Wasn´t this the story of “21 gram”? When the scientist weighted the rat(?)/cat(?) before and after their death and they lossed this amount of weight, which led to his conclusion that dogs didn´t have a soul, since they didn´t have that weight loss?
Edit: Found him: Duncan MacDougall, claimed to have measured the weight of the soul in 1907
No, not a religious saint, but rather a prophet. He was referred to as being a muse. This is the Greek equivalent to the Spirit of Truth Jesus promised. (John 14:17 15:26 16:13) Socrates explained more about God than any single prophet.
Intelligent design is big on rhetoric but comes up short on research published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. If your program is more, then let’s see the research.
Who?
What school was this?
I was home schooled with Abeka book :). My parents only did it because there were no schools in Niger I could attend within a few hundred miles. The authors were pretty much anti-Catholic, unfortunately .If I remember right (and maybe I don’t), the book said that according to some folks who revered the Greek philosophers, they must have been enlightened enough to go to Heaven and not “pagans.” But maybe I got that mixed up with another book. It was an interesting mixture of science and a very narrow view of Scripture, if I recall right. --but that was 35 years ago.
It wasn’t that important. Googling it doesn’t bring it up again, so maybe I did get it mixed up.
Thanks, Mr Murphy. Hm I respectfully disagree, though I get your drift. I remember John 16:13 “But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.”
and I wouldn’t say that the Holy Spirit is anything like Socrates. He doesn’t lead by asking questions :), and he doesn’t currently tell me things to come (but it could happen). But I get your drift.
Sounds awful! But there’s lots of awful stuff out there.
It was well intentioned, but my parents and the other missionaries were kind of shocked when I regurgitated it. Thankfully, there were Anglicans who at one of the Bible studies set me straight on monasticism and whether people could glorify God from the Catholic and High church (and they were more godly than a lot of people I read). It was a great experience in a way, because I could see how people came from either side of the coin. I am just glad there were good people to correct me before I got in trouble!
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I’m surprised to find my answer to the question I first posed here has shifted. It has always seemed to me obvious that consciousness requires minds which evolve in creatures which some how cross the inorganic/organic barrier. But now after listening to this video, I’m not so sure. Pirsig’s second novel Lila loosened some settled beliefs and now McGilchrist’s direct challenge to the assumption that matter precedes consciousness has set me a little to drift.
Originally I’d asked how crucial our beliefs about origins were to whatever we considered to be our core beliefs, and, how much over the course of our lives have our beliefs moved toward or away from biblical literalism.
Originally I couldn’t see why beliefs about origins should influence our core beliefs much at all, but that was because I did have an entirely materialist perspective about matter preceding life, consciousness and whatever values an earthbound hominid may have come up with. Now I’m not so sure.
As a result I also have to change my answer to the second question. Where before I had said my beliefs regarding origins had gone from a 4 to 6 where a 4 is definied as …
4 - Belief that, barring errors, everything science can discover about origins is true and all of it is a record of how God has brought about creation and that our minds are an important achievement in that design. but theology not science is where you will find God’s plan for man and just what participation He desires from his image bearers."
and a 6 is defined as …
6 - Belief that physical origins and that of life is entirely undirected by any intentionality.
Now I would have to describe my beliefs regarding origins as being best described by …
5 - It is possible that intentionality somehow emerges in the universe itself and at some point shapes its own development including ours. Whatever that is could be called God.
Back then I’d suggested this may be the agnostic option and that still fits but now I realize it can also be the panentheism option, and that might actually be more to the point in my case.
This thread has had a long life and no one may feel any need to revisit now. But since I’d started it and I realized my position had changed I thought I’d revisit it if only for completeness’ sake.
*For anyone wondering what the other three positions in the more literalist direction had been, here you go:
1 - Young earth creation: plants first, then sunlight, then fish and sea life, then land animals with humans last.
2 - The definition of “day” isn’t pegged to anything but still, in whatever order, in the beginning every single atom was God-made and so was every category of life
3 - Progressive creation: in the beginning God created the universe and life and set evolution in motion. The earth is old and evolution is part of God’s plan but at points along the way God has interceded to keep things on track toward His plan. At some point God interceded to give mankind (evolved from apes) his image, meaning conscious awareness and moral responsibility.
I think we all modify our beliefs as we learn and go through life, sometimes seeing the same thing from a new perspective. At least, I think we should, as to not learn and grow would be sad. Otherwise, you may as well fill your garden with plastic flowers.
