If God did not exist

[Capstone]

Tripe, no matter how many times you delete it and repost it.

Someone has no sense of humor.

But my, what a thorough refutation on your part, Koshergrl.

I guess I should tuck tail and run away now, eh.

 

[koshergrl]

The evolution of the ethical sensibilities of mankind worldwide is directly attributable to the evolution of Christianity and, to a lesser degree, other religions. In the western world, hospitals, schools, the concept of liberty and justice, all the greatest endeavors and the most amazing works of art and literature have sprung into existence and taken root as a result of people striving to represent God on earth or to follow the teachings of the bible.

The great minds since the beginning of time have been primarily motivated by their faith and their desire to do great works in the name of God, and the greatest institutions and humanitarian movements all have God and the Word as their foundation.

You can blather your silly, arrogant and meaningless blather all you like, but at the end of the day, there's the crap you're trying to sell..and then there's the truth.

 

[Capstone]

lol @ the evolution of modern ethical sensibilities. I grew up with no locks on our doors. Try that now.

Still, at least we needn't worry about being drawn and quartered on allegations of heresy.

 

[Chuckt]

lol @ the evolution of modern ethical sensibilities. I grew up with no locks on our doors. Try that now.

Still, at least we needn't worry about being drawn and quartered on allegations of heresy.

The cases of people sacked probably have more to do with the quality of their work then anything else. Thinking about ID should not be prohibited. lets try formulate testable hypotheses and come up with a prediction of what we should find when we assume ID.
Aside from normal petty politics that effect everyone there is no conspiracy in science against the threat of an ID theory.

 

[PoliticalChic]

The whole of cristianity is based on a cynical and archaic system of rewards and punishments.

...without which there can be no morality.....merely opinions.

Strange then, how the evolution of modern ethical sensibilities has apparently occurred in spite of "the inerrant Word of God". In fact, given the potential biblical justifiability of so many things considered morally reprehensible today (E.G. genocide, infanticide, rape, pillaging, slavery, human sacrifice, cannibalism, polygamy, adultery, the subjugation of women, and so on...), it's astounding that predominantly Christian cultures EVER managed to advance beyond the ethics of the dark and middle ages. To imply that all historical paradigms of Christian morality have shared an objective set of guidelines is to ignore the contradictory nature of widely promoted behaviors among Christians of different eras.

As an example of moral relativism in the scriptures (one of many), consider the quandary of David's wives and neighbor:

(2 Samuel 12:11-12) 11Thus says the LORD: I will raise up trouble against you from within your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your neighbour, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this very sun. 12For you did it secretly; but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun.' [emphasis mine]

Of course, I realize your God was upset, but I wonder of the message sent by using the sin of adultery (an act clearly condemned in the Ten Commandments) as a method of punishment?! Doesn't this imply that we're expected to follow a modified version of the adage: "Do as I say; not as I do."? At least as far as David's wives and neighbor were concerned, it was apparently: "Do as I say 'til I say to do otherwise."! I suppose Christians should hope and pray for subjective discernment in the face of temptation. I mean, whose to say whether that 'still small voice' encouraging sinfulness in the heads of believers is that of God or Satan?!

"....modern ethical sensibilities ...."

Do I assume correctly, then, that you endorse the moral relativism of the postmodern era?

 

[PoliticalChic]

The whole of cristianity is based on a cynical and archaic system of rewards and punishments.

...without which there can be no morality.....merely opinions.

Are you saying morality should be based on rewards and punishments?

Doesn't that relegate humanity to the station of Pavlov's dogs?

1. What makes men good? Certainly they are not good by nature. In fact, frequently, the contrary. Does science have an opinion? Well, "Perhaps," Richard Dawkins speculates, "I... am a Pollyanna to believe that people would remain good when unobserved and unpoliced by God."
Why should people remain good when unobserved and unpoliced by God? - Yahoo! Answers
Why, then, the need for criminal law?


