Here's a thought:  God himself has no morals, and look what *HE'S* been responsible for over the ages:  genocide on a scale that would awe (well, *NATURALLY*) any 20th-century dictator; infant damnation; plagues, wars, Jimmy Swaggart...

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Perhaps they're right to think man, "made in God's image," isn't to be trusted.  But I just don't have the urge to spread plagues (although I'm not saying I couldn't get used to Smiting if it were available.  "I've got a little list, they will none of them be missed..."

It always makes me chuckle when someone calls evolution a "theory." They'll say, "Well, it says "Darwin's Theory OF Evolution." No, it doesn't. It says Darwin's Theory ON Evolution. Several others have come up with their theories on how evolution happened, and they all match Darwin's. Evolution is a fact.

To stay on the topic, though, I'm wondering just what it is that some folks believe we're looking for a license to do.

I have quite an unassailable pro-life pedigree -- in my younger years I wanted to join Operation Rescue and protest abortion clinics (but didn't know how to contact such groups) -- so if anyone's thinking that I'm looking for a way to rationalize ending the lives of unborn babies, they're barking up the wrong tree.

Roy, evolution is a fact.  the "missing link" is a myth.

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The anti-evolutionists are fond of pointing to "gaps in the fossil record."   As a fossil is found in each gap, they're ecstatic!  Now they can point to *TWICE* as many gaps as before.

I'm not RF, Sage.  :-)

Mattloch wrote, "At least many atheists can defend their beliefs and actions using logic and reality. All religion has to fall back on is "God's will" and "the Bible sez so".  "

I do have a hint at the answer to my own question, though I'm looking for folks to, as I say, "just out 'n say it."

When a rule or ethical code can be arrived at by logic and reality, people seldom invoke religion to support it.  A few might, but generally people don't quote the Bible when they say that murder and stealing are wrong.

It's those things that cannot be supported by logic and reality alone that are most often defended by appeals to religious authority.

The thing about evolution, Roy, is that--like Philip K. Dick's famous observation about "reality"--it exists whether you believe in it or not.

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Spamcode BLKGU--the Primordial Ooze?

It's those things that cannot be supported by logic and reality alone that are most often defended by appeals to religious authority."

It's the people that say that without religion nothing makes sense that I can't stand. As if without their little book the world would be a horrible place. If you can't figure out murder is bad without an appeal to a higher power, perhaps it is better than you use your little book. People like that frighten me. Because if their whole moral structure is built on something like the Bible that can be interpreted a million different and mutually-exclusive ways by a million different people, how is that any better than atheism?

Evolution is considered by biologists to be fact. It is the mechanism of evolution that is theory.

The process of fossilization is a complex chemical process that requires very exact conditions to exist before bone can be turned into stone. We have not yet even begun to unearth the entire fossil record. So there are many "missing links" as Random describes.

Although usually a slow process, evolution can be quite readily seen. Darwin's theory may not be precise, but the general idea of evolution is very hard to dispute.

Theory means imperfect fact. Evolution is a fact, the "theory" of evolution are the structures of ideas to explain and interpret the fact. Facts do not go away because the theory of their existence changes. The fact  is that an apple falling from the tree is gravity at work. However, Einstein changed the "theory" of the mechanism that causes gravity. That only means that Darwin had the fact of gravity right, just not the right mechanism that caused it, just as he had the fact of evolution right, but might not necessarily be correct in how evolution occurs.

Here's a quote by my one of my favorite scientists, Stephen Jay Gould....."Evolutionists make no claim for perpetual truth, though creationists often do (and then attack us for a style of argument that they themselves favor). In science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms."

When you look at the very small fossil record we have of primates, it is confirmed to a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent. And you must ask yourself this.. Is the guy in the photo a man or a more primitive species? To say a guy that looked like him never existed is intellectually dishonest since the fossil record shows he did. That makes it a fact. So if it's a fact that there are a variety of hominids who have lived and are in various stages that go from Australopithecus (not quite ape), to Neanderthals (not quite homosapien), evolution seems to quite the logical occurrence.

