bushbasher,
Firstly, Pericle’s opening comment, “..it was actually meant to be an insult” is incorrect, it is also presumptuous – after all, how would he, or could he know what I meant? Certainly not from my previous posts. Quite simply, my comments were not meant as an insult.

“A shortcoming in the 'Age of Reason’, for some people, are that the various traits bound to creativity, intuition and the subconscious cannot be proven and therefore do not exist. Rigidly held prior conceptions and conceptual lacunae reduce thinking to the two-dimensional.” This is far less belittling (if belittling at all) than you saying, “…your are supplying sells the cheap defence of the 3rd rate expert.”

For a bit of 'stirring', of which you accuse Sells, read again Pericles post beginning with, “Oh dear, do I detect sarcasm, aga?...” Go back and read many of his other posts. Will you accuse Pericles of the same or perhaps admit, “If the heat is too hot in the kitchen etc…” I’ve given my own share of ‘stirring’ and certainly take as good as I give. Perhaps others should give similar consideration, and to use another old cliché but a ‘goodie’, with its origin from Don Quixote, don’t have ‘the pot call the kettle black’.

Finally, thanks for the advice on ‘writing simply’ – but I’ll do it for your sake (as I've done here) and not my own.

reida,

1) insult or not? not "meant"? maybe pericles was overstating it, but you're playing semantics.

2) who is being more belittling? as i said, the belittling is not the issue, it's the cause and the substantiation. and reference to the cheap defence was more an attack on sells: you're suggesting the attack is not warranted? you want me to substantiate it? please, oh please, don't go there.

3) will i accuse pericles of stirring? too right! one of the best in the business. but he (?) doesn't initiate stirring month after month (notably, this month excepted): he's not the germ. and i very much doubt, a la sells, that pericles would deny it. more to to the point, pericles engages: he makes arguments, and he addresses the arguments of others. there is substance in his stirring. by comparison, sells spends the vast majority of his postings simply sermonising. pot and kettle? well, they're both black. how about pot and cadillac?

4) yes, for my sake, your writing was better this time. a ways to go, but thank-you. but if you don't see it's for your sake as well, you are hugely missing the point.

5) recall, our little sub-debate started here because of a your "two-dimensional" crack, followed by your apparent defence of the plane-junkyard analogy. without the latter, the former looks kind of silly and lonely. do you want to defend the latter? or will you disown it, and we can write it off as a clumsy post? or, do you want to continue to obfuscate with sub-sub-debates?

Dear relda,

It is an interesting point you raise about creation; where, if I am permitted to extrapolate with a quotation:

“Our personal involvement in the world is with some parts of the world, while the conception of the creation of the world encompasses the whole world.” Polanyi and Prosch (1975)

Herein, if, we are a part of the created Universe and, we create life, or for that matter, we create another universe; our capacity to do so is only possible, because of the endowment of our creation by an external entity. Our “given” capacity is over the parts of the Universe, where we have dominion.

In regress, it raises the thought of a Higher Creator creating our Creator with the power to create us.

Attempts at resolution goes straight to the issue of First Cause. Creation is an event, which brought us and ultimately capacities into existence. Theists would have a supernatural agent transcending material existence. Others would have capacities arising from a Universe, without transcental First Cause.

Ontologically, our Being is related to placing a delimiter somewhere. “Who created the Universe?” “Who created God?”

Actually, the above questions have a strong Western epistemology and methodology. An Eastern culture would ask; “Why was the Universe created?” and “Why was God created?” If we answer the first question, “to serve some purpose of God’s,” the second question endures.

Thanks. I enjoyed revisiting the old thread:

My reason for citing QM was to illustrate -in your support- that stable world of macro systems is different to the world of probabilities existing at sub-atom levels.

Oliver. The Catholic Church has no official position on the Shroud one way or the other. Check the official websites. I seriously doubt you were taught it in a Catholic school. But if we use Pericles standards of evidence, your writing years later, and were probably psychotic like St Paul. Produce "credible" evidence. Ask Pericles what it means?

I asked prayers for the family? How is that sanctioning death? Pro-lifers supporting death? Cheap generalisation. Do you support http://www.massmediamail.com/durarealidad/

Sin brings death, and God does not send anyone to Hell either. You send yourself. He permits the ultimate freedom to do so out of Love, and must do so if He is God. Suffering can also bring a greater good. Easily verifiable in life.

Back against wall? None of my links, evidence or questions have been sufficently answered. Just rhetoric and sophistry. Mine is just as good as yours.

