Melvyn Bragg attacks Richard Dawkins' 'atheist fundamentalism'

As an agnostic, I have problems with militant atheists as well. The idea of a "post-theist world" is a pipe dream. Religion will be here as long as humans are here.

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I keep forgetting that you're agnostic Ann.

Agnosticism is logical; atheism is not. (I used to be agnostic :-D)

That's what I think. "I don't know" is the only sane answer for me.

What's odd is that Richard Dawkins and I have almost identical backgrounds (We're both evolutionary biologists, although his schools were much more prestigious than mine). I used to be proud to consider him a colleague, and I still admire his work in pure science. But I was horrified by what he did (or attempted to do) in The God Delusion.

"I was horrified by what he did (or attempted to do) in The God Delusion."

So am I. He usually is quite logical, but that book disappointed me.

Ann,
Don't put your Alma Mater down. Oxford may be 800 years old and have a good name, Dawkins may have gone there, but don't forget so did David Cameron and he's a dick.

:-D I love the fact that nothing is sacred to you, Ian. (In case you're wondering, Harvard grads can be pompous jerks, too).

Ann, it isn't just me, it's the way we English are. When someone get tuck sup their own arse we see it as our duty to give them a purgative.

Nice. Although they stoutly deny it, atheism also requires the exercise of faith. As Richard Dawkins himself has admitted, there are no good theories on abiogenesis. He has even publicly stated in an interview on BBC, that it need not be necessary for there to be a theory for one to accept that abiogenesis is the explanation of how life arose.

Dennis, we'll be making life in the lab soon enough (we already make pieces of cells from organic compounds). To me that has nothing to do with religion, and I don't consider it grounds for altering religious belief.

Ann,
Are you sure about that. In my field, computers, for 40 years people have been saying that the computer with human intelligence equivalent is just around the corner. We are no nearer to an intelligent computer than we were then and the only way we will ever get there is to radically redefine what we mean by intelligence.

There is more to human intelligence than an ability to parse and filter data quickly.

Similarly Craig Venters claim to have almost created life in a test tube has neen shown to be full of holes I read recently. You and I once had an offline conversation about plants having rudimentary intelligence. I followed up with some furter reading because it's all new to me. What I read only left me more convinced that there is a huge and not yet understood diffrence between a life form and a self replicating orgamism.

You say we are making pieces of cells. That is a long way from a self sustaining life form.

Dennis,
The faith in science shown by Dawkins and others has spawned a new religion (or to be more accurate revived a verey old one, but you'll have to wait for more on that.)

Ann, it is possible that "we'll be making life in the lab soon enough", but that will only prove my hypothesis; that it is impossible without very careful and deliberate control as well as immense precision. Therefore, intelligent guidance is required. The creation of artificial life will prove that. Venter's experiments have convinced me.

Unlike most theists, I have the opinion that God does not just wave His hand and magic occurs. My view is that He works with the laws of the universe; He never suspends nor overrules any.

Wait, I posted without first reading Ian Thorpe's reply to you :-D

Ian, abiogenesis isn't my specialty, but I've been watching the significant developments in the field for several decades.

My opinion as a biologist is that we will succeed in making living, replicating cells in the lab. The first will be, of course, simpler than the naturally-occurring ones (mainly in having less DNA, I would guess).

This may or may not occur in our lifetimes. (I'd love to hear Sy's opinion on this-- it's closer to his specialty of genetics).

Dennis:

"I have the opinion that God does not just wave His hand and magic occurs. My view is that He works with the laws of the universe; He never suspends nor overrules any."

I concur. Separate magisteria.

Dennis,
When you have all the chemicals available, the entire earth with its oceans as a test tube, the sun as a source of energy, and a billion years for things to happen, just about anything will happen. Why would "careful and deliberate control" be needed?

I should also add that you have the whole universe to look for a place where the conditions are right.

Ann, I had a discussion with Sy on that. Stuff like Shapiro's Thesis, Prebiotic cytosine synthesis: A critical analysis and implications for the origin of life has all but halted research in that area.

Same goes for Richard W. You need to read Robert Shapiro's thesis.

Also, the careful notes of Venter and others are very enlightening. To get the DNA, they had to use enzymes. They could only achieve short strands. (Ann has already hinted on that) they also had to complete the assembly using the system in a functioning cell and they had to devise methods to identify and correction or remove errors in copying.

As I said, very careful control and immense precision is required.

Ann, it's OK, you will not scare me if you say RNA.

But then I've heard many people who know what they are talking about (whereas I don't) say that DNA is a bit overrated. I have found Rupert Sheldrake's theories on morphic resonance and collective memory very interesting.
Sheldrake, a distinguished biologist, is sure that while DNA is the blueprint for the physical body it has little to do with the formation of personality traits.

". . . you have the whole universe to look for a place where the conditions are right."

The admitted timelines do not fit the beliefs in abiogenesis. The incontrovertible evidence shows complex unicellular life on earth before it was 1 billion years old, that is very soon after the earth got its ocean, so it suggests life appearing in our ocean almost as soon as we got one.

"The oceans formed on Earth 3.8 billion years ago."

Dennis,

"has all but halted research in that area."

Hmm. Every few months I read about a new development. I will have to see if that stops.

