Hi Miia,

Because since the age of 7, when I first decided I wanted to know how the magician on a tv show moved a matchstick with the power of his mind, I have been studying this stuff. That was 30 years ago. If there is magic, then it seems well hidden.
The human mind is adept at finding patterns. Evolutionary biologists of course day this is…[Read more]

Hi Miia,

Because since the age of 7, when I first decided I wanted to know how the magician on a tv show moved a matchstick with the power of his mind, I have been studying this stuff. That was 30 years ago. If there is magic, then it seems well hidden.
The human mind is adept at finding partners. Evolutionary biologists of course day this is…[Read more]

Just 30 or 40 years ago, there were protests against interracial marriage. People had their picket signs and protested this. It was viewed as taboo. An abomination.
Regardless of what is moral, this will go the same way. In 30 years, people will look back and mostly think this was silly and unjust.
In Europe, they just don’t care. The U.S.…[Read more]

The other side:
Why did God make it so that every animal ever studied have had populations of homosexuals? Giraffes, the male ones, are exceedingly homosexual, for example. In the mammal population, let’s say it averages to around 10%. (But of course male giraffes are off the chart). And insects, and reptiles and basically, every organism that…[Read more]

I see there is a thread on homosexuality that has been started.

Imagine that a Christian is telling a homosexual that “homosexuality is wrong,” to which the homosexual replies: “TIMES HAVE CHANGED.”

The Christian then says: “doesn’t matter what the world thinks, God doesn’t change and his word clearly says homosexuality is wrong.”

The…[Read more]

Nick,
Right on cue, your flowery words sound good but have little meaning. Nick, shouldn’t our morality come from the bible, which was inspired by gods spirit? Wasn’t the bible meant to be our guiding light, our sense of right and wrong? Or do you just decide what feels right to you at that moment? Or rather do you partly look to the world for…[Read more]

Whether it should be abolished, I really don’t know. I know that eventually it will be. Often or usually, the states that still have that law on their books, the people lose their Taste for it 50 yeas before it is finally abolished. Through history it was meant to be a deterrent and people thought the more gruesome it was the more it would…[Read more]

Do we get our morality from the bible? Yes and from outside sources.

Thank you for confirming my words!

Shouldn’t we only be getting our morality from the bible? What happens when they conflict? And if we sometimes are taking our morality from the world and just superimposing that morality onto the bible, how do we know we are ever getting…[Read more]

My question is essentially:

Where do we get our morality from?

Do we begin with the bible and base our opinion of right and wrong on what the bible says?

Or do we start with our own ideas and then find scriptures to match and take anything that disagrees and say it is figurative?

Yes Ed. You can argue that the law was done away with. So I am not speaking of the law.

And I don’t understand why you asked about the death penalty. If you are wondering where I’ve been for the past 2 years, it has been studying the history of violence (as a marker of morality) and based on the trend, the death penalty will be abolished from…[Read more]

Hi miia

The second post on this thread said this:

Does not Mark 16:17, 18 show that ability to heal the sick would be a sign identifying believers?
Mark 16:17, 18, KJ: “These signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly t…[Read more]

Ed

But shouldn’t it just be from the bible? Or can we pick and choose and take bits from the bible but other times ignore bits from the bible and take bits from the world?

If the bible for example repeatedly says things like we should beat children with rods, and this was written in a time when beatings were common punishments such as Paul who said he received countless beatings, why would we dimiss those scriptures that some find morally repugnant?  So, times have changed and morality changed with it.

But the…[Read more]

I feel if that other article was written 50 years ago, I’d rather not read it.

I’m going to try to bring this back to the topic. There are things in the bible that some now consider immoral (such as owning another human being, and bearing them) and there are things that today we also consider great and very moral.

We can’t be using the bible…[Read more]

“Reliance” doesn’t mean “excessive.” That’s not at all what reliance means.

“I am not an advocate of spanking,” said Baumrind, “but a blanket injunction against its use is not warranted by the evidence. It is RELIANCE ON PHYSICAL PUNISHMENT, not whether or not it is used at all, THAT IS ASSOCIATED WITH HARM TO THE CHILD.”–the researche…[Read more]

Kerwin,
I take it you didn’t read the first paragraph of what I wrote. That was a quote from your article. And then I quote it a few more times.

My first post KERWIN was me going through the link quoting from it and discussing it. I think I quoted from it about 6 times.

Kerwin,

Your anecdotal evidence is that you were hit and with no harm done.

1. You are comparing your present self with an imaginary you that never existed. It’s a comparison that is impossible to compare. You have no idea how you were effected.

2. Hitting only increases the chances of these things and doesn’t guarantee them. Again, a…[Read more]

Kerwin,
I also find it remarkable that you believe anecdotal evidence is more worthy than studies or research. It’s true you can find a study on only 8 people in Africa on green coffee bean that shows it has weight loss effects and that one study probably should be thrown in the garbage if it’s the only one. But if you combine a lot of studies…[Read more]