They have science!

[RomanRussia]

For some it is Christ, for others it is Islam. For yet others, it is rationalism and to some degree, science.

 Whatever it would mean. Science and rationalism vs what religions? IT is as if to compare yellow with stinky.

[SFG75]

For some it is Christ, for others it is Islam. For yet others, it is rationalism and to some degree, science.

 Whatever it would mean. Science and rationalism vs what religions? IT is as if to compare yellow with stinky.

You don't believe people live their lives based on some schema or worldview? 

[RomanRussia]

For some it is Christ, for others it is Islam. For yet others, it is rationalism and to some degree, science.

 Whatever it would mean. Science and rationalism vs what religions? IT is as if to compare yellow with stinky.

You don't believe people live their lives based on some schema or worldview? 

 Why not? If it is said you have to go to school - you go or your parents make you go. If it is said you have to go to university you go or you want to not differ from your friends. Or you don't go to any as that's the worldview of yours! What does your worldview have to do with as to the question who governs human life and the order of things on earth in general. Worldview changes with time during your life, you have to eat, learn, sleep, meet friends, make children, raise children, make no crime to serve no time etc Your schema is not that wide if you'd think... or?

[SFG75]

Would you maintain that God provides us with the "order of things"?  If so, who provided the "order of things" for the cro-magnons and neanderthals who passed away?  Also, is the Christian "order of things" similar to what Muslims or Buddhist believe, and if not, on what solid basis is it more legitimate than the above mentioned? 

[RomanRussia]

Would you maintain that God provides us with the "order of things"?  If so, who provided the "order of things" for the cro-magnons and neanderthals who passed away?  Also, is the Christian "order of things" similar to what Muslims or Buddhist believe, and if not, on what solid basis is it more legitimate than the above mentioned? 

 Of course if it would have been otherwise you'd stop fighting for life and died from utter exhaustion. I never lived with the neanderthals I can't know for sure. I never had had any alltercation with no Muslim no Buddhist. Have come across some mormons from America in my city, they make rounds around the district in desperate attempts to convert people lol. Order of things I guess.

[SFG75]

 

Of course if it would have been otherwise you'd stop fighting for life and died from utter exhaustion.

I would disagree with you on this point.  Millions of atheists, agnostics, stoics, epicurians, and the generally indifferent lived their lives with good measure and little anxiety.  If one espouses that DNA and genes are doing their thing and that nature is taking care of itself from the primordial soup that created the "big bang," you can accept that things just are. 

I do not quibble about religion having value and being a powerful force for arguing about the value of human lie and it's meanig.  In fact, that is why FD's writing is so powerful.  It is the simple, abiding faith of Alyosha that allows him to live through the tempest that is the storm of his life as those who have no "rock" to lean on, bob up and down in the sea not having a clue as to what is happening, let alone why, nor showing the capacity in dealing with it. 

I never lived with the neanderthals I can't know for sure.

While we do not know for certain, we do know that there were pre-homo sapien prototypes that had varying degrees of higher consciousness.  Undoubtedly, their existenc begs the question-what is their higher value or purpose?  If it is of nature and it's elements, then clearly their creation is a "fluke" or of some environmental advantage.  A higher being would not devise lower thinking life forms that eventually died out in favor of beings of a higher consciousness.  Interesting that the Bible does not mention these beings or even hints at gradual evolution, as opposed to: "Bam!" straight from the rib and dust created perfectly.   The existence of these "lower forms" of human beings to me, negates the argument of the order of things coming from a higher being with a specific purpose. 

I never had had any alltercation with no Muslim no Buddhist. Have come across some mormons from America in my city, they make rounds around the district in desperate attempts to convert people lol. Order of things I guess.

Oh Mormons, you have to love them.  And just think, my country might elect one to be president.  It is true that in America, anyone can be president.   