Ian,

Actually, I'm glad you mentioned RNA. I believe it's that, not DNA, that is thought to be the genetic material of the most primitive cells.

Dennis, I read the abstract to your link. There are problems in explaining how early cells could acquire the chemical cytosine to make RNA. This doesn't bring research in the field to a halt. I believe they are working on creating cell membranes now, which don't contain cytosine.

Thank, whomever is to be thanked in these occasions, that I am not a scientist... I am not smart enough for that, and even if I were smart enough, I am totally undisciplined to be a scientist.

However I am a dreamer, a dreamer who never stops dreaming. What if after all the gods and even the only One, would be some Space Travelers?


"The oceans formed on Earth 3.8 billion years ago."

I totally agree with this statement. However why not accepting that the possibility of the water coming on Earth may be a reality?
If we accept that, we should also accept the consequence.

Putting these two things end to tail, we might assume that water came from Space with life elements on it, and on Earth conditions oceans and life was accomplished...

Ann, the problem with cytosine is not the cell wall, it's the RNA. Without cytosine, the RNA becomes a mountainous problem.

Also, the polymersaion currently requires the use of catalysts. There are no known plausible mineral catalysts.

There are also no known plausible mineral sources of ribose (which by the way is also unstable)

For those reason Dr. Shapiro and others are proposing that there was another nucleic acid that served as a precurser. There is no reason to believe (without applying circular logic) that some other self-replicating chemical passed on to RNA. Short Thiopeptide ester nucleic acid polymers can be produced without enzymes, but there is no reason to conclude that any are capable of self-replication.

Then there is the problem of the observed timeline. It is unreasonable to expect all that in the observed timelines.

Crin, most likely, comets brought all this water here, however as Shapiro has indicated, there was no cytocine in the water that they brought. There was also no ribose and no deoxyribose in that water either.

Rupert Sheldrake's Morphic Fields and Morphic Resonance very much fit my own theories.

And to Crin ... you should read up on the Comet Theory of Jim McCanney who claims they are NOT as NASA claims (dirty snowballs) but are Electro-Magnetic Plasma in nature.

I know that, Dennis. But when you attack a problem in a lab, you try to break it down to smaller pieces.

The article you linked to shows that there is currently a problem explaining RNA synthesis, so perhaps research on the genetics of early cells is stalled. But that's no reason to stop research on the cell membrane, or other parts of the cell that don't need cytosine to be assembled.

It's widely accepted (as you know) that complex cells (eukaryotes) evolved by engulfing simpler cells (prokaryotes, their predecessors).

I see no reason that prokaryotes could not be assembled as well from their respective parts, which would be groups of molecules in certain specific formations. (For instance, a double layer of fats (lipids) for the cell wall).

Dennis,
All you are saying is that science has not found the answer, Yet!

Religion has been trying to find answers for years, and the best they can do is say, "Godidit."

The scientific method dates back only a few hundred years. However, we now know that lightning cannot be explained in terms of Zeus thunderbolts. Give science time, and it will give you the correct answers.

"Give science time, and it will give you the correct answers."

My view also. However, science has not yet found the answer, plus there is no conflict in my mind between science and religion. Science has actually strengthened my belief in God.

Also, unlike most theist, I don't stop at "God did it". Since I don't hold the view that God just snaps his fingers and magic happens, I continue my quest with, "How did He do it? Can I imitate it?"

Ann, I want that research to continue on those parts of the cell that don't need cytosine.

However, your statement, "It's widely accepted (as you know) that complex cells (eukaryotes) evolved by engulfing simpler cells (prokaryotes, their predecessors)." has been challenged by Woese et al. In several very argued papers Carl Woese demonstrates why it is unreasonable to conclude that archaea evolved into bacteria and that neither evolved into eukaryotes. That view has now largely supplanted what you claim as the "widely accepted" belief.

"Give science time, and it will give you the correct answers."

Faith in science is faith in people, that's all. It was precisely because of what I saw being revealed in advanced physics/cosmology, as well as biology/genetics, that I began to wonder about God . . The order in this time-space continuum is incredibly logical, in the sense that things unfold according to very precise apparent "rules" . . but, in many instances, the apparent rules do not even conform to any human notions of rational . .

Basic logic then led me to suspect there might actually be a "Rule maker/enforcer", a God simply put, operating at levels of understanding humans could not comprehend regardless of how much they observed them in action. Simple logic told me that my (then) belief that God does not exist, was not trustworthy. It was "science" that informed me I could very well be wrong.

I then tried to communicate with whatever God might be able to hear me inquire . . I tested the "heart-knower" concept, found in the Abrahamic religious texts. There would, I reasoned, be no other way to test for such a Being's existence.

"Faith in science is faith in people, that's all."

I agree.

"It was precisely because of what I saw being revealed in advanced physics/cosmology, as well as biology/genetics, that I began to wonder about God . . The order in this time-space continuum is incredibly logical, in the sense that things unfold according to very precise apparent "rules" . . but, in many instances, the apparent rules do not even conform to any human notions of rational . . ."

Prof. Richard Dawkins would be amazed that after listening to his lectures, I increased my awe of God.

"I tested the "heart-knower" concept, found in the Abrahamic religious texts. There would, I reasoned, be no other way to test for such a Being's existence."