2. If we take the good and bad at the extremes, I'll call James Madison as my first witness. He wrote the following in Federalist #51:
“If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary... A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.” So, the checks and balances are needed because folks are not....'good.' At least, not angels.

a. “52 of the 56 signers of the declaration and 50 to 52 of the 55 signers of the Constitution were orthodox Trinitarian Christians.” David Limbaugh

3. Can a human being be good without reference to God? Sure….there could be good pagans….or bad religious folks. But God is necessary for morality to survive. Take as an example, a sadist who gets satisfaction from murdering children. If there is no God who declares that such an act is wrong, then my arguing such is simply my opinion versus that of the murderer. Without God, good and evil are a matter of taste.

 

[PoliticalChic]

lol @ the evolution of modern ethical sensibilities. I grew up with no locks on our doors. Try that now.

Still, at least we needn't worry about being drawn and quartered on allegations of heresy.

Not true.

The modern version:

1. The following details the fate of any scientist who dares to buck the orthodoxy.

a. “ Richard Sternberg, a research associate at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington. The holder of two Ph.D.s in biology, Mr. Sternberg was until recently the managing editor of a nominally independent journal published at the museum, Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, where he exercised final editorial authority. The August issue …included an atypical article, "The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories." Here was trouble.

b. …the first peer-reviewed article to appear in a technical biology journal laying out the evidential case for Intelligent Design. According to ID theory, certain features of living organisms …are better explained by an unspecified designing intelligence than by an undirected natural process like random mutation and natural selection.

c. Mr. Sternberg's … future as a researcher is in jeopardy …He has been penalized by the museum's Department of Zoology, his religious and political beliefs questioned…. "I'm spending my time trying to figure out how to salvage a scientific career."

d. Stephen Meyer, who holds a Cambridge University doctorate in the philosophy of biology. In the article, he cites biologists and paleontologists critical of certain aspects of Darwinism -- mainstream scientists at places like the University of Chicago, Yale, Cambridge and Oxford.

e. He points, for example, to the Cambrian explosion 530 million years ago, when between 19 and 34 animal phyla (body plans) sprang into existence. He argues that, relying on only the Darwinian mechanism, there was not enough time for the necessary genetic "information" to be generated. ID, he believes, offers a better explanation.

f. …it was indeed subject to peer review, the gold standard of academic science. Not that such review saved Mr. Sternberg from infamy. Soon after the article appeared, Hans Sues -- the museum's No. 2 senior scientist -- denounced it to colleagues and then sent a widely forwarded e-mail calling it "unscientific garbage." the chairman of the Zoology Department, Jonathan Coddington, called Mr. Sternberg's supervisor. According to Mr. Sternberg's OSC complaint: "First, he asked whether Sternberg was a religious fundamentalist. She told him no. Coddington then asked if Sternberg was affiliated with or belonged to any religious organization....He then asked where Sternberg stood politically; ...he asked, 'Is he a right-winger? What is his political affiliation?'" The supervisor (who did not return my phone messages) recounted the conversation to Mr. Sternberg, who also quotes her observing: "There are Christians here, but they keep their heads down."
[Fascism in action!]

g. Worries about being perceived as "religious" spread at the museum. One curator, who generally confirmed the conversation when I spoke to him, told Mr. Sternberg about a gathering where he offered a Jewish prayer for a colleague about to retire. The curator fretted: "So now they're going to think that I'm a religious person, and that's not a good thing at the museum."

h. The Biological Society of Washington released a vaguely ecclesiastical statement regretting its association with the article. It did not address its arguments but denied its orthodoxy, citing a resolution of the American Association for the Advancement of Science that defined ID as, by its very nature, unscientific.

i. Critics of ID have long argued that the theory was unscientific because it had not been put forward in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Now that it has, they argue that it shouldn't have been because it's unscientific. They banish certain ideas from certain venues as if by holy writ, and brand heretics too. In any case, the heretic here is Mr. Meyer, a fellow at Seattle's Discovery Institute, not Mr. Sternberg, who isn't himself an advocate of Intelligent Design.

j. Darwinism, by contrast, is an essential ingredient in secularism, that aggressive, quasi-religious faith without a deity. The Sternberg case seems, in many ways, an instance of one religion persecuting a rival, demanding loyalty from anyone who enters one of its churches -- like the National Museum of Natural History.” The Branding of a Heretic - WSJ.com





Amusing how the title of the WSJ's article smashes your post.....




