it written by people who came to adulthood as uninvolved in religion as you are.

 

Oh don't worry, I learned to take religion seriously as I got older rather than on faith like I did as a kid - and it's when you take religion seriously and subject it to serious examination that its inherent problems start to show up.

 

So... the fossil. Why two guys would care enough to drag that show out and put Jesus into it seems basically a sign of the times in our political system... they have no time to get anything worthwhile done in everyone's best interest, but give them the opportunity to hold something up that will not affect anything, in order to trumpet their personal beliefs that have little or nothing to do with the subject at hand, they are on a mission.

So occupied with discord the only things they make a stand on are the things which show they are unable to represent or govern. Regardless of beliefs, this alone should get you kicked out of the "club."

 

Excellent post. Those two state senators are an embarrassment to their state, and an embarrassment to their country. How they got elected in the first place is a mystery to me, and doesn't speak well of the voters responsible for this idiocy being displayed to the world.

 

ummm you do know that many athiests did take religion seriously. They seriously dissected it. Unfortunately for you they did not come to the same conclusion as you.

 

The sad part is the American public will continue to support ignorance and stupidity. This country should have been (and would be) light years ahead of the entire world if there wasn't such an innate dislike of science and math in our culture.

 

i have nothing against religion, but blocking the advancement of human society due to their fear of the unknown (death, afterlife) and holding everybody back because of it is pretty r****ded

 

Well, that's only because "they exhibit a kind of wisdom beyond intelligence and good judgment"...

You just like their profound ability to "persuasively convey a way of knowing that transcends intellectual understanding"...

In other words... Science can't beat making things up....

 

You just lack***

 

QFT..