you are right about that. see, there are actually some people in this world who are good at achieving and they will never need Christ (or anyone else) for their significance, because they are great at getting significance out of their achievements. i imagine bill gates is secure in himself.
agree with your point. my point, however, is this: based on what criteria? someone in school told you the big bang theory was true. you accepted that based on your readiness to believe that assertion. can it be based in fact? no. when scientists carbon date an object, on what do they base the date? supposition. i guess it's what they say, "the devil's in the details"
Isn't it kind of irrational to limit reality to the observable and physical world and call anything not observable fantasy? Since science can neither prove or disprove God then saying you don't beleive in God because of science isn't very rational.
i only limit the things i believe in to the observable reality. the rest is made up, and even if it isnt made up it is literally impossible for us to distinguish what is made up and what isnt. how am i to know which has more chance of being real, your god, or some other version of whatever other made up nonsense? why is your god any more real than the superstition i made up 5 minutes ago? how do i know jim jones wasnt jesus and the poisoned kool-aid drinkers arent at his side now? how do i know anything? observation. observation is the only way to know anything. it is exactly as rational as not believing any random fact, for instance that a teacup on the opposite side of pluto rules the universe. am i limiting myself by dismissing that? imagine we knew zero about the earth and we were totally clueless. you might notice that the sun came up every morning, and we could write that down in our list of realities. and i might notice that stuff tends to fall towards earth and maybe you could use some math and calculate how fast things fall. and pretty soon we are observing more and more complicated things. annd then we are writing it down and telling our kids and future generations are building om it.. and then we are figuring out how atoms work. and then eventually we are doing chromatgraph analysis on light from or whatever from space and figuing that the universe is expanding and it appears to all be expandin from a certain point. so we are basing our view of reality on observations. that is all there is, all we have. anything beyond observation is of no value when determining reality. believing in something for any other reason is pointless, and often dangerous.
the big bang theory is based purely on observation and nothing else. read that sentence twice, then read about big bang. do you think some scientists found a book about big bang in a dusty basement? you do not seem to understand what science is. it is observation and hypothesis and testing and conclusions. it is not pulling crazy ideas out of the ether and claiming they are true. religious people are often taught to thnk that science is opposed to religion. it isnt by design, it is only opposed to religion because it favors reality and reality opposes religion. it is sad that you are so opposed to reason and reality that you assume that the big bang is based on anything other than observation.
have we already broached the subject of why the Dinosaurs do not appear in the Bible in Genesis, yet we have indisputible evidence that dinosaurs existed? you would think whoever wrote the Bible would have known about the exitence of extremely large animals that sometimes eat man and other animals.................UNLESS the Bible was written in later times, by people without knowledge that dinosaurs existed because they had been extinct thousands of years buried in the Earth. I want to be a good Catholic, but it is really hard to agree with things like this, as well as the scientific evidence supporting the Big Bang theory. I mean, many of the world's greatest scientist and astronomers were pretty much prisoners of the Catholic church back in the day so their findings could be monitored and, if needed, altered by the church before reaching the general public.
Whatever you may think of the Pope, he is far from being an idiot. For one thing, the press took the remark completely out of context. Taken within context, he was saying that the Koran states that forced conversion is wrong, and that other verses that seem to suggest it came much later, and that Islamic theologians should take than inconsideration when interpreting the Koran. Basically he was saying that Islamic scholars should consider the time, culture and situation that existed when a given part of the Koran was written - just as biblical scholars do. Ninety percent of the speech was not even about Islam. However, it would have been better had he not included the quote. Secondly, the papacy has not outlived its usefulness anymore than Catholicism or Christianity has. The Church was not put on this earth to win a popularity contest; it was put on this earth to bring light to a world of darkness. As long as there is darkness in the world the Papacy is not only uselful, it is essential. Thirdly, the Papacy is not composed of a bunch of old men with antiquated ideas of what the world should be like. They are men of great faith who have have a vision of what mankind should be like. It is a vision that comes straight out of the teachings and example of Jesus Christ. If those teachings and examples are antiquated, then we all have outlived our usefulness. Lastly, if you are a catholic you are obviously a CINO (Catholic in name only), because no practicing, believing Catholic would make the thoughtless statement that you did. And this is coming from a Catholic.
The whole point of his speech was that reason lies at the core of Christianity and should lie at the core of every religion. I reference you to the works of St. Thomas Aquinas. The fact that you do not believe in what he says does not mean he is lying. A lie is a deliberate falsehood. The person making it knows it is false when he utters it. The Pope, along with all Catholics, believes firmly in the faith of the Church as it was passed down by the Apostles. Finally, to say that you hope the muslims kill the Pope regardless of what you believe or don't believe, is a totally thoughless and hateful thing to say.
if only i had your help the 100 times i was explaining this last week. (and even already is this thread: hateful yes, thoughtless no. the pope is spreading a terrible message to the world. yes in the same way that white is black and up is down.
