CJ... it appears that Jesus spoke both :) but well noted. Clearly, if he was using Aramaic at the time, then his words were translated into the appropriate greek to convey the correct meaning...

Ok.. VANILLA slice and FRACCY..

Where.. just where do you get the idea that to love God, and believe in Him as the Creator, means we throw our heads in the scientific sand and do nothing? Where did this come from ? Newton for crying out loud was a Christian.. as were many other scientists.
http://www.newton.cam.ac.uk/newtlife.html

Why should believing in the Creator stifle scientific enquiry? The Christian view is simply that we are locating His footsteps in Creation..and are awestruck at the wonder of His amazing Creation.

How anyone can be enthusiasitic at the 'wonder' of a Godless universe is absolutely beyond my comprehension.. because there is no 'one' there to applaud.. no 'one their to congratulate.. to praise.. to worship.. just...nothing...blank... empty.. meaningless..

So..in your godless universe.. it matters not a scrap if I or anyone else lives, dies, suffers, rejoices.. and we end up in the rather pitiful cesspool of hopelessness that any philosopher worth his intellectual salt tells us about.

As I said.. most of what I write is backgrounded on a rather broad survey of the History of Western Philosophy, so.. its not me you may wish to disagree with, but a lot of smarter people.

Dogma ? eeuwww.. shudder.. cringe.. yes, its dry, rigid.. structured and formal.. sadly it becomes neccessary when people say clearly wrong things for reasons known only to themselves

http://gbgm-umc.org/UMW/Bible/heresies.stm

But if we can see behind that, to the freshness of the Gospels and writings of Paul and others.. aah.. like a new spring flower in bloom.
Full of life and aroma..satisfying to the inner person at the deepest level.
Amen x 7

Boazy: "As I said.. most of what I write is backgrounded on a rather broad survey of the History of Western Philosophy..."

May I suggest you do some re-reading? You appear to have misunderstood quite a large chunk of it.

Boazy

I never called the universe 'godless' that is your description.

That the universe is far beyond your anthropomorphic-limited deity, proves just how much religion stifles free thought.

You can't think beyond your bible.

That there have been christian scientists, has been in spite of the restrictions (limited to certain research), in spite of the rejections (Darwin) and in spite of the trials for heresy (Galileo).

You have been posting here for years now - you haven't learnt anything, not a single thing:

NOT:

Tolerance
Acceptance
Respect

or increased your level of intellect by a single atom.

You bang on and on about the same thing - broken record that you are.

In the past 3 years we have discovered new cures for a variety of illnesses, gone further in exploring Mars, discovered life in the depths of the oceans where we thought no life could exist. And there's more where that came from. Like the universe - there are no limits.

This is wonderful, maybe its why we are here. I don't know. AND I don't pretend to know.

But I do know rhetoric when I see it and, Boaz, you are full of it.

Hey Fractelle I have a big interest in astronomy as well as metaphysics and I also look into the night sky and think what an amazing place the universe is and how it all came into being.

My thoughts on the universe – I think your number of 125 billion galaxies is merely the tip of the iceberg seeing that we cant see to the edges of the universe yet (if it does have an edge which I doubt) I think the number of galaxies are probably infinite in number seeing that the universe is infinite in size. Seeing that it is infinite in size it means that everything that could ever be imagined MUST be in it! A very humbling thought.

The only plausible theory for the creation of the universe I have heard is the “Simulator Argument” put forward by Oxford Philosopher Nick Bostrom. It is the only one that we will be able to test (hopefully with in a few decades) too see if it is possible to create our own universes and thus continue the cycle.

http://www.simulation-argument.com/

http://www.nickbostrom.com/

I also take an interest in SETI but I think the longer we go with out finding any intelligent life the less likely I believe that we will ever find it.

According to the drake equation there should be thousands of civilizations out there many of them millions of years more advanced then us. We have been looking for decades, so where is everybody? More likely then not they don’t exist because they should have been sending off all sorts of radio waves and other forms of communication similar to what we on earth have been emitting for the last 150 years.

http://www.seti.org/

Vanilla-girl, your admonishment was well-founded; and Fractelle you're right in what you said in your last post. So, in view of that, let's just by-pass BD here: we can by now write his posts for him if need be.

I think that some of us, looking from a p.o.v that starts with the conviction that there is no great Creator find contemplation of the Universe an awe-inspiring experience in its own right. But I imagine that those who regard the universe within a framework of a created artifact, instead become awe-inspired at the immensity and incomprehensibility of its creator? Perhaps each camp thinks the other is missing out on the most valuable component?

I have to admit that it completely does my head in, going onto those sites and trying to stretch my puny brain around it. Especially since one has been trained since infancy to view things within spatial or philosophical boundaries/limits.

But personally, I don't regard it as compelling proof either for or against, for the reason listed above. For me, its the dogma every time. Its History which is the baulking point for me. Although, admittedly, its a field in which Christians are not over-represented, what completely gobsmacks me is how anyone can be a Christian and still be a competent or learned scholar of Ancient History.

Pagans or God-botherers alike can enjoy this link:
http://home.mira.net/~reynella/skywatch/ssky.htm

Impress your friends by pointing out Betelegeuce to them.

Romany: "... how anyone can be a Christian and still be a competent or learned scholar of Ancient History."
Same. Or geography. Surely every Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, & etc all live in mistaken belief that they were just particularly lucky to have been born into a family or region whose religion coincidently turned out to be the one true religion! Who'd'a thunk it? Knowing my luck, I'd be born in Salt Lake City only to find out the Jews were right all along, or born in the Hindu part of India only to get turned away at the Pearly Gates by Allah.

An irrelevant aside: Romany, Fractelle and other heavenly bodies: I'm sure some elements will find this extremely "sexist" of me, but I'm really enjoying the little "ladies' gang" on OLO at the mo.