An echo of what Berlinski writes in "The Devil's Delusion,"...

'So, it seems that in our time, much of science is involved in an attack on traditional religious thought, and rational men and women must place their faith, and devotion, in this system of belief. And, like any militant church, science places a familiar demand before all others:
“Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”'

 

[Capstone]

The evolution of the ethical sensibilities of mankind worldwide is directly attributable to the evolution of Christianity and, to a lesser degree, other religions. [...]

But if its basis were truly objective (in other words: not subject to the sort of "opinions" derided by Political Chic) why should Christian morality have been driven to evolve in the first place?

To illustrate my point, today there are numerous international laws concerning the ethics of war, and more specifically, the treatment of captured enemy combatants and civilians; but this is the sort of thing we find littering the pages of Christian holy writ:

3 ["]Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy[a] all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’”

More here, here, here, here, ETC, ETC, ETC...(there are others, but I don't have all day)

And the phenomenon is by no means limited to the ethics of war.

The fact that theologians have been forced to invent a buttload of extra-biblical modes of exegesis ...and to write volumes upon volumes of apologetic manuals, all in order to paint the god-sanctioned atrocities of the scriptures in the best possible light (with the unintended consequence of multiple denominations with opposing views of 'The Word'), only shores up the notion that the Bible is practically useless as an objective source for anything.

[. . .]In the western world, hospitals, schools, the concept of liberty and justice, all the greatest endeavors and the most amazing works of art and literature have sprung into existence and taken root as a result of people striving to represent God on earth or to follow the teachings of the bible.

The general development of all triumphs of the human spirit over faith-based oppression (often via Church-directed policies to retard ANY work or discovery that might've remotely called into question the doctrines and authorities of the churches--I'm not talking only about the Catholics) ...is just that: a triumph of the HUMAN spirit.

[. . .]The great minds since the beginning of time have been primarily motivated by their faith and their desire to do great works in the name of God, and the greatest institutions and humanitarian movements all have God and the Word as their foundation.

Of course your christ-colored glasses disallow you to see the truths expressed very conservatively here, here, and here.

[. . .]You can blather your silly, arrogant and meaningless blather all you like, but at the end of the day, there's the crap you're trying to sell..and then there's the truth.

And you can ((blaaaather)) on sheep-like in the face of historical facts 'til the cows come home; it won't change the truth regarding the nature of the basis for Christian ethics -- namely that it's a pile of subjective bullshit.

 

[koshergrl]

Really. Tell me which of the first great halls of learning were funded and established by atheists.

Share with us how the Magna Carta is an atheist document. Please.

Tell me how atheists freed the slaves, and lobbied for equal rights for all people, and how many atheists spent time in prison protesting the conditions and the practice of jailing entire families.

I'll wait.

 

[Steven_R]

lol @ the evolution of modern ethical sensibilities. I grew up with no locks on our doors. Try that now.

Still, at least we needn't worry about being drawn and quartered on allegations of heresy.

The cases of people sacked probably have more to do with the quality of their work then anything else. Thinking about ID should not be prohibited. lets try formulate testable hypotheses and come up with a prediction of what we should find when we assume ID.
Aside from normal petty politics that effect everyone there is no conspiracy in science against the threat of an ID theory.

Nobody is being denied the opportunity to do work with Intelligent Design, provided it goes through the same scientific process as everything else. The problem is it isn't going through those processes and the IDers complain when science doesn't take them seriously. How can science take ID seriously when ID doesn't take the scientific steps? The work that has been done by ID has repeatedly been disproven by science in the professional level (e.g. Behe and his Irreducible Complexity argument), but the overwhelming ID arguments don't take place in a lab, but in the court of public opinion, a place where laymen who have no idea of what the science means somehow are qualified to judge the science.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Still, at least we needn't worry about being drawn and quartered on allegations of heresy.