[RomanRussia]

 Who are these you say atheists, agnotics, stoics, epicurians? Today you are an atheist, agnostic, stoic, epicurian and tommorow you are an adamant believer! Worldwide essue is this...
 That's a perfect quotation from one of the greatest Russian writer Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, read it carefully

 "I am afraid of those who will look for tendenciousness between the lines and who are determined to see me either as a liberal or a conservative. I am neither a liberal nor a conservative, neither a gradualist nor a monk nor an indifferentist. I would like to be nothing more than a free artist, and I regret that God did not give me the gift to be one. I hate falseness and coercion in all their forms . . . . Pharisaism, stupidity and arbitrariness reign not merely in merchants' houses and police stations: I see them in science, in literature, among the young. That is why I have no particular passion for either policemen or butchers or scientists or writers or the young. I consider brand-names and labels a prejudice. My holy of holies is the human body, health, intelligence, talent, inspiration, love, and absolute freedom, freedom from force and falseness in whatever form they express themselves. That's the platform I'd subscribe to if I were a great artist."

A higher being would not devise lower thinking life forms that eventually died out in favor of beings of a higher consciousness.

 Why not? The death may be on of the greatest blessing.

The existence of these "lower forms" of human beings to me, negates the argument of the order of things coming from a higher being with a specific purpose.

 Whom do you label the "lower forms" If you are the man of science you should know that the viruses that attack our planet from space are even considered the "extraterrestrial form of life" by some. Those viruses can kill thosands and thousands of people and then disappear suddenly. And you talk to me that you have control over your own life? When you fall asleep are you sure you're safe? I dunno Dostoevsky would have probably answered that you are very poetical for having been thinking like this...

[RomanRussia]

 I love Chekhov Anton Pavlovich, read what he has to say about the science... I love it!!!

   "I will tell you about myself. Nature has implanted in my breast an extraordinary faculty for belief. Whisper it not to the night, but half my life I was in the ranks of the Atheists and Nihilists, but there was not one hour in my life in which I ceased to believe. All talents, as a rule, show themselves in early childhood, and so my faculty showed itself when I could still walk upright under the table. My mother liked her children to eat a great deal, and when she gave me food she used to say: 'Eat! Soup is the great thing in life!' I believed, and ate the soup ten times a day, ate like a shark, ate till I was disgusted and stupefied. My nurse used to tell me fairy tales, and I believed in house-spirits, in wood-elves, and in goblins of all kinds. I used sometimes to steal corrosive sublimate from my father, sprinkle it on cakes, and carry them up to the attic that the house-spirits, you see, might eat them and be killed. And when I was taught to read and understand what I read, then there was a fine to-do. I ran away to America and went off to join the brigands, and wanted to go into a monastery, and hired boys to torture me for being a Christian. And note that my faith was always active, never dead. If I was running away to America I was not alone, but seduced someone else, as great a fool as I was, to go with me, and was delighted when I was nearly frozen outside the town gates and when I was thrashed; if I went to join the brigands I always came back with my face battered. A most restless childhood, I assure you! And when they sent me to the high school and pelted me with all sorts of truths -- that is, that the earth goes round the sun, or that white light is not white, but is made up of seven colours -- my poor little head began to go round! Everything was thrown into a whirl in me: Navin who made the sun stand still, and my mother who in the name of the Prophet Elijah disapproved of lightning conductors, and my father who was indifferent to the truths I had learned. My enlightenment inspired me. I wandered about the house and stables like one possessed, preaching my truths, was horrified by ignorance, glowed with hatred for anyone who saw in white light nothing but white light, . . . But all that's nonsense and childishness. Serious, so to speak, manly enthusiasms began only at the university. You have, no doubt, Madam, taken your degree somewhere?""I studied at Novotcherkask at the Don Institute.""Then you have not been to a university? So you don't know what science means. All the sciences in the world have the same passport, without which they regard themselves as meaningless . . . the striving towards truth! Every one of them, even pharmacology, has for its aim not utility, not the alleviation of life, but truth. It's remarkable! When you set to work to study any science, what strikes you first of all is its beginning. I assure you there is nothing more attractive and grander, nothing is so staggering, nothing takes a man's breath away like the beginning of any science. From the first five or six lectures you are soaring on wings of the brightest hopes, you already seem to yourself to be welcoming truth with open arms. And I gave myself up to science, heart and soul, passionately, as to the woman one loves. I was its slave; I found it the sun of my existence, and asked for no other. I studied day and night without rest, ruined myself over books, wept when before my eyes men exploited science for their own personal ends. But my enthusiasm did not last long. The trouble is that every science has a beginning but not an end, like a recurring decimal. Zoology has discovered 35,000 kinds of insects, chemistry reckons 60 elements. If in time tens of noughts can be written after these figures, Zoology and chemistry will be just as far from their end as now, and all contemporary scientific work consists in increasing these numbers. I saw through this trick when I discovered the 35,001-st and felt no satisfaction. Well, I had no time to suffer from disillusionment, as I was soon possessed by a new faith. I plunged into Nihilism, with its manifestoes, its 'black divisions,' and all the rest of it. I 'went to the people,' worked in factories, worked as an oiler, as a barge hauler. Afterwards, when wandering over Russia, I had a taste of Russian life, I turned into a fervent devotee of that life. I loved the Russian people with poignant intensity; I loved their God and believed in Him, and in their language, their creative genius. . . . And so on, and so on. . . . I have been a Slavophile in my time, I used to pester Aksakov with letters, and I was a Ukrainophile, and an archæologist, and a collector of specimens of peasant art. . . . I was enthusiastic over ideas, people, events, places . . . my enthusiasm was endless! Five years ago I was working for the abolition of private property; my last creed was non-resistance to evil."