And if Neanderthals, as a fact, are not homo sapiens, but actually had larger brains than us, are they still eligible for heaven?

Roy, anthropology is not something that fits together like a jigsaw puzzle. The "missing link" is not a scientific term, it's the kind of term that bunch in Dayton, TN would have used in 1925. There is not going to be one being discovered that ties it all together. A science like anthropology is extremely complex.

I'm not saying that you're one of them, but far too many people expect all of life's answers to be simple, which is why so many people fall back on "God says so."  The main reason that so many people believe in God is because they are afraid of dying, and Biblical mythology gives them hope - albeit a false one - that they will see their loved ones again after they die. They won't be disappointed, because they won't know anything or be anything. Except dead.

Actually, I think God-belief arises from our natural drive to detect order and to link cause and effect.  Our tendency to look for order and causal relationships is so great that sometimes we think we find cause-effect relationships where in fact there are none.

Consider the gambler who thinks he's found a "system" after getting lucky six times in a row.

God-belief, rituals, and superstitions -- I believe -- are unavoidable products of our order-seeking natures.

And for this reason, religion will never be extinguished.  (But it can be de-dogmatized.)

Recent evidence from mitrochondrial studies have been interpreted as evidence that Neanderthals were not a subspecies of Homo Sapiens.

As far as homo sapien sapiens, I have to ask if this guy qualifies as a homo homo sapien..; )

As far as homo sapien sapiens, I have to ask if this guy qualifies as a homo homo sapien..; )

I think Boy George is weirder than Elton, but I'm biased, because the best concert I ever saw was by Elton John at the San Diego Sports Arena when I was in high school.

Bnfl asked, "If you don't mind, to give a bit of background and because I'm new, would you please explain how you went from being "born-again" to being a humanist? Is that right? I don't want to accuse you or give you a false label. I'm trying to figure out what new title you've given your belief system (or lack thereof). I'm trying to do this without offense, so please bear with me. "

I take your comment with the best of intentions.  Give me a little time to compose an answer.

I'm sorry, but my answer will have to wait.

After typing out and submitting 750+ words, the damn blog stalled out, displayed "the page cannot be displayed," and lost every damn thing that I typed.

B.com need to fix the seizing up of the blogs, too.

In the meantime,

"I struggle with the comments you make because you have a great deal of reasoning behind them and yet refuse to accept that a higher intelligence like God, could've given you the very ability to reason. I don't get it. Help me out. "

To make a long story short, I find that my intelligence and reasoning abilities are more congruous with evolution.

Reasoning is not unique to the human species.  All species possess various capabilites (e.g. sight, hearing, strength, smell, speed) in varying acuities, degrees, capacities, and levels of refinement.

Intelligence and reasoning are similar in this way.  Other higher animals possess these abilities too.  It just so happens that ours are the most highly developed (or so we think).

Let me see if I can say in 50 words what I tried to say in 750 before.

When I discovered that the Christian leaders and apologists whom I trusted most were intentionally saying things that I knew to be false -- and I was forced to conclude that they also knew them to be false -- I began wondering if their claims about the evidence for Christ might also be false.

You know the end of that story.

But if it's any consolation, I still like to listen to Rebecca St. James and DC Talk.

Thanks, Mattloch.  Dolphins are something else, aren't they?

Xlnt1, Billy Graham is basically a good guy.  He gets wrongly picked on.  If you want to point the finger at evil, I recommend James Dobson or D. James Kennedy.

My theory is that in our species, the following are deeply intertwined:

• The drive to become the leader of the tribe, controlling the other members
• Violence
• Access to sex.

(And the bottom line really is the bottom line.  Achieving the first often involves a lot of the second, and this is the best way to lots of #3.  Even in the lower strata of a repressed society, #2 opens doors to #3.)