The cases of people sacked probably have more to do with the quality of their work then anything else. Thinking about ID should not be prohibited. lets try formulate testable hypotheses and come up with a prediction of what we should find when we assume ID.
Aside from normal petty politics that effect everyone there is no conspiracy in science against the threat of an ID theory.

Nobody is being denied the opportunity to do work with Intelligent Design, provided it goes through the same scientific process as everything else. The problem is it isn't going through those processes and the IDers complain when science doesn't take them seriously. How can science take ID seriously when ID doesn't take the scientific steps? The work that has been done by ID has repeatedly been disproven by science in the professional level (e.g. Behe and his Irreducible Complexity argument), but the overwhelming ID arguments don't take place in a lab, but in the court of public opinion, a place where laymen who have no idea of what the science means somehow are qualified to judge the science.

Of course, your post is untrue.....you seem to make a habit of that mode.

Note post #247....and even peer reviewed.

 

[orogenicman]

Really. Tell me which of the first great halls of learning were funded and established by atheists.

Share with us how the Magna Carta is an atheist document. Please.[/quote]

What does the Magna Carta have to do with this discussion?

Tell me how atheists freed the slaves, and lobbied for equal rights for all people, and how many atheists spent time in prison protesting the conditions and the practice of jailing entire families.

I'll wait.

While you are waiting, perhaps you can compare and contrast the number of religious folk who are sitting in our jails compared to the number of atheists doing the same.

I'll wait.

 

[orogenicman]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqNPlwLwIP8

Nobody is being denied the opportunity to do work with Intelligent Design, provided it goes through the same scientific process as everything else. The problem is it isn't going through those processes and the IDers complain when science doesn't take them seriously. How can science take ID seriously when ID doesn't take the scientific steps? The work that has been done by ID has repeatedly been disproven by science in the professional level (e.g. Behe and his Irreducible Complexity argument), but the overwhelming ID arguments don't take place in a lab, but in the court of public opinion, a place where laymen who have no idea of what the science means somehow are qualified to judge the science.

Of course, your post is untrue.....you seem to make a habit of that mode.

Note post #247....and even peer reviewed.

Repeatedly quoting people out of context after it has been shown repeatedly that they are taken out of context is the epitome of dishonesty. And PC, post #247 is not peer reviewed. It's a post on a message board, not a peer reviewed paper published in a professional publication. By the way, Berlinsk is a retard. By his own admission, he treats the truth like he treats his ex-wives. You didn't know this? Huh.

 

[Steven_R]

The modern version:

1. The following details the fate of any scientist who dares to buck the orthodoxy.

a. “ Richard Sternberg, a research associate at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington. The holder of two Ph.D.s in biology, Mr. Sternberg was until recently the managing editor of a nominally independent journal published at the museum, Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, where he exercised final editorial authority. The August issue …included an atypical article, "The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories." Here was trouble.

b. …the first peer-reviewed article to appear in a technical biology journal laying out the evidential case for Intelligent Design. According to ID theory, certain features of living organisms …are better explained by an unspecified designing intelligence than by an undirected natural process like random mutation and natural selection.

c. Mr. Sternberg's … future as a researcher is in jeopardy …He has been penalized by the museum's Department of Zoology, his religious and political beliefs questioned…. "I'm spending my time trying to figure out how to salvage a scientific career."

Sternberg's claim to fame was using his position as editor of the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington to jam through a pro-ID paper. His career is in tatters because he bypassed the established editorial process. In short, he took the peer out of peer-review and was fired for it. That paper was never peer-reviewed because the journal editor, Sternberg, never sent it to the referees. It had nothing to do with his religious or political beliefs and everything to do with professional misconduct. http://www.biolsocwash.org/id_statement.html

There's an online blog called Retraction Watch. Check it out. What Sternberg did is a major no-no in the scientific world.

d. Stephen Meyer, who holds a Cambridge University doctorate in the philosophy of biology.

