Quote (BardOfXiix @ Nov 27 2012 10:28pm)

I don't know the passages offhand, and most of the ones they claim to be sciencey are bullshit, but there is one spectacular passage about gestation.

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The cusp: Something happened about ten-thousand years ago that changed everything. It was the start of humans living in one place, in towns and cities. It was the start of a primitive civilization.

It was also the start of agriculture, domestication of animals, and farms. It was the end of the hunter-gatherer way of life humans lived for the previous one hundred and ninety thousand years. It was the start of a completely new life form.

Technical progress did not start until about ten-thousand years ago. We went from hunter-gatherers to where we are now in the evolutionary blink of an eye.

Critical mass: About five to six-thousand years ago, the mind reached a critical mass. Warfare and other factors forced people to leave smaller villages and group together in larger cities, mainly because of the need for large armies. This put our technological progress in high gear. Written language began, the large monuments like pyramids were built, and armies started roaming the earth. It was the start of what we call modern civilization.

We evolved and progressed more in the last ten-thousand years than we did in the previous seven-hundred million. We had to become a new life form to do it.

Human beings became a fundamentally new life form. We became a new life form in a very short period of time, and the same thing is happening again, only a lot faster. Mankind has reached a new cusp, the end of one life form and the beginning of another.

Inner change: We gained the power to change our outside environment about ten-thousand years ago, and over that time, we have changed it to suit our needs. We now have to change our inner environment, our minds.

Final step: About two-hundred thousand years ago, we took our first real step away from the animal realm, the realm of flesh, and became human beings (homo-sapiens). About ten thousand years ago, we took the second step and became mankind (mind-kind). Now, we are about to take the third and final step.

Spiritual beings: Mankind is about to accomplish what it evolved to do. The human race is going to change into a new human life form for the third time. We will evolve from mankind or mind-kind to Godkind. We will become spiritual beings.

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One of the ways we deceive ourselves is by thinking we are separate from other animal life on earth. The truth is, we were them, and we are much like them now. The only real difference is we can be different if we learn the truth and the life.

We are different only in knowledge and the ability to understand the world around us. If we do nothing with it, we are no different at all and will stay an animal.

Waste our advantage: Being thinking creatures is just a small difference, but this small difference can make all the difference if we use it. This is why we do not want to waste our intelligence believing that myths are the truth. It makes our greater intelligence useless and makes us no better than any other animal. If we are not any better than an animal, we will continue to be one.

Evolution in action is the most terrifying thing there is. Nature is beautiful, but it is also a slaughter house, eat and be eaten. When everyone really sees it for what it is, it will scare people into becoming something other than an animal. What Darwin said a long time ago is finally doing what it talks about. The awareness of evolution evolves us out of it; it makes it possible to leave the animal realm.

The wheel of life: You have been where all life has been in the past. You had to be, to be where you are now. You will be there again unless you become a spiritual being and leave the animal evolutionary cycle. A life form only gets to be on top for so long, because the wheel of life keeps turning. You might leave today.

Rare/lucky: There are more bacteria on your skin and inside your body than there are human beings on the whole planet. This fact should emphasize just how rare and lucky it is to be human. You can check this is true for yourself.

If there is a man/God in the sky, he liked all the other forms we were in more than our current form. The dinosaurs, the ultimate in fang and claw, walked the same earth we are now walking for at least forty-thousand times longer than human beings have. We walked, swam and crawled for a lot longer in other bodies.

The truth is the truth you can check, and it is the truth that sets you free.

Deny the evidence: If you deny the evidence, you are denying the truth/God. Some people believe the evidence was planted to fool the rational, honest people. Religious people will say anything to hang on to the myths, even that the evidence of the past was planted by God to test people's faith in the Bible. We need to fight for the truth as hard as they fight for the myths to win the battle for the minds of the human race. We have the evidence on our side, so we will win.

The truth is what it looks like it is, and all honest, rational people know it. The truth is no fairytale. It was inconceivably long and brutal and should scare the hell out of you.

Quote (Impose @ Nov 28 2012 12:49am)

I didn't mean applying religion to science

I mean't applying science to religion



There is not a single possibility there is science in Christianity. For the sole reason that people back then had no clue.
Modern science exists primarily in the last 250 years. Give or take some.

Scripture was written over 2 millenia ago.

How can there possibly be science in Christianity.


Now. I have so many issues with intelligent design that it warrants its own thread.

Quote (Surfpunk @ Nov 30 2012 11:55pm)

Science has only been around for 250 years? Srsly?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo%5FGalilei
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolaus%5FCopernicus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ctesibius

Whoops.

Quote (Skinned @ Dec 1 2012 12:13am)

He said modern science.

Quote (Surfpunk @ Dec 1 2012 12:14am)

Yeah, but you can't make the argument that science has not been in a 2000-year old religion, then only refer to "modern science" as a qualifier.

Quote (Skinned @ Dec 1 2012 12:16am)

True.  Maybe he is trying to say something about science then and science now are two completely different things, which is ofc debatable.

I generally stay out of theological arguments

I personally would like to know the OP's definition of truth though.

Quote (Surfpunk @ Nov 30 2012 09:59pm)

Yeah, I try to do the same, as well. In fact, I'd love to see the religion half of PaRD spun off to a separate subforum. Although we'd have to come up with a new name for PaRD.