God vs no God

[Rico]

The so-called persecution of Galileo is a favorite atheist myth that has been debunked long ago.

http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2011/09/the-myth-of-galileo-a-story-with-a-mostly-valuable-lesson-for-today/

[thesometimesaint]

13 minutes ago, Rico said:

The so-called persecution of Galileo is a favorite atheist myth that has been debunked long ago.

http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2011/09/the-myth-of-galileo-a-story-with-a-mostly-valuable-lesson-for-today/

I'm not an atheist. It took only some 400 years for the Catholic church to apologize to Galileo.

SEE . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affair

[Rico]

There was no reason for the Catholic Church to apologize.  From your own quoted source:

"The Church at the time of Galileo kept much more closely to reason than did Galileo himself, and she took into consideration the ethical and social consequences of Galileo's teaching too. Her verdict against Galileo was rational and just, and the revision of this verdict can be justified only on the grounds of what is politically opportune."

That was Cardinal Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI in a speech given in Feb 19, 1990.

Again from your own source, this is how Galileo was "punished":  "After a period with the friendly Archbishop Piccolomini in Siena, Galileo was allowed to return to his villa at Arcetri near Florence, where he spent the rest of his life under house arrest."  He lived in a villa.  This was the era of the Inquisition.

What then should the Catholic Church apologize for?

 

[theplains]

14 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Tell him that we humans are of the genus and species of God, that we are gods in embryo.

Is there an LDS reference that depicts when a being (like you and Heavenly Father for example) 
became a god in an embryonic state?

Thanks,
Jim

[Gray]

11 minutes ago, Rico said:

There was no reason for the Catholic Church to apologize.  From your own quoted source:

"The Church at the time of Galileo kept much more closely to reason than did Galileo himself, and she took into consideration the ethical and social consequences of Galileo's teaching too. Her verdict against Galileo was rational and just, and the revision of this verdict can be justified only on the grounds of what is politically opportune."

That was Cardinal Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI in a speech given in Feb 19, 1990.

Again from your own source, this is how Galileo was "punished":  "After a period with the friendly Archbishop Piccolomini in Siena, Galileo was allowed to return to his villa at Arcetri near Florence, where he spent the rest of his life under house arrest."  He lived in a villa.  This was the era of the Inquisition.

What then should the Catholic Church apologize for?

 

Wrongful arrest and detention?

Edited April 27, 2016 by Gray

[Rico]

Where is your proof he was wrongfully arrested and detained?

[Gray]

7 minutes ago, Rico said:

Where is your proof he was wrongfully arrested and detained?

Well, it's my assertion and opinion that it's wrong to arrest and detain someone for giving accurate scientific information. Perhaps you disagree, but that's an odd hill to die on. 

[Rico]

Quote

Gray:  Well, it's my assertion and opinion that it's wrong to arrest and detain someone for giving accurate scientific information. Perhaps you disagree, but that's an odd hill to die on.

Gray,

Thou shall not bear false witness is a sin.  The Catholic Church did not do what you are trying to imply.  In the first place, the Catholic Church invented Science as we know it.  The Galileo Affair has been used by many to beat the Catholic Church.  But in so doing, they betray their gross ignorance.  It's all myth and propaganda spread since the so-called Age of Enlightenment.  The more informed atheists do not rehash this anymore.  Just fyi.

[Gray]

7 minutes ago, Rico said:

Gray,

Thou shall not bear false witness is a sin.  The Catholic Church did not do what you are trying to imply.  In the first place, the Catholic Church invented Science as we know it.  The Galileo Affair has been used by many to beat the Catholic Church.  But in so doing, they betray their gross ignorance.  It's all myth and propaganda spread since the so-called Age of Enlightenment.  The more informed atheists do not rehash this anymore.  Just fyi.

That's interesting, I didn't know the Catholic Church invented science. Tell me more!

Was Galileo arrested by the Catholic Bureau of Scientific Affairs for speaking out of turn? 

It might interest you to know, however, that the LDS Church invented television. So morally, we win. Just saying. 

[thesometimesaint]

50 minutes ago, Rico said:

There was no reason for the Catholic Church to apologize.  From your own quoted source:

"The Church at the time of Galileo kept much more closely to reason than did Galileo himself, and she took into consideration the ethical and social consequences of Galileo's teaching too. Her verdict against Galileo was rational and just, and the revision of this verdict can be justified only on the grounds of what is politically opportune."

That was Cardinal Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI in a speech given in Feb 19, 1990.

Again from your own source, this is how Galileo was "punished":  "After a period with the friendly Archbishop Piccolomini in Siena, Galileo was allowed to return to his villa at Arcetri near Florence, where he spent the rest of his life under house arrest."  He lived in a villa.  This was the era of the Inquisition.

What then should the Catholic Church apologize for?

 

The ethical and social consequences of being right a heliocentric solar system. Heavens forbid.

So?

He was forced under threat of torture to recant heliocentrism. His villa was his property from which he could never leave or have guests except his daughter.