It's interesting that there's an inverse relationship between the level of access to sex in a society and violence in a society.  The most violent parts of the world (and of our nation) are precisely those areas where sex is most suppressed.  Yet even in the most repressed cultures, the best way to "get some" is to climb to the top of the power ladder.  Iraq's hell on earth was Saddam's heaven on earth.  I'm sure Saddam's loyal army was loyal for a very simple reason.

It crossed my mind again last night, when a newscaster, in a story about Hamas and the Gaza Strip,  referred to the Middle East as a most violent part of the world.  Here is the most repressed part of the world -- a part of the world with a strangulated sexual more' that some of our "conservative" leaders, shamefully, admire -- and it comes as no surprise that this is also the most barbaric.

When you think it through, sex is a calming and civilizing influence in a culture -- not a degenerative influence.

Billy Graham, Jimmy Swaggart, Jimmy Baker

Graham is an honest man. Although his ministry brings in millions of dollars each year, he receives a set salary (in 1980 it was said to be $100,000/year), but guys like Bakker and Swaggart were millionaires. To this day, Swaggart and his brother each live in $4 million homes surrounded by land worth another $8 million.  

Who knows Random. One just has to look around to make a case for interbreeding......

http://www.biblegateway.com...

""Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to"

Bnfl asked, "So, moral restrictions on sex are the problem, Hardliner? Just wanna get a clearer view on your perspective."

Well, I was asking folks like you.  :-)

What is it that you think we don't want to follow?

"Are you saying all the tension in the middle east is because the average Joe over there isn't "getting any"? "

I'm saying that there is a relationship between high levels of violence in a culture and high levels of sexual repression in a culture.  High levels of both in the Middle East; low levels of both in northern Europe.

BTW, did my answers to your questions above help?  I regret that my 750 word reply didn't make it through, and I didn't have patience to retype it, but hopefully the 50 word nutshell that appears above is a start at an answer to your questions about leaving the faith.

Bnfl said, "(I hope I'm coming across as I'm intending which is without ill-intent.) "

You're coming across just fine.

"Where are you getting these facts from? "

Fair question, and you have every right to ask it.

The state of the Middle East is common knowledge.  The state of northern Europe I have garnered from a variety of sources, ranging from health statistics (teen pregnancy, etc. -- teen pregnancy and abortion rates are a small fraction of those in the United States) -- and comparisons between violent crime rates that I have picked up over the years.  If I ever decided to really press the issue in a high-profile way, I'd seek out cold, hard figures.

"answers you gave explained to me why someone would be disappointed in people, but not give up his faith in God, if, in fact, he truly believed in that God in the first place. (I hope I'm coming across as I'm intending which is without ill-intent.) "

Well, here you're equating God with Christianity.  I can understand that, of course.  Let me try another run at the long answer.

I have always been a very spiritual person, if you can accept that word without specific Christian connotations.  My life was -- and is -- going so well that I must have lived a charmed existence.  I was blessed with an uncommonly good brain and uncommonly good luck.

I began to feel called to express gratitude and give back to the God that must have been behind my good fortune.  So, with an evangelical friend to point me in what he believed were the right directions, I did just that and became born again.

It was a good match for my values -- in a world that seemed obsessed with greed and material gain, I found among Christians others who shared my appreciation for family life and a simpler existence.  Needless to say, it fit well with my pro-life views as well.

So, I immersed myself in Christian media and writing.  You oughta see my bookshelf.  Strong's Concordance, Interlinear Bibles, Moody's Handbook of Theology, that's just the start of it.

As for my own theology, I allegorized the creation story of Genesis on the basis that Jesus Himself relied upon parables -- I was a theistic evolutionist -- but the rest of it was straight-up evangelical.

So, as time went by, I started noticing Christian leaders and apologists (and I use the word in its Christian sense and not a derogatory sense) saying things about creation, evolution, American history, and other things, that I knew were false.