Actually, no he doesn't. He holds a PhD from Cambridge in the history and philosophy of science. Stephen C. Meyer - Biography

In the article, he cites biologists and paleontologists critical of certain aspects of Darwinism -- mainstream scientists at places like the University of Chicago, Yale, Cambridge and Oxford.

e. He points, for example, to the Cambrian explosion 530 million years ago, when between 19 and 34 animal phyla (body plans) sprang into existence. He argues that, relying on only the Darwinian mechanism, there was not enough time for the necessary genetic "information" to be generated. ID, he believes, offers a better explanation.

f. …it was indeed subject to peer review, the gold standard of academic science. Not that such review saved Mr. Sternberg from infamy. Soon after the article appeared, Hans Sues -- the museum's No. 2 senior scientist -- denounced it to colleagues and then sent a widely forwarded e-mail calling it "unscientific garbage." the chairman of the Zoology Department, Jonathan Coddington, called Mr. Sternberg's supervisor. According to Mr. Sternberg's OSC complaint: "First, he asked whether Sternberg was a religious fundamentalist. She told him no. Coddington then asked if Sternberg was affiliated with or belonged to any religious organization....He then asked where Sternberg stood politically; ...he asked, 'Is he a right-winger? What is his political affiliation?'" The supervisor (who did not return my phone messages) recounted the conversation to Mr. Sternberg, who also quotes her observing: "There are Christians here, but they keep their heads down."
[Fascism in action!]

g. Worries about being perceived as "religious" spread at the museum. One curator, who generally confirmed the conversation when I spoke to him, told Mr. Sternberg about a gathering where he offered a Jewish prayer for a colleague about to retire. The curator fretted: "So now they're going to think that I'm a religious person, and that's not a good thing at the museum."

h. The Biological Society of Washington released a vaguely ecclesiastical statement regretting its association with the article. It did not address its arguments but denied its orthodoxy, citing a resolution of the American Association for the Advancement of Science that defined ID as, by its very nature, unscientific.

i. Critics of ID have long argued that the theory was unscientific because it had not been put forward in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Now that it has, they argue that it shouldn't have been because it's unscientific. They banish certain ideas from certain venues as if by holy writ, and brand heretics too. In any case, the heretic here is Mr. Meyer, a fellow at Seattle's Discovery Institute, not Mr. Sternberg, who isn't himself an advocate of Intelligent Design.

j. Darwinism, by contrast, is an essential ingredient in secularism, that aggressive, quasi-religious faith without a deity. The Sternberg case seems, in many ways, an instance of one religion persecuting a rival, demanding loyalty from anyone who enters one of its churches -- like the National Museum of Natural History.” The Branding of a Heretic - WSJ.com





Amusing how the title of the WSJ's article smashes your post.....




An echo of what Berlinski writes in "The Devil's Delusion,"...

'So, it seems that in our time, much of science is involved in an attack on traditional religious thought, and rational men and women must place their faith, and devotion, in this system of belief. And, like any militant church, science places a familiar demand before all others:
“Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”'

First off, Meyer isn't a biologist. His expertise, such as it is, is in the philosophy of science. He is not qualified to judge the work of biologists. Even if he were, his books are chockfull of cherry picked statements and regurgitated bits and pieces of information.

Secondly, the entire point is that somehow Sternberg was fired for his religious beliefs and his ID ideas. Unfortunately, the US Office of Special Counsel thinks otherwise and dismissed Sternberg's claims. http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/pdfs/2005_08_05_OSC-Sternberg-preclosure-ltr.pdf

Note on Page 5 of that letter that both the Smithsonian Institution and the NCSE both agreed to let Sternberg continue on with his nonsense so as to not make him into a martyr.

 

[AVG-JOE]

How can you make such a statement with millions arrested and incarcerated in American prisons alone? Man absolutely has to be restrained by fear of punishment, we as a society obviously have recognized that and have established our entire society around that concept. We even have the notion of redemption in serving your time and being allowed back into society once that's accomplished. So why is that notion any different when applied to the concept of human life not being the only existance or the only stage of existance? Because that's the only one you're capable of partially understanding?

So how do you determine whose morals and ethics are correct? Majority rules? Are humans born with a sense of 'right' and 'wrong', with the same understanding and definitions of those two concepts?

Exactly!!


