DV and Me: A discussion

I have moved the discussion here so as not to interfer with the point of the heaven the game thread.

Dark Virtue said:

I understand that Christians vary in opinions...they are human after all. What I find difficult to comprehend is the WHY. There's only one God and one Bible. Why then so many differing, and conflicting, views?

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Your views here suggest that christianity operates in a vacuum. Christians are not just christians but have differnt political, cultural, early life experience, and personality differences. This leads to a whole host of differences in beliefs which often might have the appearnance of religion but be anything but. What is amazing is that for a religion that covers so many demographics the core beliefs are still so similar. I note that this is the same in everyone and not just christians. Take the classic experiment were a grouop of first year pscyhology students were given a rat and asked to get the rats to learn a maze. These rats differed in no identifiable way except the professor told one groups of students their rat was dumb and another group their rat was smart. Though the rats were the same and the maze running task was the same, the "smart" rats run the maze much faster than the "dumb" rats. What is the point. Even when given identical accurate information, differences in life experience and personality, etc. mean that that information is used and interpreted in different ways. Does this difference mean the information is wrong, NO. It is amazing that given the christian message is so much more abstract than whether a rat can run a maze, and yet the core beliefs of christianity have not changed for more than 2000 years despite the massive amount of individual difference between followers.

Dark Virtue said:

Your analogy doesn't really work. Whether or not you like "Wheel of Time" is a measure of personal preference. Christians morals are set forth by God and the Bible, are they not? This is subjective versus objective.

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Good point. What I wa trying to say though, was that people change their mind and as my point aove suggests. Despite the word of God being objective, it is subjectively interpreted by us. Again, one need only look at the social construction of reality ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_constructionism ) to know that while reality is out there we can not directly percieve it because we filter everything through our own biases (it is worth noting that social constructivism was developed by a christian who maintained is christian beliefs and the social construction of reality is as much a difficulty for non-christians as it is for christians)

Dark Virtue said:

Understand who and what I'm calling hypocritical...I thought I made it clear in my previous post. I'm talking about those people that preach vehementaly against something only turn around and embrace it. Again, I find it hard to understand why you would embrace something that your church, family and friends are against. Someone's belief system is in error. Once more...how is this possible if everyone is getting their information from the Bible?

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No you did call us all hypocrites. see your post , you do not at any stage differentiate one christian from another. Hveing said that there is probebly something in what you say. We all are hypocrites but I don't see how that makes us any differnt from any other group. In the words of Tolstroy though " just because I am walking drunk, swaying from side to side, down the path home does not make it any less the right path home".

Dark Virtue said:

You are also begging the question as to WHY you thought evolution was evil before starting university. Is it because this is what religion somehow taught you? In understanding that evolution wasn't evil, what did that tell you about why you felt that way in the first place?

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Simple because of the cultural world I grew up in. Yes i though it was not cultural at the time, but the very word of God. It took some time and an almost lost faith to discover that is was cultural. The church of england in their apology to Darwin put it better than I can, so here is the apology http://www.cofe.anglican.org/darwin/malcolmbrown.html

Dark Virtue said:

That definition is as close to any that I've heard describing SCIENCE. Scientific understanding is at a set position until new information arrives that alters it. Sorry, but history has shown that Christianity, as well as the majority of other religions, tend NOT to do that. Again, I haven't pointed the finger at YOU and called you a hypocrite. I was explicit in my phrasing.

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Yes, it was meant to be close to a definition of science. This is the approach I take to my beliefs "faith seeking reason". I agree that Christianity and many other religions have in many cases forgone the old phase of "faith seeking reason" but this is not how it has always been. Even Dawkins admits that many of the most famous scietists are christians (though he makes a different interpretation to it than I would). The author of the social construction of reality is a christian. All have managed to maintain their beliefs and even have those beliefs strengthen due to their scientific understanding.

wOOt!!