For the forced under threat of torture to recant.

 

[thesometimesaint]

21 minutes ago, Rico said:

Gray,

Thou shall not bear false witness is a sin.  The Catholic Church did not do what you are trying to imply.  In the first place, the Catholic Church invented Science as we know it.  The Galileo Affair has been used by many to beat the Catholic Church.  But in so doing, they betray their gross ignorance.  It's all myth and propaganda spread since the so-called Age of Enlightenment.  The more informed atheists do not rehash this anymore.  Just fyi.

The Catholic church did not invent science as we know it. Science as we know it, was a product of The Enlightenment.

SEE

Here you are living in the 21st Century using the most scientifically advanced machine ever invented by man, trying to deny the accomplishments of science.

There is more than just Galileo. Do you really think Galileo wasn't aware of what happened to these people.

SEE Bruno https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno

SEE Copernicus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolaus_Copernicus

 

[Ahab]

17 hours ago, The Nehor said:

You are not going to win taking that approach. God has not provided shareable proof of his existence yet.

I'm talking about family history.   Seeing how it all works going back as far as anyone can imagine.  It all works the same way. All the way back to Adam and Eve, and even further back to their parents.  No good reason to suppose or imagine that it happens in any other way.  And a scientist should be able to see it all as repeatable evidence.   As long as the scientist is capable of receiving that intelligent thought.  The obviousness of it should slap anyone upside of the head.

[thesometimesaint]

7 minutes ago, Ahab said:

I'm talking about family history.   Seeing how it all works going back as far as anyone can imagine.  It all works the same way. All the way back to Adam and Eve, and even further back to their parents.  No good reason to suppose or imagine that it happens in any other way.  And a scientist should be able to see it all as repeatable evidence.   As long as the scientist is capable of receiving that intelligent thought.  The obviousness of it should slap anyone upside of the head.

According to Scripture dirt is the parent of Adam, and Adam's rib is the parent of Eve. Some awfully weird biology going on there. 

[mfbukowski]

On 4/26/2016 at 11:27 AM, Ahab said:

The more I think about it the more I think that the reason atheists do not believe in God is that they just do not know what God really is.  And I do mean what, rather than who.

To not believe in God is basically the same thing to me as to not believe in the kind of being we are, and at the least everyone should be able to believe that we exist.

So what recommendations do you have for helping someone to believe in God?  Say someone for example who identifies himself as a secular humanist and thinks that anybody in any religion that believes in God is a brainwashed fricken idiot!  (My cousin actually used the even more crude translation of fricken but I think you can still get his point).

Do you think it would help more to explain what the word God means or to try to not use that word at all when someone doesn't know what God is?

If you choose to respond on this thread please make short pithy comments as much as possible rather than essay-ish posts.  My cousin seems to have a very short attention span and I'm going to try to use your recommendations to try to help him.

 

Tell him that God is the ideal, perfect, human being.

All the best things you can imagine about humanity in one Being.  Yes we believe he is a person, but maybe he could see him as an "Idea" for the Ideal Human at first.

[Ahab]

17 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Tell him that we humans are of the genus and species of God, that we are gods in embryo.

That's basically what I told him.  I have a post on my Facebook page that starts out "God - what or who is it?" and then I elaborate with a lot of details, one point being that God is the most supreme kind of being in all of existence, and another point being that God is more than one person, and another point being that God is a word we commonly use to refer to our Father "who art in heaven", and another point being that everyone on this planet is a child of our Father in heaven and as such we are all the same kind of being he is, and then I make some other points too.

And then my cousin responded with a few of his typical responses, one of which was "brainwashed fricken idiot!" (except that he used a cruder translation of the word frickin)

I hope that gives you a better idea of the type of mentality I am dealing with here, and this from a cousin I palled (I think that's a word) around with until we were in our late 20's, him just a year younger than me.

[Ahab]

3 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Tell him that God is the ideal, perfect, human being.

All the best things you can imagine about humanity in one Being.  Yes we believe he is a person, but maybe he could see him as an "Idea" for the Ideal Human at first.

Yes, thank you. That's the direction I'm heading I think. 

[mfbukowski]

On 4/26/2016 at 11:51 AM, Gray said:

Most atheists who reject belief in God are reacting to the mainstream idea about God - the being who set the universe in motion, who is timeless, all powerful, the first cause of all existence, etc. 

The LDS concept of God is of course quite different. God is an exalted man, a physical being from another world, and not the first cause of all existence. While conceptually that might appeal more to atheists (particularly someone like Richard Dawkins), the hurdle is then the problem of finding evidence that such a being exists. No direct evidence exists, and most atheists will ask for it. 

If your cousin is amenable to personal, subjective evidence, you could always mention Moroni's challenge. But he may interpret the results (whatever those might be) differently than you would. 

And yet, of course he may be capable of understanding that Ideal Beings do not require "evidence" to exist as ideals.  All one needs is a moral sense of good, better, best in order to understand what the "best human" would be.