In my case, the proof was found in historical records! I was shaken from my very firm and comfortable agnosticism by the historical proof that Jesus actually existed.

I'm chronically skeptical it seems, Dennis . . historical records can be misleading, and legends can come from merely unusual events. To me, the general proposition that a man who could literally do blatant miracles as will, actually lived somewhere at some point . . was very difficult to accept. I needed to see something more directly, I guess . . something first Hand, so to speak ; )

Dennis,
Isn't it possible that Jesus did exist, but was not divine?

My own view is that Jesus saw himself as fulfilling the messianic prophecies as they were commonly interpreted at that time. But those prophecies called for a king who would restore the kingdom of Israel. Not a god. Jesus failed when Jehovah did not appear on the Mount of Olives as described in Zechariah 9:9. He was then arrested and crucified for treason. His followers remained in Jerusalem under James who took up the leadership. Paul who was a Jew by birth, but born in the Greek city of Tarsas, saw Jesus as a god, and began a new religion, separate from the Jerusalem sect, which followed the Greek belief that a savior god will appear in human form and free the people (see, "Prometheus Bound" by Ayschylus.)

Dennis-- things changed that quickly? We had Sy here a few months ago confirming that endosymbiosis was the predominate theory of the origin of eukaryotes.

Paradigms usually don't change that fast. It took decades and tons of research for that theory to be accepted, and I doubt it will fade quickly. (Although Lynn Margulis, who originated the theory, died in November).

Woese has been proposing his theory now for over 30 years. He was even being scoffed at, but his latest thesis is so good that the crowd accepting it is growing. I don't think Sy has read it yet. If the text is still up on a site somewhere, I'll put up the link.

Nearly three years ago, without knowing about Woese's theory, I was arguing with Sy that it was unreasonable to conclude that there was a single ancestor unit for all life on earth. My argument was based on the idea that according to current observations, whether it occurred spontaneously or not, there had to have been numerous self-replicating molecules, which, if they were the progenitor molecules, would have produced innumerable "proto cells". (Sy's term for them) These "proto cells" would then have been the ancestors of the various forms of life we see around us, so not all life have the same ancestor. My argument that it was not a "tree of life" but a "jungle of life" did not go over well, but I noticed a year later that there are some researchers proposing the "jungle of life" hypothesis also. I even read one peer reviewed thesis arguing that for the prokaryotes, it was a "jungle of life". Then last year, I discovered Woese's paper by accident when I was doing idle searches on the web. According to Woese, the progenitors, whatever they were, produced acheobacteria first, then bacteria, then eukaryotes. I was amazed at his arguments! Very detailed with well-presented excellent evidence.

Still looking, but here is an article that summarizes Woese's proposal:

Recent work, however, has shown that what were once called "prokaryotes" are far more diverse than anyone had suspected. The Prokaryotae are now divided into two domains, the Bacteria and the Archaea, as different from each other as either is from the Eukaryota, or eukaryotes. No one of these groups is ancestral to the others, and each shares certain features with the others as well as having unique characteristics of its own.

Richard wants to get me in trouble :-D

O.K. I'll bite.

Jesus is not God.

". . . those prophecies called for a king who would restore the kingdom of Israel"

That's Jewish misconception. I had actually examined it and found it to be not true. Because of their unfaithfulness, the nation as a whole was rejected and a new "nation". The Christian congregation replaced it. So Jesus did not fail.

"Paul who was a Jew by birth, but born in the Greek city of Tarsas, saw Jesus as a god, and began a new religion, separate from the Jerusalem sect . . ."

Paul did not see Jesus as a god and did not form any new sect.

There I just irritated all those devout church-goers again. Happy?
Zechariah :9:9, "“Be very joyful, O daughter of Zion. Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem. Look! Your king himself comes to you. He is righteous, yes, saved; humble, and riding upon an ass, even upon a full-grown animal the son of a she-ass" (NWT)

As I said, Jesus is not God, so the prophesy was fulfilled.

Yes, the prokaryotes were split into two groups decades ago. I am interested in the sentence you bolded, though. Let me know if you find a link to Woese's work. I hope he is a part of a research team-- single researchers have a hard time these days, as the field of biology is so complex.

Woese is part of a research team.

Still looking for that thesis.

Ann,
On creating life in the lab: I knew I had something on one of my UK blogs but it took a while to find as it was in a highly compressed archive. I used this extract in a satirical post on Craig Venter's claim to have created life in the lab:

Jim Collins, Professor of biomedical engineering, Boston University:

Relax — media reports hyping this as a significant, alarming step forward in the creation of artificial forms of life can be discounted. The work reported by Venter and his colleagues is an important advance in our ability to re-engineer organisms; it does not represent the making of new life from scratch. The microorganism reported by the Venter team is synthetic in the sense that its DNA is synthesized, not in that a new life form has been created. Its genome is a stitched-together copy of the DNA of an organism that exists in nature, with a few small tweaks thrown in…Frankly, scientists do not know enough about biology to create life…Although some of us in synthetic biology may have delusions of grandeur, our goals are much more modest.

John, it takes different things to convince each person.

". . . historical records can be misleading, and legends can come from merely unusual events." True, but the fact that his enemies confirmed his existence was convincing.

"To me, the general proposition that a man who could literally do blatant miracles as will, actually lived somewhere at some point . . was very difficult to accept."

