A forest being missed for some trees

All things philosophical, related to belief and / or religions of any and all sorts.
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Scooter
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A forest being missed for some trees

Post by Scooter »

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"If you don't have a seat at the table, you're on the menu."

-- Author unknown

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Joe Guy
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Re: A forest being missed for some trees

Post by Joe Guy »

It was a message from God. He doesn't want people to leave their bibles on a bed stand. Hallelujah!

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Crackpot
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Re: A forest being missed for some trees

Post by Crackpot »

All depends on the type of person her sister was really.
Okay... There's all kinds of things wrong with what you just said.

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Joe Guy
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Re: A forest being missed for some trees

Post by Joe Guy »

Excellent point, Crackpot.

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Scooter
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Re: A forest being missed for some trees

Post by Scooter »

In a like vein, this one is too stupid to recognize just how truly stupid she is:

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"If you don't have a seat at the table, you're on the menu."

-- Author unknown

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Bicycle Bill
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Re: A forest being missed for some trees

Post by Bicycle Bill »

Yeah, before the 1700s humanity had to get by on just plain old 'air'.
Then we got the new, improved 'air' .... now with OXYGEN added!!!
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-"BB"-
Yes, I suppose I could agree with you ... but then we'd both be wrong, wouldn't we?

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Scooter
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Re: A forest being missed for some trees

Post by Scooter »

Would also like to see how she manages for 24 hours without oxygen. Pretty sure that the last 23 hours and 57 minutes or so would be redundant to the outcome.
"If you don't have a seat at the table, you're on the menu."

-- Author unknown

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Crackpot
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Re: A forest being missed for some trees

Post by Crackpot »

I often wonder how God deals with these absolutely clueless religious people I mean Peter was widely regarded as “The slow one” but he runs mental circles around these people.

I often imagine God saying “I gave you more sense than that you have to work at being that stupid”. Then I wonder how God doesn’t smite them out of frustration.

The two biggest theological problems with Chritianity today is the so called “prosperity gospel” and the much more widespread belief that in order to believe in God you must deny reality. I mean I can understand a level of skepticism but at a certain point it’s just self delusion.

Here’s a hint if you cling to a belief that’s provably false because you think God is using it as a test of faith you are delusional.
Okay... There's all kinds of things wrong with what you just said.

rubato
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Re: A forest being missed for some trees

Post by rubato »

"So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of
intelligence."

Bertrand Russell

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Sue U
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Re: A forest being missed for some trees

Post by Sue U »

Scooter wrote:In a like vein, this one is too stupid to recognize just how truly stupid she is:
The first rule of Dunning-Kruger Club is that you don't know you're in Dunning-Kruger Club.
GAH!

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dales
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Re: A forest being missed for some trees

Post by dales »

The two biggest theological problems with Christianity today is the so called “prosperity gospel” and the much more widespread belief that in order to believe in God you must deny reality. I mean I can understand a level of skepticism but at a certain point it’s just self delusion.
And let me add a hearty AMEN to that! :clap:

Your collective inability to acknowledge this obvious truth makes you all look like fools.


yrs,
rubato

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RayThom
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A forest being missed for some trees

Post by RayThom »

God created man because he has a wicked sense of humor.

And in the end he'll plop down from the clouds, laughing and yelling, "the jokes on you, stupid mortals."
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“In a world whose absurdity appears to be so impenetrable, we simply must reach a greater degree of understanding among us, a greater sincerity.” 

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MajGenl.Meade
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Re: A forest being missed for some trees

Post by MajGenl.Meade »

rubato wrote:"So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels Russell in praise of God intelligence."
FTFY

Cleverly phrased bit of correctness. There is no outright praise of "intelligence" in the four Gospels. Nor is there praise of ignorance but it wouldn't serve to point to that.

There is, throughout the scriptures which to Jesus were God's word and not to be gainsaid, great praise of wisdom and the seeking after knowledge. Proverbs 4 for example is all about wisdom and there are so many others:

Wisdom is principal; therefore get wisdom. And with all your getting, get understanding.
Exalt her, and she will promote you; she will bring you honor, when you embrace her.
She will place on your head an ornament of grace; a crown of glory she will deliver to you.

. . . and Jesus of course commended the wise man who chose rightly where to build his house and advised the disciples to be as "wise as serpents and harmless as doves". One of his most used teaching techniques was that of the synagogues (and Socrates), to ask questions (even in answer to a question) in order that the other person might think, reason and reach conclusions without being told what to think, reason or conclude. "How do you interpret it?" being one of his favourites.

On balance, I'd say Russell's statement is specious (and he was too smart a man not to know it).
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts

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Crackpot
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Re: A forest being missed for some trees

Post by Crackpot »

You forgot Solomon.
Okay... There's all kinds of things wrong with what you just said.

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Re: A forest being missed for some trees

Post by rubato »

Solomon is OT the gospels are the first four books of the NT.


And the MajGenl shows us what a grudging admission that Bertrand Russell was right looks like.



yrs,
rubato

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Lord Jim
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Re: A forest being missed for some trees

Post by Lord Jim »

And the MajGenl shows us what a grudging admission that Bertrand Russell was right looks like.
MajGenl.Meade wrote:
On balance, I'd say Russell's statement is specious
spe·cious
ˈspēSHəs/

adjective
adjective: specious

superficially plausible, but actually wrong.

"a specious argument"
misleading in appearance, especially misleadingly attractive.
"the music trade gives Golden Oldies a specious appearance of novelty"

synonyms: misleading, deceptive, false, fallacious, unsound, spurious, casuistic, sophistic
"specious reasoning"
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Burning Petard
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Re: A forest being missed for some trees

Post by Burning Petard »

One must remember, Jesus wrote not one word of the Gospels. On the other hand Joseph Smith Jr, founder of the Mormons, wrote, and it is part of the mormon canon of scripture: "The Glory of God is intelligence, that is, light and truth.' Also, in an exchange of correspondence with a Chicago news paper about Mormon beliefs he wrote 'our only creed is 'all truth.'

Unhappily, later leaders after Mr. Smith, prefer more specific and authoritarian doctrine. And many 'Christians' don't accept Mormons into their club.

snailgate

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RayThom
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A fore$t being mi$$ed for $ome tree$

Post by RayThom »

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“In a world whose absurdity appears to be so impenetrable, we simply must reach a greater degree of understanding among us, a greater sincerity.” 

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BoSoxGal
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Re: A forest being missed for some trees

Post by BoSoxGal »

:funee:


And so very, very true.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

ex-khobar Andy
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Re: A forest being missed for some trees

Post by ex-khobar Andy »

The Greek word νους (transliterated as ‘nous’ - not like the French ‘nous’ but to rhyme with ‘house’) is the usual Greek rendering of what we would now call intelligence, and we still use the word occasionally in English. There are plenty of instances of this in the NT but only one (that I could find) in the Gospels. That is Luke 24:45 which was rendered as ‘Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures’ by King James’s posse. (‘He’ and ‘them’ are Jesus and the Apostles, after the resurrection.) τοτε διηνοιξεν αυτων τον νουν του συνιεναι τας γραφας. (νουν is simply νους with the correct case ending).

I would not normally disagree with Bertrand Russell but in this narrow case I might. "So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.” I think Meade’s remark “On balance, I'd say Russell's statement is specious (and he was too smart a man not to know it).” is exactly right here.

I also looked up 'intelligence' and 'understanding' in my OED. Intelligence is defined as the capacity to understand; and in terms of references, 'intelligent' was certainly known at the start of the 17th C but only barely; while 'understanding' has many references going back to the 9th C. Yes, I'd go with 'specious.'

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