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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dayuhan who wrote (9816)	3/26/2001 9:59:48 PM
From: cosmicforce	Respond to of 82486

Well said.

To: Dayuhan who wrote (9816)	3/26/2001 11:33:40 PM
From: 2MAR$	Respond to of 82486

" It strikes me that the long process of accepting, collectively, that there may very well be no God, and that there is almost certainly not a God that created the universe just for us and watches over us every moment, is not unlike the process of adjusting to the notion that we are not the center of the universe. You are sounding like the Anti-Christ , and preaching the doctrine of demons ! Take heed sinner , lest you miss the rapture ! worldpropheticministry.org It's "Us" against "Them"....those "Unbelievers" who are not "Saved" like us. The King is coming , and the world shall be made flat again! ;-)

To: Dayuhan who wrote (9816)	3/27/2001 12:17:04 AM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 82486

Actually, the rationale for regarding Earth as the center of the universe was not its relative importance, at least not to the educated. Ptolemy, who held sway, was a proponent of Aristotle's cosmology, and preferred the geocentric hypothesis on that basis. To Aristotelians, the further away one was from the sublunar sphere, the closer to perfection. The most perfect visible thing was the sphere of the fixed stars. Earth was a place of contingency and imperfection. Biblically, this is mirrored in locating Heaven above "the firmament", at the outer reaches of the cosmos. The moral center of the universe, need it be said, is where God reigns in splendor with the angels, not Earth. Anyway, as I said, Galileo did not discover that the Earth was round, and Copernicus established the dominance of heliocentrism. Galileo got in trouble for promoting Copernicanism because it conflicted with a miracle in the Bible. (Actually, the conflict was stupid, since it was not necessary that the sun stood still, in the story, but that it appeared to). If the hierarchy had had more at stake, the reaction to Copernicanism would have been more ferocious. As it was, within a century it was established fact. Comparatively few people believe that God created the universe "just for us". Rather, they believe that it was created for us too, that we have our place in it, whatever else might be going on. They believe not that we are the apple of some divine eye, but the object of divine mercy, which is rather a different thing. They believe that the things they love and strive for, in some ultimate accounting, matter, and will not be lost in the winds of time. I do not mean the large goals, I mean the small ones: that the time we spend hugging our kids means at least as much as the time we spend "saving the planet". They believe that human values are objective, that it is not merely a matter of taste, of "self- chosen values", that the slaughter of innocents in the extermination camps is evil, but that it is actually evil. And in the end, they believe that those who get on with the business of refining and achieving their own purposes, without reference to a standard that they must adhere to, will lead us to the abyss........

To: Dayuhan who wrote (9816)	3/27/2001 8:02:35 PM
From: Lane3	Respond to of 82486

It strikes me that the long process of accepting, collectively, that there may very well be no God, and that there is almost certainly not a God that created the universe just for us and watches over us every moment... I want to emphasize that there are two stages to this as you describe. The first step is what you describe second. Is there a God that will be holding us accountable for following His rules? It seems to me that that is the more important by a mile. If there is a prescribed set of rules, we need to know that because it matters how we behave here on Earth. And we also need to know which set of rules. Will we be rejected for having masturbated (one set of rules) or for squishing a bug (alternate set of rules)? Very important. Once we reject the notion of heavenly accountability, we're home free IMO. We don't have to alter our behavior in any way, just do our thing for as long as it lasts and then see what, if anything, happens next. Yeah, maybe believing that there's a deity albeit not a personal one is of some value. Neo seems to think it is and that's cool. But it's not as big a deal as the behavior-on-Earth issue. The thread is putting a lot of energy into step 2. Enjoy yourselves. If you figure it out, I'll be glad to know, but it doesn't really matter to me. Karen