I agree, but having confirmed his existence, there is deafening silence in the contemporary writings. None have said that no such things happened, whereas there were persons claiming to be eyewitnesses of the events. I found an obscure Jewish reference that claimed that Jesus was a magician. It was a quotation from the Midrash. I have not been able to get my hands on a copy.

Dennis,

The "messianic expectation" has been interpreted differently at different times in history. I specifically referred to the interpretation common at the time in which Jesus lived. This expectation is described in Luke where the angel speaks to Mary:

Luke 1:31-33
Listen: You will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will never end.

And when a disciple said:

Luke 24:21
But we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.

But we know that Jesus never sat on the throne of Israel, or ruled over Israel.

I gave you the wrong reference to Zechariah. However Zechariah 9:9 does bear out my point that Jesus saw himself as fulfilling the messianic expectation in restoring the kingdom of Israel.

The reference to Zechariah I intended to cite is Zech 14:1-4.

Following the last supper, Jesus led his followers to the Mount of Olives where he spent the night in prayer. Why the Mount of Olives?

Zechariah 14:1-4
A day of the Lord is about to come when your possessions will be divided as plunder in your midst. For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to wage war . . . . Then the Lord will go to battle and fight against those nations, just as he fought battles in ancient days. On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives which lies to the east of Jerusalem,


Jesus often spoke about the coming of "the Day of the Lord." This is when he expected the event to happen. It didn't.

Did Jesus fulfill the messianic expectation as he and his followers interpreted them? No.

When you try to look for eye witnesses to the work of Jesus, there are problems. For numerous reasons, "Matthew" could not have been written by an apostle, and it is dependent upon "Mark" "Mark" was written by a follower of Paul who also travelled with Peter. "Luke" was written by a follower of Paul. The author of "John" is unknown, there is evidence of rearrangement, and other authors inserted porteions, plus the only passage stated to be from an eye witness it the death of Jesus. "Acts" was also by "Luke". Paul was not an eye witness. The letters of Peter does not verify any event. And there is no one else reliable. So I am wondering who you are relying upon as an eye witness.

Whereas I follow Henry Grew's advice. "The bible is its own best interpreter." and "compare scripture with scripture" in my search for at the true meaning. Human misinterpretation does not invalidate any prophecy. Human mistaken expectation as a result of their misinterpretation does not make the unfulfilled expectation mean an unfulfilled prophesy.

Even though Jesus plainly told his disciples that he was going to be killed, they still held onto their mistaken belief that the prophesies predicted that the messiah would not die. Peter even scolded Jesus for saying that he would be killed.

The prophesy at Isaiah 53 plainly included the prediction that the Messiah would die, yet even to this day, the Jews still maintain that the Messiah will not die.

Those teachings about who wrote what and that none of the accounts are eyewitness accounts are modern (at least 19th century) speculations without any sound foundation. If you have any sound foundation for those pronouncements, let me see them.

Ian,

"Relax — media reports hyping this as a significant, alarming step forward in the creation of artificial forms of life can be discounted.

Don't believe it, I warn. What Mr. Venter is hawking is a machine that is perfectly suited to producing things like bio-weapons. Sure, it does not actually create anything new, but it rapidly reconstitutes genetic coding, with tweaks . . These handy dandy mass mutation machines are being disseminated all over the world . . So now, virtually any mad scientist or wealthy genocidal maniac can try to make their own customized doomsday bugs, quick and fairly cheap.

Dennis,

"As I said, Jesus is not God, so the prophesy was fulfilled."

You sir, are not in any position to speak with such authority. You are not God, so you saying Jesus is not God, cannot be rationally seen as anything more than a man's opinion . . but you don't speak of it as your opinion, you speak of it as if a fact. I therefore dismiss you as an overly egocentric person, that is not being rational about the things that they (a human) merely figure is so, about God.

John,
I'm not relaxed because I suspect the same agenda as you do. Only a few weeks ago, after all the hysterical warnings of the past few years about pandemics of deadly strains of flu, we heard that such a virus had been created in a laboratory "for reserch reasons."

"We created artificial life," might sound threatening to people who look at the possible implications but can more easily be spun to sound like a triumph for modern science that offers benefits in the form of cures for genetic disease, brain damage etc that a simple statement like "we bio - engineered a new killer disease.

Jesus is not God is a fact John. I did not come by that conclusion by conjecture, speculation or "instinct." I simply read several translations of the scriptures, consulted several authorities in Greek (including Catholic authorities) to arrive at the conclusion. I even read the records of the debate between Arius and Athanasius. Arius' arguments based on Colossians 1:15-17 removed all doubt from my mind. Athanasius was being illogical and contradictory.

I search for truth by the elimination of contradiction but I do not wish to discuss that here.

And God is NOT GOD ... either.

much as god(s) are not God ...

Dennis,

Are we debating semantics? You say Jesus is not God. If you mean that Paul viewed Jesus as being a separate individual from God. I will agree. But Paul and other New Testament writers certainly saw Jesus as a god.

Colossians 1:15-19
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation,
for all things in heaven and on earth were created by him – all things, whether visible or invisible, whether thrones or dominions, whether principalities or powers – all things were created through him and for him.

He himself is before all things and all things are held together in him.

