The Big Big Thread of Religious Discussion

[ZAKtheGeek]

Originally Posted by I_Like_Swordchucks

The main mechanism of resistance, as far as I know yet I'm only finishing up my first year in the program, is either a loss or a dysfunctional form of that particular receptor. The drug, therefore, cannot bind, giving the organism a competitive advantage in the presence of the drug. Natural selection takes it courses, and much like the moths, eventually the drug-resistant phenotype outnumbers the wild-type. So we stop using the drug. And then what happens? Those receptors have a normal physiological role, and once the environmental pressure is no longer there, the drug-resistant phenotype becomes the disadvantages organism. Eventually, the population will swing back towards the wild-type. Perfect example? Malaria was commonly treated by quinine, but then switched to more efficacious synthetic drugs after resistance developed. Now, malaria is resistance to those synthetic drugs, but is once again sensitive to quinine. Again, its not really a progressive mutation.

Well, how do you define a progressive mutation, exactly? As I understand it, evolution is basically just a response to a changing environment (assuming the organism is doing well in its "default" environment to begin with). It has no true direction or forward or backward, higher or lower. You use one drug, that drug becomes an important new part of the parasite's environment, and the species changes. You take it away, and it's another environmental change, and the species changes again. Since the new environment is similar to the original one, the trait that "gains ground" happens to be the one that was around at the time. I imagine if you were to use both drugs equally you could get it to go to a third, different trait.

...yeah, seems kinda rambling. I really hope you see what I'm trying to get at.

[notasfatasmike]

Originally Posted by Archbio

*snip*

In rereading the post I responded to, and my post, and then your response to my post, I think we're arguing different things. My problem is with what I assumed the argument was: that is, that Nazism and more specifically Hitler's beliefs somehow *grew out of* or *are somehow based in* Christianity. In re-reading it, that's not what you're saying; it seems to me (please correct me if I'm wrong) that you're saying that the Nazis publically allied themselves with Christianity more than they did with atheism. This would be an indisputable fact.

I guess my strategy of "not reading what led up to Fifthfiend's comment" wasn't so hot after all, huh?

[Archbio]

notasfatasmike,

In rereading the post I responded to, and my post, and then your response to my post, I think we're arguing different things. My problem is with what I assumed the argument was: that is, that Nazism and more specifically Hitler's beliefs somehow *grew out of* or *are somehow based in* Christianity. In re-reading it, that's not what you're saying; it seems to me (please correct me if I'm wrong) that you're saying that the Nazis publically allied themselves with Christianity more than they did with atheism. This would be an indisputable fact.

On the one hand there was a misunderstanding and on the other we're going to have to agree to disagree on some things.

As for the former: following I_Like_Swordchuck's phrasing I was considering the religious status of "nazi Germany", whatever that means, and not the religious status of nazism. As an ideology that's not a religious movement, I would never have ventured to place nazism on the continuum of the evolution of religion, as an offshoot of christianity or of anything else.

As a country, nazi Germany's religious status is a very complicated affair, and I didn't stop to put sincerity into consideration: it was the material reality I was going for. So I threw everything in. By sheer demographic weight and by that fact that it didn't lose nazism much popular appear, christianity comes out ahead of anything else that can be considered a religion.

However, my official position on "nazi Germany" remains that it was a very religious affair, and very complicated in that regard.

Where we will have to agree to disagree is on the role of christianity in the formation of the nazi movements or the beliefs of nazi leaders. There's no vacuum around the movements or the leaders, and in these matters similarities count more than discontinuities. If an element present in christianity comes up in Hitler's beliefs, it's reasonable, to me, to assume a continuity. I've already cited where I think these similarities lay (with the exception of the very abrahamic cosmogony implied to lay at the base of nazi racial theory) in other posts.

In that sense, I can't agree that Hitler's (sincere) beliefs in particular and some of Nazi (cynical use of) Religion in general didn't grow out of christianity, altough that's not an exclusive relationship.

I'm not saying this to tar any abrahamic religion (altough I have little love for any them), except for the old christian antisemitism, which I hope not to encounter here.

[Darth SS]

Just an odd thought I had while sitting in school today.

We're always told "Jesus was human," and "God is understands everything."

I just realized something. If God's real, then that's complete bullshit.

Sure, Jesus walked around as a human. Here's the difference though.

He supposedly knew everything that was going to happen. If he saw someone dead, he could just revive them. Someone's sick? Heal them. Even his "grand sacrifice" loses some oomph when you think about it. He was willing to die to save every person in all time ever. Even more, he knew he was going to come back.

He wasn't human. He never knew doubt. He never knew despair. He never knew what it was like to see someone dying and know there's not a single thing you can do about it. He never knew what it was like to see someone dead, and witness the grief and realize that we are powerless. I mean, hell, he was supposedly perfect and sinned only once. Not us. We have to wrong people and face the harm we cause, something he never did. Even better, I'm sure any of us would be willing to die to save everyone in all time, especially if we knew we would come back.

Instead, he have people like Gary Gordon and Randy Shughart who were willing to go and face certain death, without coming back, simply so that one lone man can go home to his family. And they were told three times, "You don't have to do this, no one will think less of you if you don't do this."

This led me to this conclusion;

God is scared of us. He's scared of being us. All He's ever known is what's it's like to be the top dog, and has enjoyed things such as omniscience and omnipotence. He's never known what's it's like to not have those. He doesn't know what it is like to be insignifigant. Even his promise to become human was ultimately a farce, and he couldn't abandon those comforts.

[ZAKtheGeek]

Hmm, seems a bit contradictory. If God's all-knowing, it'd know what being insignificant would be like, in spite of the total lack of experience.

[Darth SS]

I'm thinking of knowing here in terms is experience.

Going with the earlier roller-coasted analogy, he watches everything, but he doesn't know what it's like to be on the roller coaster.

[Archbio]

He never knew doubt. He never knew despair.

Not to defend the coherence of Jesus' story, or anything, but I think there's at least one counter-example to that.

I think a better question might be, altough it's far from novel: if Jesus and God are both real, is Jesus really God incarnate?

[Death by Stabbing]

Jesus knew doubt...When he prayed in the Garden to not be killed

And dispair when his friend Lazarus died.

And since he's God and can bring people back from the dead if he wants it didn't last long but he was human the shortest verse in the entire Bible is "Jesus wept"


Personally...and for the atheists out there you can be as pissed off at me as you want...but I can't see how you can't not believe in something...I tried at two points in my life to abandon my Catholic upbringing and failed both times...I never fully got back in to the Church and sort of formed my own belief system by sort of combining parts of Catholosisam and Buddisam...but in any case I just can't see not believing in something...atheisam isn't believing in anything and so it just doesn't make sence...I mean some Atheists say they believe in what science has to say and that's fine...but that's not Atheisam. Atheisam is the absence of belief of anything.

So that doesn't really make sense to me.

Love,
Death By Stabbing

[Demetrius]

The Jesus God duality, well actually tri-ality (nyuck nyuck!), is what is refered to as 'The Trinity'; God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. That is a whole nother discussion, and very confusing.

[ZAKtheGeek]

What is the holy ghost supposed to be, exactly? I've never known that...

And atheism is lack of belief in deities, not lack of belief in anything at all. Technically, even stating something like kinetic energy of an object is equal to half the mass of the object times the square of its velocity as a fact is a statement of a belief taken on faith, since such a thing can never be completely proven.