I do not see anything about a "game of cards" in Gospels? and I was naive enough to think you did not believe in Angels. But the real Pericles prayed to the Gods before he mounted a rostrum to speak, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pericles
So maybe I have you pinned wrongly? See Oratorical section...

A big "IF" about parading the body?..That's precisely my point. I agree. Christianity is spread on a big resurrection lie according to you. So if body was not paraded - where is it? Explain logical natural evidence for the empty tomb and the moving of the big stone in presence of Roman Guards. Asleep or otherwise? Most likely awake.

Huhh? What's wrong with "over 2000 miles"? No civilian hours
mentioned, nor a military total? Typo? So what? Another conspiracy?

You blogg miracles? What is "credible" evidence? Better minds admit them. And yes, there are better minds than yours and mine.

Mental anguish and gynastics, Fractelle? For whom? You wish to exclude Christians and evidence from the public square. Who is the more totalitarian now? If the Romans recorded, so much the better.

Guys I'm off, you have strengthened my convictions immeasurably. My thanks. Oh. Pericles. Do you believe in Global Warming?

Fair enough relda.

>>Pericle’s opening comment, “..it was actually meant to be an insult” is incorrect, it is also presumptuous<<

I should have said "sounds like". My bad, as Buffy would say.

>>Your allusion to a ‘supreme being’ is not mine<<

A clumsy attempt by me to reflect Flew's statement that he should be termed a deist, rather than be described as religious. Again, if that wasn't clear from the context, my apologies.

And so it's goodbye to aga.

>>Guys I'm off, you have strengthened my convictions immeasurably<<

I'm not sure what state your faith was in before you arrived here aga, but it is good that we have performed some service during your stay.

That knowledge certainly makes up for the fact that I appear to have upset you somehow.

>>if we use Pericles standards of evidence, your writing years later, and were probably psychotic like St Paul.<<

I hadn't realized that Paul was psychotic. An interesting theory, not one that I had heard before. And now it's too late to find out more, you've gone.

>>I asked prayers for the family? How is that sanctioning death? Pro-lifers supporting death? Cheap generalisation.<<

Mysterious. Truly mysterious. Where on earth did you get the notion that I suspect you of "sanctioning death" - whatever that means. Oh, it's too late. You've gone.

>>the real Pericles prayed to the Gods before he mounted a rostrum to speak<<

How do you know that I don't do the same?

Well ok, it's a fair cop, I don't. But only because Wikipedia didn't say which ones he prayed to.

>>Christianity is spread on a big resurrection lie according to you<<

I didn't say "lie".

"Story" is much nicer.

>>So if body was not paraded- where is it?<<

Lack of a body does not indicate non-existence of same. For all you and I know, it was found and disposed of nearly two thousand years ago by people who wanted to make up a story.

>>Oh. Pericles. Do you believe in Global Warming?<<

More than I believe in your God, aga.

Have a nice life.

Aga,

The Catholic Church’s position on the Turin Shroud follows:

“…suggestion made of blundering or bad faith on the part of those who photographed were quite without excuse. From the scientific point of view, however, the difficulty of the "negative" impression on the cloth is not so serious as it seems. This Shroud like the others* was probably painted without fraudulent intent to aid the dramatic setting of the Easter sequence:

‘Dic nobis Maria, quid vidisti in via
Angelicos testes, sudarium et vestes’

As the word sudarium suggested, it was painted to represent the impression made by the sweat of Christ, i.e. probably in a yellowish tint upon unbrilliant red. This yellow stain would turn brown in the course of centuries, the darkening process being aided by the effects of fire and sun. Thus, the lights of the original picture would become the shadow of Paleotto's reproduction of the images on the shroud is printed in two colours, pale yellow and red. As for the good proportions and æsthetic effect, two things may be noted. First, that it is highly probable that the artist used a model to determine the length and position of the limbs, etc.; the representation no doubt was made exactly life size. Secondly, the impressions are only known to us in photographs so reduced, as compared with the original, that the crudenesses, aided by the softening effects of time, entirely disappear.

Lastly, the difficulty must be noticed that while the witnesses of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries speak of the image as being then so vivid that the blood seemed freshly shed, it is now darkened and hardly recognizable without minute attention. On the supposition that this is an authentic relic dating from the year A.D. 30, why should it have retained its brilliance through countless journeys and changes of climate for fifteen centuries, and then in four centuries more have become almost invisible? On the other hand if it be a fabrication of the fifteenth century this is exactly what we should expect.” – Catholic Encyclopedia

*Other Shrouds

[Brothers attended my secular school.]

Caio