He is the head of the body, the church, as well as the beginning, the firstborn from among the dead, so that he himself may become first in all things.

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in the Son.


Paul's position seems to be that Jesus was born in the flesh, but gained the status of godhood by his resurrection (see Romans 1:3-4.) This is in conflict with Matt 1:18 and Luke 1:35 which suggests that Mary became pregnant through the holy spirit before she had relations with Joseph. A third view is adoptionism which is the belief that Jesus was adopted as Son of God at his baptism.

Dennis,
The problem with the prophecy at Isaiah 53 is that it is not a prophecy.

It appears to be a report that some highly respected, but unnamed person had died. There is nothing in it to connect it with the messianic prophecies.

Actually, the theories about who wrote what in the Bible are not new. We have evidence of scholars questioning the authorship of the Bible going back to 900 C.E. However, back then the very act of expressing doubt about God, or Jesus Christ was forbidden and could cost you your life. Unfortunately, most of these critics are known to us only through the books written to discredit them.

Modern biblical Criticism began with Thomas Hobbes and Benedict Spinoza in the 17th century when scholars were freer to express their ideas. You shouldn't be so ready to dismiss four hundred years of investigation.

"Paul's position seems to be that Jesus was born in the flesh, but gained the status of godhood by his resurrection . . "

No, that is not what he said, he said; " . . so that he himself may become first in all things". The first resurrected, in this case, that's a part of being first in all things, naturally. There is no implication that Jesus attained godhood through his resurrection, but just that he attained the status of first resurrected, as the words literally say.

Tossing in some homemade supposition about his resurrection causing his attainment of godhood, is just a man superimposing his own thought on Paul's mind. Paul was perfectly capable of simply stating at some point, that Jesus attained godhood by being resurrected, but he never does. He just says he attained the status of first resurrected. To attain that status, it was obviously necessary that he be born in the flesh.

If God was to be the first resurrected, it would be required that He "became flesh" at some point, so that the flesh body could be resurrected. Simple logic . . Those who say God must not have done that, are just limiting God to their own understanding of what is possible, rather than allowing that He can pretty much do whatever He wishes to do, I say. It troubles their mind that God could do things they can't, apparently . . Not the smartest way to approach the nature and powers of such a Being, to me anyway. That makes Him out to be like a man, like themselves essentially, limited to being and doing only what they happen to think is possible/sets well with them. Idol worship, basically.

"You shouldn't be so ready to dismiss four hundred years of investigation."

That was not investigation Richard. You should not be so eager to accept criticism that is without any foundation. The reasons given for those conclusions that the writings were forgery simply do not stand up.

Contemporary records confirm much of what has been written and none refute anything they wrote. Even the claims of forgery fall flat under examination.

"There is no implication that Jesus attained godhood through his resurrection, but just that he attained the status of first resurrected, as the words literally say."

I agree John. The words seem plain and obvious to me.

"The problem with the prophecy at Isaiah 53 is that it is not a prophecy."

It is indeed a prophesy."

"It appears to be a report that some highly respected, but unnamed person had died. There is nothing in it to connect it with the messianic prophecies."

The Jews prefer that it not refer specifically to the messiah because it contradicts the cherished belief that he would not die.

Found the thesis. It's still on line. Here's a link to a pdf of it:

The universal ancestor

http://www.pnas.org/content/95/12/6854.full.pdf+html

Here is a better link to the web site: Click Here

Bragg makes several false statements. He accuses atheism of becoming militant, when the Bible itself advocate wars and genocide. The Book of Revelation advocates torture and death for God's enemies. Bragg credits the Bible with emancipating the slaves, when in reality the Bible condoned slavery, and told slaves to obey their masters.

Then Bragg credits the Bible with triggering liberty in the British Civil War, while in reality the Bible says nothing about democracy and had been used by kings and tyrants as proof of their "divine right" to rule. The English Revolution was a result of the conflict between the Catholic King who claimed "Devine Right" and a Protestant parliament, with parliament prevailing and being able to force concessions from the king.

Richard, I'm afraid your anti Bible bias is showing. What has Bragg saying atheists have becme militant to do with The Bible advocating war and genocide. We non believers are not influenced by The Bible.

As the writer and producer of a documentary series on the ending of the slave trade Melvin Bragg is very familiar with the events leading up to that moment and how more liberally minded non conformist sects, methodists and Baptists, Quakers and Unitarians along with some maverick Curch of England followers used religious arguement to sway public opinion to their cause.

What Bragg says about the civil war does not relate to The Bible's saying nothing about democracy. What he is referring to is the way groups like the Baptists (non conformists) and The Levellers (religious communards who tried to live by Biblical standards) were instumental in bringing to a head the disputes about freedom of worship when the Stuart monarchy sought to eliminate any but the state religion.

Even those of us who do not look to it for inspiration cannot deny the influence The Bible had on the development of western political culture.

BTW You have made a false statement. Neither King Charles I or II was Roman Catholic. They supported what is known in the Anglican Catholic Church (Church of England) as High Church worship, a form of liturgy closer to the Roman method of worship, with Latin mass, incense, candles, saints, virgins, call and response prayers etc. etc.

The Puritans, so called because they wanted to purge King Henry's English Church of "the heresies of Rome", objected to this and demanded a no frills type of worship closer to Luther's vision of the Christian faith.