This is why Civil Law needs to accommodate ALL religions and beliefs, and why Civil Law must trump every Religious Law, whenever the two conflict.

`​

No doubt, Joey, you have the Common Law in mind.

In 530 a second commission led by Tribonian had the objective of revising the way lawyers were educated. Fifteen centuries later, the Codex still exerts its influence on Europe and is known as the Civil Law tradition. The Inquisition, Renaissance, the Napoleonic Code, and the Holocaust are all, in part, an outgrowth of the lex regia: “The will of the prince has the force of law.”( Quod principi placuit, legis haget vigorem)

Today, European law gives preeminence to legislatures, the institution that drafted the statute prevails.

In Anglo-American Common Law tradition, the institution that interprets and adjudicates the statute has the final word. Due to the absence of a jury, and the deference to whomever writes the laws, Civil Law tradition is friendlier to tyrannical regimes than the Common Law tradition. Under Justinians’ code the emperor is named nomos empsychos, “law incarnate.”
"Justinian's Flea," Wm. Rosen





Then, of course, there is the origin of law, itself.


The Bible is the wisdom of the West. It is from the precepts of the Bible that the legal systems of the West have been developed- systems, worked out over millennia, for dealing with inequality, with injustice, with greed, reducible t that which Christians call the Golden Rule, and the Jews had propounded as “That which is hateful to you, don not do to your neighbor.” It is these rules and laws which form a framework which allows the individual foreknowledge of that which is permitted and that which is forbidden.
Mamet, "The Secret Knowledge"

I've never said that the writings that coalesced in to the Torah, New Testament and Koran were worthless. I just don't see any of them as infallible or divine.

Wisdom is only wisdom if it is built upon. Anything less is stagnation.

 

[Ropey]

Exactly!!


This is why Civil Law needs to accommodate ALL religions and beliefs, and why Civil Law must trump every Religious Law, whenever the two conflict.

`​

No doubt, Joey, you have the Common Law in mind.

In 530 a second commission led by Tribonian had the objective of revising the way lawyers were educated. Fifteen centuries later, the Codex still exerts its influence on Europe and is known as the Civil Law tradition. The Inquisition, Renaissance, the Napoleonic Code, and the Holocaust are all, in part, an outgrowth of the lex regia: “The will of the prince has the force of law.”( Quod principi placuit, legis haget vigorem)

Today, European law gives preeminence to legislatures, the institution that drafted the statute prevails.

In Anglo-American Common Law tradition, the institution that interprets and adjudicates the statute has the final word. Due to the absence of a jury, and the deference to whomever writes the laws, Civil Law tradition is friendlier to tyrannical regimes than the Common Law tradition. Under Justinians’ code the emperor is named nomos empsychos, “law incarnate.”
"Justinian's Flea," Wm. Rosen

Then, of course, there is the origin of law, itself.


The Bible is the wisdom of the West. It is from the precepts of the Bible that the legal systems of the West have been developed- systems, worked out over millennia, for dealing with inequality, with injustice, with greed, reducible t that which Christians call the Golden Rule, and the Jews had propounded as “That which is hateful to you, don not do to your neighbor.” It is these rules and laws which form a framework which allows the individual foreknowledge of that which is permitted and that which is forbidden.
Mamet, "The Secret Knowledge"

I've never said that the writings that coalesced in to the Torah, New Testament and Koran were worthless. I just don't see any of them as infallible or divine.

Wisdom is only wisdom if it is built upon. Anything less is stagnation.

I tend to disagree although one can extend the understanding of wisdom. One can summarize it and clarify it but the kernel of wisdom is unchanged. Why? It's beyond humanity. It's more than life.

Wisdom is without qualification. Anything less devalues it's inherent immortality.

 

[orogenicman]

No doubt, Joey, you have the Common Law in mind.

In 530 a second commission led by Tribonian had the objective of revising the way lawyers were educated. Fifteen centuries later, the Codex still exerts its influence on Europe and is known as the Civil Law tradition. The Inquisition, Renaissance, the Napoleonic Code, and the Holocaust are all, in part, an outgrowth of the lex regia: “The will of the prince has the force of law.”( Quod principi placuit, legis haget vigorem)

Today, European law gives preeminence to legislatures, the institution that drafted the statute prevails.

