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Dear Yuyutsu,

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"I am sure the government itself sees me rather as nuisance, not interested in either following or breaking their laws, not recognising their worldly authority (enforced as you say by their shotgun), instead recognising God as my only true and eternal authority."
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That sounds reasonable, Yuyutsu. I see things much the same way though I do recognise the authority of a freely elected, democratic government and am willing to accept the legal consequences of any conscientious breach of law which I consider to be unjust.

Another difference, of course, is that I do not refer to any god or gods as a standard of human behaviour. Kindness, politeness and fairness are my standards. I am willing to offer resistance to any breach of those standards and often do.

I might add that Christian values are at the base of most laws in the Western world, inspired, inter alia, by those two biblical characters, Moses and Noah (Mosaic law and Noahide code). The other major source of inspiration, of course, are the laws imposed on us by nature.

Also, Paul of Tarsus, who appears to have been the principal promoter, perhaps the founder of Christianity (Jesus and his parents were Jews), following a vision of the "resurrected" Jesus, whom he never met, exercised a determining factor on the religious belief and philosophy of which we still find trace in man-made law today - known under its technical term of "positive law".

I mention this because it might reassure you to know that by "recognising their (the government's) - [legal] - worldly authority", you are only, so to say, respecting your god's "true and eternal authority" which is at the base of most of the laws adopted by Western society.

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"But the selective forces that scrutinize scientific ideas are not arbitrary and capricious. They are exacting, well-honed rules, and they do not favor pointless self-serving behavior. They favor all the virtues laid out in textbooks of standard methodology: testability, evidential support, precision, quantifiability, consistency, intersubjectivity, repeatability, universality, progressiveness, independence of cultural milieu, and so on. Faith spreads despite a total lack of every single one of these virtues."

This paragraph came from an article written by Richard Dawkins which can be read in full on Information Clearing House.

The final sentence is instructive!

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Dear Yuyutsu,

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I thought I should mention that I share your aversion of "institutional-religion" - a notable exception, so far as I am concerned, being the Salvation Army.

A regrettable paradox of religion is that while it was designed to eliminate immorality it actually creates the conditions for fostering it. Its purifying action of washing the sins away and leaving the soul as white as snow is a process which can be repeated ad infinitum. This represents an irresistible temptation for some to take advantage of the facility in order to commit as many sins as they please, in complete impunity, before heading back to the laundry to wash their sins away once again.

The clergy welcomes one and all with open arms, saints and sinners alike. Just like the barbers who cut the hair of their colleagues, they too make good use of the facilities under their charge in order to launder their own grimy souls.

Naturally, the traditional immunity associated with the confessional has contributed to fostering widespread paedophilia among the clergy of the Catholic church, in particular (but not exclusively), at all levels of the hierarchy, worldwide.

And let us not forget that the Catholic church has notoriously been associated with the mafia ever since the Italian Unification in 1861 which resulted in the expropriation of the church's property and estates. Pope Pius IX subsequently rejected the legitimacy of the newly formed Italian state and established liaisons with local political groups invested by the mafia
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The phenomenon later took on even greater importance with the signing of the Lateran Treaty in 1929 between Mussolini and Pope Pius XI and the creation of the independent Vatican State.

The finances of the Vatican are about as clear as mud. US State Department and the Italian authorities accused the Vatican of money laundering. In 1982, the Vatican was involved in the bankruptcy of Italy's largest private bank, the Banco Ambrosiano. Its president, Roberto Calvi, nicknamed "God's Banker", was found hanged beneath London's Blackfriars Bridge, with investigators unable to rule if it was murder or suicide.

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Dear Banjo:

Google Salvation Army abuse, and you’ll find:

1. Paedophile ring 'lent out boys'
www.theage.com.au › Victoria
Dec 18, 2012 – ... including 137 from Bayswater - said systemic abuse by Salvation Army staff was so severe that in some cases boys were killed or allowed to ...

2. Parliamentary inquiry witness says Salvos flogged boys | Herald Sun
www.heraldsun.com.au/news/.../story-e6frf7kx-1226570338222
Feb 5, 2013 – Abuse victim Hugh McGowan described the government institutions in the ... he suffered sexual abuse in the Salvation Army's Box Hill home in ...

3. Salvation Army says sorry for abuse
news.smh.com.au/.../salvation-army-says-sorry-for-abuse-20101207-...
Dec 7, 2010 – So an apology by the Salvation Army for the abuse of children in its care up to the 1990s was welcome news for many of the survivors who ...

4. Don't bar offenders' stories of abuse | The Courier-Mail
www.couriermail.com.au/...abuse/story-e6frerc6-1226526962103
Nov 30, 2012 – Another man convicted of rape told me a Salvation Army officer had abused him in a boys' home. I heard so many of these stories that I began ...

AJP,

"In your first post, yeah. But then read the first two paragraphs of your post to Pericles. There was a reason I quoted your second paragraph. "

I can't help it if you want to jump into the middle of a conversation and get the wrong end of the stick. With a word limit, we can't afford to go restating caveats in each post. You'll just have to try harder to follow the thread.

I don't know if you don't understand this darkmatter issue because its too subtle or if you are determined to obfuscate because to do otherwise would mean you'd have to admit a dozen or so of your posts on the point are bollocks.

Did you read the article you linked to? It was making the exact point I've been trying to get you to see - that no one has seen DM and its existence is inferred based on how we think the universe and gravity works. The very first line says "The first person to interpret evidence and infer the presence of dark matter was....". If you read further down you'll see a paragraph about those who don't think DM exists and instead think the models are wrong and need changing.

I don't know how explain it any simpler. Scientists believe DM exists not through direct observation but because they need it to make their models work. And that's not a million miles from the thought processes many follow to infer the deity.

mhaze wrote: "I don't know how explain it any simpler. Scientists believe DM exists not through direct observation but because they need it to make their models work. And that's not a million miles from the thought processes many follow to infer the deity."

It is a million miles from the thought processes many follow to infer the deity. Inferring a deity doesn't explain how anything works. Just saying "God did it." explains nothing.