Ian,
Are you trying to tell me that Bragg is not biased? Many of the statements he made are absurd.

Bragg may have written books praising Christians in their opposition to the slave trade, but what part of the Bible did the Christian cite? Leviticus 25:44 says that we may make slaves of foreign people. In the New Testament, Paul tell slaves to obey their masters. Then in Philemon, the apostle Paul has a runaway slave named Onesimus whom he returns to the slave's Christian owner. That makes me think of the "runaway slave" laws we had in this country. If a runaway slave made it into a free state, that slave had to be returned to its owner.

What influence did the Bible have on western political culture? For most of Christian history Europe was in decline and entered the "dark ages" in which the church was supreme. It was the influence of eastern thought, the expansion of trade, and the rise of strong national governments which brought about a vibrant Europe.

Charles I was indeed a protestant, and ruled by Divine Right. He was overthrown and executed in 1649 and his reign was followed by that of Oliver Cromwell. After 11 years of absolute dictatorship by Cromwell, the monarchy was restored with Charles II in 1660. It was really no revolution at all because the new monarchy still ruled by divine right.

Bragg was obviously referring to "The Glorious Revelution" of 1688. James II was a Catholic, but he followed a policy of religious tolerance. It was the birth of his son which set off the protestant parliament who feared a Catholic dynasty on the throne. Congress named William of Orange as successor, and William defeated James in series of battles to become king. This brought about significant political change. James II was the last English king to rule by Divine Right, and parliament used his overthrow to exert its own powers. But it was still years before religious freedom was permitted in England.

Richard, Again you are trying to suggest Melvyn Bragg's comments are based on a literal reading of The Bilbe. This is not the case, he is talking about British history.

You are cherry picking quotes from the Bible to in an atttempt to justify your spurious claim that Bragg made false statements. I'm sure the leaders of the campaign to abolish slavery in the Empire, which succeeded in the abolition of slavery in 1807 also chery picked part of The Bible (probably the New Testament, you seem to be fixated on the early books of the OT) in order to help make therir case.
but Melvin Bragg is not trying to argue the case for abolition, he is reporting how the case was won 200 years ago.
Read the meterial at this page if you want to know about the abolitionists but please stop trying to undermine my post by making statements that are untrue and irrelevant.

Something mysterious is happening. This is my third attempt at this reply, and I can't get it posted.

I am far from saying that Briggs statements are based on a literal reading of the Bible. If he had read the Bible he would not be saying the stupid things he is saying. The Bible played a greater role in justifying slavery, than in setting the slaves free. I am not saying that some of the people who played a role in setting slaves free were not Christians. Of course some of them were. But it was not a Christian movement.

My comments were not all from the Old Testament. I specifically referred to Paul's letter to Philemon, which is about a runaway slave name Onesimus whom Paul was returning to his owner. At no time did Paul speak against slavery.

Here is what the New Testament says to slaves:

Ephesians 6:5-8
Slaves, obey your human masters10 with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart as to Christ, not like those who do their work only when someone is watching – as people-pleasers – but as slaves of Christ doing the will of God from the heart. Obey with enthusiasm, as though serving the Lord and not people, because you know that each person, whether slave or free, if he does something good, this will be rewarded by the Lord.

That may have given comfort to slaves, but it did not free them.

I deleted my original reply because I forgot to include the link.

And do you actually know what was in the minds of the abolitionist leaders when they wrote their pamphlets on the wrongs of slavery? Because Melvyn Bragg is referring to what they wrote as unlike you, he is not a spiritualist and cannot channel people like William Wilberforce, Elizabeth , John Wesley and James Stephen. Here's a page dedicated to the abiloionist leaders, go there, read about how religious most of them were (John Weslrey founded the Methodist movement) and understand what utter arse dribble you are using to try to discredit Melvyn Bragg beccause in your eyes he has committed the heresy of ctiticising one of the Hierophants of the Chuch of Scienceology.

The abolitionists were probably aware of the quotes you cherry picked to try to make a case they they were not Bible influenced but perhaps they were inspired by other extracts. It has always been said those who wish to can find justification in The Bible for anything. Unfortunately Melvyn Bragg and I can't talk to those and you are deluded if you think you can, so we can only go off what they wrote or are reported by contemporary chroniclers reported.

BTW, You're fooling nobody, Richard my arse, your style give you away every time.

You accused me of cherry picking text from the Bible, then you accused me of criticizing Melvin Bragg because he attacked Richard Dawkins.

I know little about Richard Dawkins, and have never read his book. In your post you directed the readers to a site where they could watch the video and read the original text. I did just that and found that Bragg made false and incorrect statements about the Bible. For one: Bragg credited the Bible with "triggering" democracy in the English Civil Wars, which is false. The Bible says nothing about democracy. Second, Bragg misrepresented the Bible's position on slavery. The Bible condones slavery.

I never claimed to know what was in the minds of the abolitionist. My statement is that the Bible condones slavery. The page you linked me to listed individuals, but so what? There were also many Christians who supported slavery, and Christianity condoned the practice of slavery for hundreds of years before the anti-slavery movement began. You will find Christians are communists. Others are racists. You will even find Christians who are gay or lesbians. They come in all types. But that is true of everybody.