In Anglo-American Common Law tradition, the institution that interprets and adjudicates the statute has the final word. Due to the absence of a jury, and the deference to whomever writes the laws, Civil Law tradition is friendlier to tyrannical regimes than the Common Law tradition. Under Justinians’ code the emperor is named nomos empsychos, “law incarnate.”
"Justinian's Flea," Wm. Rosen

Then, of course, there is the origin of law, itself.


The Bible is the wisdom of the West. It is from the precepts of the Bible that the legal systems of the West have been developed- systems, worked out over millennia, for dealing with inequality, with injustice, with greed, reducible t that which Christians call the Golden Rule, and the Jews had propounded as “That which is hateful to you, don not do to your neighbor.” It is these rules and laws which form a framework which allows the individual foreknowledge of that which is permitted and that which is forbidden.
Mamet, "The Secret Knowledge"

I've never said that the writings that coalesced in to the Torah, New Testament and Koran were worthless. I just don't see any of them as infallible or divine.

Wisdom is only wisdom if it is built upon. Anything less is stagnation.

I tend to disagree although one can extend the understanding of wisdom. One can summarize it and clarify it but the kernel of wisdom is unchanged. Why? It's beyond humanity. It's more than life.

Wisdom is without qualification. Anything less devalues it's inherent immortality.

The problem with the notion of wisdom being without qualification or inherently immortal is that it ignores the notion that wisdom can change as more knowledge and experience is obtained. For instance, in the face of everything that has been achieved in the past 100 years, how wise would it be to cling to the belief that man cannot fly?

 

[Ropey]

I've never said that the writings that coalesced in to the Torah, New Testament and Koran were worthless. I just don't see any of them as infallible or divine.

Wisdom is only wisdom if it is built upon. Anything less is stagnation.

I tend to disagree although one can extend the understanding of wisdom. One can summarize it and clarify it but the kernel of wisdom is unchanged. Why? It's beyond humanity. It's more than life.

Wisdom is without qualification. Anything less devalues it's inherent immortality.

The problem with the notion of wisdom being without qualification or inherently immortal is that it ignores the notion that wisdom can change as more knowledge and experience is obtained. For instance, in the face of everything that has been achieved in the past 100 years, how wise would it be to cling to the belief that man cannot fly?

imo?

Truth like wisdom is unchangeable.

Only the interpretations change. The interpretations are incomplete portions of wisdom, then.

 

[orogenicman]

I tend to disagree although one can extend the understanding of wisdom. One can summarize it and clarify it but the kernel of wisdom is unchanged. Why? It's beyond humanity. It's more than life.

Wisdom is without qualification. Anything less devalues it's inherent immortality.

The problem with the notion of wisdom being without qualification or inherently immortal is that it ignores the notion that wisdom can change as more knowledge and experience is obtained. For instance, in the face of everything that has been achieved in the past 100 years, how wise would it be to cling to the belief that man cannot fly?

imo?

Truth like wisdom is unchangeable.

Only the interpretations change. The interpretations are incomplete portions of wisdom, then.

Who's truth? Who's wisdom? Who decides what is true and wise and what is not?

 

[Ropey]

The problem with the notion of wisdom being without qualification or inherently immortal is that it ignores the notion that wisdom can change as more knowledge and experience is obtained. For instance, in the face of everything that has been achieved in the past 100 years, how wise would it be to cling to the belief that man cannot fly?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8L8UCfxmtSw

imo?

Truth like wisdom is unchangeable.

Only the interpretations change. The interpretations are incomplete portions of wisdom, then.

Who's truth? Who's wisdom? Who decides what is true and wise and what is not?

imo?

If it becomes a person's truth, then it becomes interpretation of the truth. The same with wisdom.

Truth and wisdom just are and have no ownership. There's more to them than interpretations.

Some people want to own the interpretation as though they have found the wisdom. But since the interpretations of man can change, it is a failed ownership of something that has no owner.