[RomanRussia]

 Chekhov is genius!!! I reread the quotation above for several times and it's really eyes opening. He just echoes the genius Dostoevsky.

[RomanRussia]

 And Higgs Bison discovery proved?

[carnage_complex]

And Higgs Bison discovery proved?

    Yes, they're trying to build a Crystal Palace out of God.  Ridiculous, rationalism is a hydra.  One need look no further than Ivan Karamazov's billion-verst man to understand this.  He saw proof, incontrovertible proof, and continued to disbelieve out of sheer obduracy.  The more science tries to amalgamate religion, the more rhetoric seems to attest to the existence of a God, the more ardently people will sound off against it...just because they can.

[RomanRussia]

[SFG75]

And Higgs Bison discovery proved?

It proved the existence of a hypothesized particle. 

Still no proof of the Noahic flood, the earth being 6,000 years old, or that human languages developed along Biblical lines as opposed to how we know it developed through the study of anthropology.  Just saying........

[RomanRussia]

And Higgs Bison discovery proved?

It proved the existence of a hypothesized particle. 

Still no proof of the Noahic flood, the earth being 6,000 years old, or that human languages developed along Biblical lines as opposed to how we know it developed through the study of anthropology.  Just saying........

 That's great, at least the Large Hadron Collider has been built not in vain.
 I am not an expert on Bible as I haven't even read it. I think Dostoesvky did and why do you think he hasn't raised such a deep question you have discovered to have been answered? I always thought the Bible is a book of interpretation but I may be wrong. There is no proof of you to have been dead you only know that you will become dead soon but you're still alive and breathing. Be careful as to asking for proof. Seems like you adore Nietzsche whom has once said - “Existence really is an imperfect tense that never becomes a present."

[SFG75]

Roman-Thank you for your kind response.  I have to say that I thoroughly enjoy our discussions and you truly represent the inquisitive spirit that is what this board is all about.

Theologically I don't claim to be a follower of any Christian sect.  You are more than correct that the Bible is a book of interpretation.  If I were to have a proclivity towards any one sect, it would be towards that of "emergent church" or liberal interpretation of the Bible.  Verses in the Bible about banning homosexuality or telling women to shut up in church should be viewed in my mind, as social constructs the times in which the prophets lived.  The Apostle Paul is an idiot compared to what the average person knows about medicine, history, philosophy, and science.  The vast majority of people I know believe in Biblical inerrancy.  They believe that every word is correct and is not fallible.  This "fundamentalism" is what I absolutely detest and abhor.  In America, we have people who would restrict the rights of others, based upon what they believe to be, the will of God taken through verses, though without context.