Somehow that page you linked me to left out Thomas Paine, an atheist, who spoke out strongly against slavery and was a founder of the first anti-slavery society in America. You don't have to be a Christian to be against slavery.

There is far too many passages condoning slavery in the Bible for me to post them all, so I have to be selective. The first passages starts with Noah cursing Canaan:

Genesis 9:25-26 NET Bible
So he said,
“Cursed be Canaan!
The lowest of slaves
he will be to his brothers.”
He also said,
“Worthy of praise is the LORD, the God of Shem!
May Canaan be the slave of Shem!

Thus the Bible condoned slavery, and justified the Israelites making slaves out of the Canaanites.

Do you want to read something horrible? Read Numbers 31 about the Midianite women who were captured in the war. All the women who had had sexual relations with men were killed, leaving some 32,000 women who had never had sexual relations with men. These virgins were divided evenly between the men who fought in the war, and the people. That is except for about 350 women who were given as a tribute to Yahweh.

What hope does the New Testament give to slaves? Read:

1 Corinthians 7:21-22
Were you called as a slave? Do not worry about it. But if indeed you are able to be free, make the most of the opportunity. For the one who was called in the Lord as a slave is the Lord’s freedman. In the same way, the one who was called as a free person is Christ’s slave.

Words like that may give slaves comfort, but they do not free slaves. To do that, Paul would have had to tell the slave owners to free the slaves, but Paul didn't do that. Jesus himself was quiet on the question of slavery.

Ian,

Before this becomes an issue, the statement, "You will find Christians are communists," refers to some Christians, not all of them as the context should make clear.

And maybe you can expand on that last comment. Who do you think I am trying to fool? And what is it that my style is giving away?

Richard, your circular logig and wild leaps from one statement too a totally unconnected conclusion are all too familiar ... and tiresome.

For the nth time, just because you can find a few quotes in The Bible that condone slavery that does not mean radical like John Lilburne, puritans like Oliver Cromwell, John Pym, Denxil Holles and Willam Strode and non conformists such as Fairfax did not take their inspiration from contradictory quotes. You will find many of them HERE

So when you accuse Melvyn Bragg of making false statements you are basing that accusation on your own very subjective reading of a few extracts from The Bible with the intention of trying to undermine the main topic of the thread.

And there's no point playing the injured innocent as you do in the last paragraph. You know damn well what I'm talking about.

Ian,

I have cited numerous passages which specifically spoke of slaves or slavery and slavery is condoned in them. All you had to do was cite one passage which was in opposition to slavery. You couldn't. You gave me a link to Bible contradictions, and not one of those contradictions says anything about slavery.

I have fully admitted that there were many excellent Christians who opposed slavery, but I maintain that their opposition could not have been based upon the Bible. Bible accepts slavery. Christianity itself has accepted slavery for hundreds of years.

There are passages in the Bible which were used in opposition to slavery, such as (Job 31:15,) but none of the passages speaks against owning slaves.

Opponents to slavery often mentioned Paul's letter to Philemon stating to Paul was hinting to Philemon to free the slave Onesimus. That may have been Paul's intention, but Onesimus was a personal friend of Paul's, and Paul never actually said to free him, nor did Paul say anything about freeing the other slaves which Philemon owned.

Melvyn Bragg was also wrong about the Bible "triggering" liberty and democracy during the "English Civil Wars." It is true that after James II was removed that Parliament gained certain concessions from William and Mary, but that was power play for the aristocracy which ran parliament. It had nothing to do with democracy.

My criticisms of Melvyn Bragg were relevant and accurate. I did go into the ad hominem type of attack which you are using.

Now you are being ridiculous Richard. What I said was the abolitionists in their own words stated that their campaign was inspired by The Bible, just as the rebellion of the Parliamentarians against King Charles 1 eventually, after a false start, triggered a move to a kind of democracy known as constitutional monarchy.

Both the abolitionists and the Parliamentarians testified to the fasct that The Bible inspired them and as I said about 40 million coments ago we cannot know what was in their minds or what subjective interpretations of what Biblical passages inspired them.

You know David, I mean Richard, for someone who claims to love science and find religion ridiculous you seem awfuly fond of using literal readings of Biblical passages when it suits you.

I really enjoy it when Gather still leads me to fascinating realms that are way outside my own expertise. Thanks to everyone for an interesting glimpse at a foreign kingdom!

Ditto!

Thanks people :-)

It has seemed to me the atheist/faith argument has mostly been an atheist/Christianity argument, with both sides considerably less considerate than civil.

Absolutely. The most vehement opponents of posts on Christianity seem to have little to say on posts about Hinduismk, Buddhism and Shinto Paganism and positively drool over anything related to Islam.

There are few Hindu's, Buddhists, or pagans here to debate with. Christianity is already doing its best to trash Islam.

The esoteric versions of each are in agreement, it is the exoteric versions that commonly disagree with each other.

Scientists present evidence. No one is forced to believe, but facts usually speak loudy.
Religion historically has been about force. The believers, be they those of islam or Christianity or whatever attempt to force their beliefs on others.

"Scientists present evidence. No one is forced to believe, but facts usually speak loudy.

How did "present evidence" turn into "facts"? No, it's just evidence I say, and those who present it are not infallible gods, and their opinions cannot be rightly be spoken of as facts. That is a form of faith based religionism, and not scientific thinking at all.