Perhaps one could say that he exists as the ideal of "freedom" exists.  At least that would be a step.  No one wants evidence for "Freedom" as an ideal.

"Be all you can be".  If the Army gets away with that, we should be able to as well. 

[Ahab]

15 minutes ago, thesometimesaint said:

According to Scripture dirt is the parent of Adam, and Adam's rib is the parent of Eve. Some awfully weird biology going on there. 

Yes, God used some dirt to make him, or more precisely elements from the earth (earth as in soil).  Brigham elaborated a little on that by telling us the way he used it was by consuming some food that was grown in the soil, with those elements coursing through his body as he digested the food.

The rib thing was a bad translation.  Eve was at the side of Adam, standing next to him when she was still only a spirit until our Father created a body for her as he did for Adam.

But let's not get too far ahead of this horse that is pulling this cart.  I'm just trying to help him to understand that everyone of our species is God.

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, Gray said:

That's interesting, I didn't know the Catholic Church invented science. Tell me more!

Was Galileo arrested by the Catholic Bureau of Scientific Affairs for speaking out of turn? 

It might interest you to know, however, that the LDS Church invented television. So morally, we win. Just saying. 

Ironic even if true because it is a little hard to prove three beings in one substance or that a piece of bread is actually flesh, scientifically.

But this is the central contradiction of religion.  By using a pre conceived view of"reality"- ie that the sun goes around the earth-  and sticking to that correspondence theory as confirmed by perceptions (sun comes up in the east, sets in the west) they irrevocably tied religion to viewing SPIRITUAL reality to what they thought was science- falsely.

We still have that idea represented in fundamentalist religions which preach that the bible is science.

That view has turned around and bitten them.

The only solution is to realize that science and religion are two different topics- one about what gives our lives internal meaning, and the other about what works to make machines etc.

The whole Copernicus thing proves the flaw in thinking that religion is designed to prove how the world works, and not to show us the purpose of our lives.

[Gray]

14 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

And yet, of course he may be capable of understanding that Ideal Beings do not require "evidence" to exist as ideals.  All one needs is a moral sense of good, better, best in order to understand what the "best human" would be.

Perhaps one could say that he exists as the ideal of "freedom" exists.  At least that would be a step.  No one wants evidence for "Freedom" as an ideal.

"Be all you can be".  If the Army gets away with that, we should be able to as well. 

Great points. Putting it in those terms could just be the approach that opens up the conversation. 

[mfbukowski]

4 hours ago, Rico said:

The so-called persecution of Galileo is a favorite atheist myth that has been debunked long ago.

http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2011/09/the-myth-of-galileo-a-story-with-a-mostly-valuable-lesson-for-today/

So why the Benedictine medallion?

Do you see that as science too?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Benedict_Medal

 

[mfbukowski]

3 hours ago, Rico said:

 In the first place, the Catholic Church invented Science as we know it. 

 

[The Nehor]

4 hours ago, thesometimesaint said:

I'm not an atheist. It took only some 400 years for the Catholic church to apologize to Galileo.

SEE . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affair

To be fair if Galileo was as vain and acerbic as he appears to be (puts me to shame) I think I would find him annoying enough to lock away too.

[The Nehor]

Galileo was brilliant but realistically the Church were the more reasonable in the dispute. Galileo would be seen as a quack. Imagine a biologist trying to dethrone Darwin with his own pet theory without proof. Galileo had a theory and many of the tenets of that theory were shot down (planets orbiting in perfect circle for one).

Galileo then basically demanded the Church support him through some biblical exegesis. He was told no. A cardinal told him to put forward some proof or shut up. He then came up with the even then laughable idea that the tides were caused by the earth's rotation.

Galileo was not hauled into a church court by inquisitors seeking to stamp out heresy. He kept annoying popes and cardinals. One pope (a passing friend of Galileo) shot down his attempts for church approval with a weak argument. In a fit of pique Galileo wrote up a piece where the argument of the Pope was put into the mouth of an idiot, embarrassing the Pope.

Then he was hauled before a Church court and tried an insane and insulting legal defense that came close to the line of outright dishonesty (in my opinion was dishonest). 

He was an acerbic jerk with a gigantic ego. He was legitimately brilliant and was right on some things and outright wrong in others. The church in general liked him at first until he badgered them to accept his theories when they had no desire to and no proof he was right.

A modern analogy would be if Meldrum decided that not only was he right but the prophet had to endorse his theory on Book of Mormon geography and making a stink about it to every Church leader he could find and trying to force church hearings on the matter. Then, after meeting with apostles and the prophet and being turned down for lack of evidence he writes satire mocking the prophet as an idiot. Would he be a martyr if he were booted out of the church at that point. True, the Church did more to Galileo but they had secular authority and were treating him with a light touch considering the era.

[Rivers]

The first step to believing is having a desire to believe in the first place.  The seed needs to be be planted in order for it to be  nurtured and grown.