I’m not sure about how far I moved because my beliefs as a kid was not traditional to Christianity in any way. My mother took us to church on and off but her beliefs were loosely Christian. She believed Jesus was God in the flesh, but she believed that the Bible was a book of lies and that magic was real and that was how God spoke to us. But she waxed and waned on that and at times was very literalist and accepting of it. But she believed in stuff like different candles did this or that and that ghosts existed and that tarot cards worked and so on. My dad seemed very agnostic leaning on atheist sides but was similar to my mom as in believing that if there is a god then it’s gods and goddesses. He completely rejected the Bible for the most part and the big of agnostic beliefs he held was more in a belief in a non Jewish based god. He believed in a higher power , but not a specific deity. He did not, and still does not know much about science. But he bought us science books all the time and talked about how we evolved from primates ( though he called them chimps ) and he believed in Bigfoot and he believed that some tribes were not as evolved and they were not true humans. Unfortunately at that time he believed in categories as subhuman and weird things about hitler being able to breed subhumans with apes.
So as a kid I had no concrete beliefs about origins. Greek and Roman mythology was just as valid as Christianity in my mind and i was too young and unsure to realize it did not work well. Like I believed in Adam and Eve but also believed in things like Zeus’s blood hitting the ground things as well. But my dad also talked about evolution and i am not sure how i rationalized it all as a kid. I guess it would be similar to like split personality. One part of me thought about the religious side that gods were involved and then when I went to the other side , I shut that part down and thought only about the evolutionary side but there was not any really communication between the two.
In my teenage years my mother was very literalist. So much so that even shows like cat dog was banned because god said they can only mate after their own kind and so a cat and a dog can’t make and therefore that show is mocking god. My dad was almost full blown atheist and believed if there was a god he was crappy and hated us and had nothing to do with us. But he also believed scientists were basically just a bunch of liars coming up with theories just so they could be paid to study something.
Right now though as a note informed adult on theology and science I am around a 5. I believe in God and that he set up the natural laws that resulted in everything. I don’t believe in scientific evidence for God. It upsets some, but my belief in God is purely blind on the science side. I don’t believe in miracles and so on. I’m not a deist either though. I believe that God is very much involved in our lives. I believe that the Holy Spirit is a power that helps encourages us towards goodness. So I feel like a 5.5. I don’t believe in a fine tuned universe really. I believe that naturalism can explain almost everything. I think you just eventually have to decide where to place your faith in the things that seem beyond coincidence. So god to me is a undetectable being guiding everything in ways science will never reveal but that people feel him nonetheless and choose to either pursue him or turn against him.
Boy that is quite a divergent set of world views your parents provided you with growing up. My parent’s views were also pretty different but they didn’t clash so openly as those of you’re parents. My father was a damaged individual in many ways but he was all in for Bible. Without his difficulties he might well have pursued a role with a church as his grandfather had. But a childhood fever severely damaged his vocal chords and his aborted childhood left him socially clueless in many ways. He had strong religious views but was nearly completely inarticulate. My mother’s family never attended or discussed church, but like your mother picked up every weird idea. But my mother was the exception. She never talked about weird stuff. I think she had a loose knowledge of Christianity but a very empathetic grasp on what was good. She was a good person but was also very damaged by life circumstances. Life can definitely be challenging but I credit both my parents with giving better than they got. I only wish they had gotten better.
If it turns out the God is lying in what science and parsimonious rationality say beyond it, no harm done. He would be God the Joker.
I’m afraid He would be infringing on an existing trademark. 
But only slightly more seriously, do you really hold God responsible for your application of science and rationality? Those are skill events and you definitely have some (probably more than me), but shall we define God around how well He is meeting your requirements?
Much more seriously, I never understand the assumption that what ever it is which gives rise to God belief must be conversant in the logic of human concepts and motivated first and foremost by a desire for the intellectual comfort of our species. Even more than I question the incredible height of the pedestal on which Christianity places God, I question the assumption that we are the pinnacle and end point of all God’s creative efforts. Color me skeptical.
I don’t know that I ever really addressed the questions in the OP. Not sure why…
Pretty central I would say. It connects to more than one of my reasons for belief… how the faith in God contributes to the faith that life is worth living. Why God needs a way to interact with the universe.
I guess my original reply was mostly addressing the first one here. But I didn’t put myself in the scale suggested. Perhaps it was a bit difficult to answer because it would be a combination of several. Certainly not 1, 2, or 6. I see God employing the automation of natural law for a good reason – a necessary part of the process of life. But God left it open for further interaction where He would push things in desirable directions. I don’t believe that design was involved with anything but the initial setup of the universe with its natural laws, so 3 and 4 without that implication of design. And 5 only in so far as the intentionality of life itself has emerged since obviously I do not believe God Himself or His involvement has emerged from the universe itself.
P.S. I now see how these old threads can be resurrected when you call it up in response to someone who like what you have said. …or something like that.
Didn’t know that. In the past if I anted to post in an old closed thread I’d just pm a mod and they’d open it. Never knew there was another way.
And it also brings back old posts I probably missed the first time around, to ‘like’ and then realize I just liked something written a couple years ago.
Ah well. Some of it ages like wine, and other bits … Probably not so much!
I think it was by accident. I read much of this thread and hearted some things. Suddenly, people were replying.
Anyway, Mark, thanks very much for directing me toward it. Really interesting discussion.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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