At first, I cut them a lot of slack and attributed it to human fallibility and lack of knowledge.  But over time, I came to the conclusion that they were lying on purpose.  They were bearing false witness.

That itself didn't shake my faith, because my faith wasn't contingent on a literal creation story or on revisionist history.  But what it did do is shake my trust in anything else they claimed.

Well, they happen to be the same people putting forth what they believe was an abundance of evidence for the Christian faith.

So, with my trust -- but not faith -- shaken, I began wondering: if they can lie bout all these other things, might they also be lying about the evidence for the faith itself?

So, I began re-evaluating the evidence for the faith itself, and began reading the Gospel stories with different eyes.  I noticed oddities in the accounts that I hadn't noticed before.   I began noticing not the alleged fulfillments of prophecy by Christ, but the very significant non-fulfillments of Old Testament prophecy.  And I noticed the problems in NT prophecy that causes Full Preterists to be Full Preterists.

Having my trust in the honesty of my most loved Christian apologists shaken opened my mental door to think more freely and critically about countless other oddities in the Bible that I avoided thinking about before.

Eventually I thought myself out of the faith.

Nevrleft wrote, "H4f.  I had never thought about the sex repression angle before but it makes a lot of sense  when you think of the total social aspect of Muslim life in the Middle East.  It must be very unsatisfying to have to live that way. "

Yes, and I will use your comment to begin to expand on my reasoning.

It's not as utterly simple as "not getting any."  It is, in part, the product of a culture that places absurd limitation on even normal and natural interactions between the sexes.  Here's another fact that I'd have to try to find the cite(s) for, but it's pretty well accepted that children who grow up deprived of touch and intimacy grow up more inclined to violence.  Dr. BLT?  Help me out here please, dear psychologist?

Humans are a social species that need contact with other humans.  I believe that if sexuality is overly suppressed in a society, violence replaces it as a substitutionary form of contact.  And of course, violence has a double and triple reward in a repressed society -- 1) it literally "beats out" the competition for the sought-after but tightly limited commodity of sex, and 2) it becomes a direct route to sex itself.  Repressed Middle Eastern cultures are known for their poor treatment of women.

Bonobo monkeys support my theory.  Bonobos live a hedonistic lifestyle sexually, and this factor makes them peaceful as far as chimps go:

"Bonobos live a relatively peaceful life compared to chimpanzees. This is due largely to the fact that female bonobos are eight times more available to males for mating and there are equal numbers of females to mature males so there is less fighting for mating rights. Sex is an important way to ensure group stability and ease tensions. Bonobos substitute sex for aggression, and sexual interactions occur more often among bonobos than among other primates. Reduced male aggression, strong bonds between males and females, and frequent sex (including male-to-male and female-to-female) characterize bonobo society."

The same relationship between high sex access and low violence seems to pan out true among humans, too.

I should add for Bnfl, that even my strong disagreement with sexual repression in a culture is less of an objection to Christianity than you might think.

The Bible -- we can agree -- lays down a lot of rules and guidelines for what constitutes Godly practice of sex.  However, nothing in the Bible justifies the sheer aversion and repression of the topic itself that is so closely associated with many Christian traditions.

Nothing in the Bible forbids or denounces nudity -- but many Christian churches somehow find a problem with it.  Nothing in the Bible forbids the open and honest (and frank and complete) treatment of sexuality in (say) a sex education class -- yet the core of the opposition to comprehensive sex education comes from conservative Christianity.

The Bible gives rules about sex, for sure -- but nowhere does Scripture give any justification for the Religious Right's drive to suppress the topic itself.

Bnfl asks, "Regarding the moral restrictions debate/question, will you kindly define "sexual repression" in your context?"

Hopefully the two comments above help, but your question does deserve a longer answer.  But let's hash out the comments above first, so that we don't open up too many loose ends to keep up with.