Scientific thinking demands one not accept anything as fact, which one does not themselves observe and/or understand. No amount of treating dudes in lab coats like high preists, can ever amount to being a scientific reasoner. That's just authority worship, plain and simple, I say.

And the very same thing goes for treating stuff that pops into one's mind about what "religion" has done. There is not really a monolithic thing that can be rightly called "religion", anymore than there is a monolithic thing one can rightly call "politics", or "science", or "history", or "authority" . . these are just hyper-simplistic imaginings, spawned by things one has heard tell of . . not real "entities" or "oracles" at all . . just stuff one's mind conjures up, in reaction to the words. Faith in one's imagination, is rather obviously folly, to me anyway.

"Scientists present evidence. No one is forced to believe, but facts usually speak loudly."

Yet they force schools to not include the possibility that not we see around us were all developed undirected. Also although the facts shot loudly, many scientists are not listening, especially when the facts (actual observations0 do not fit the preferred belief and their deafness worsens when the facts (actual observations) contradict the theory. "Just because we can't explain it doesn't mean the theory is wrong!"

Also you need to read more of their papers. Two scientists with equal qualifications and experience will very often each arrive at different conclusions after examining the very same evidence.

Mary Ann,
Too often these days, particularly in the field of physics, scientists present theories backed up only by mathematical speculation and try to pass them off as facts.

When you get right down to it, both science and religion(s) rely on past "accepted" facts ... facts being truly nothing more than mutually acceptable definitions and are thus arbitrary (the same applies to so-called truths).

That being why this world has concepts of God and gods and has little to no acceptance of a GOD ... they have just not yet extended their "imaginations" to UNIversal potentials.

Dennis:

"I have the opinion that God does not just wave His hand and magic occurs. My view is that He works with the laws of the universe; He never suspends nor overrules any."

Ann Marcaida:

I concur. Separate magisteria.


Well, I have a question. If rules of the universe are never suspended, and extreme discipline and care are required to come up with life, whence God?

You give me a boatload of reasons why a simple cell cannot be created without intelligent help, and then tell me a fully formed intelligent being, tossing about stars and energy, has appeared with no history of creation, evolution, or natural science at all. Sorry - makes NO sense whatsoever.

And I don't subscribe to the "turtles all the way down" answer the discussion above leads to.

The usual counter is that God created itself.

However, if a person accepts the premise that God created itself, how can that person reject the possibility that the universe created itself? A universe which gradually evolves into what we have today is more reasonable than a perfected god which simply is.

Indeed. That answer is no better than an infinitude of creating entities disappearing into the unfathomable past (turtles all the way down).

Chuck and Richard,
The promlem sdcience has when it tries to invade this area is infinity. Science cannot accommodate infinity. Once infinity is introduced to the equations they all fall apart.
This is why scientists have to erect an imaginary wall (a shock wave) and say THE UNIVERSE ENDS HERE.
But if you had surfed that shockwave all the way to where it is now, looking out into the abyss you would realise that you could go ten times further and then ten times further than that ... and then you would go mad.

Stick with numbers, leave the clever stuff to philosophers.

Chuck, I'm an agnostic. You're asking the wrong person questions about God.

However, since I moderate a religion group, I admit that I often do speak as if God exists, since I am open to that idea. But I hold no beliefs regarding God. I apologize for any confusion this may cause.

Ann,
You understand more about theological reasoning than most of the scientists at this site. Sometimes it is necessary to promote open discussion for us to suspend disbelief, there is no need to apologise, an intelligent person or somebody who is not intent on suppressing open discussion would understand that.

I was apologizing mostly to Chuck, as I don't think I've ever explained my spiritual orientation to him. Most people who look at my profile and see "Buddhist" don't realize that not all Buddhists believe in God.

"If rules of the universe are never suspended, and extreme discipline and care are required to come up with life, whence God?"

I give you Dr. Michio Kaku's answer this time Chuck since it is similar to the one I gave you about two years ago:

"When you're working with infinity, even the improbable becomes probable."

We're not working with infinity inside the universe, we are working with less than 14 billion years. The time we are working with on earth is even way much shorter. As you know, (I read your comment) complex unicellular life appeared on Earth almost as soon as it got an ocean. That time span is way too short for it to be reasonable to conclude that it happened spontaneously. All evidence indicates that it would have had to occur without cytosine, ribose or deoxyribose because it is unreasonable to conclude that they were available.

". . . not all Buddhists believe in God."

I used to think that none did. Then I connected with a Gatherer who is a Buddhist who wavers between atheism and agnosticism, and now you, the agnostic Buddhist.

Robert Shapiro is pursuing the idea of an information-carrying molecule that will self-assemble without the need of enzymes.

Others are also investigating that as a possibility. I am trying to follow the experiments with thioester Peptide Nucleic Acids (tPNA) That class of nucleic acid polymerizes without catalysis, mimics RNA and DNA and does not need the phosphate base, ribose or deoxyribose.

Do you have any updates Chuck? Nothing new turns up in my searches.

I know little about "turtles" all the way down ... but will say that that is more related, and accurate to, GOD all the way down ... often seen as Gods and gods as are we being made in the "image of" ...

GOD (not God nor gods) being the ALL ... the UNIverse (called by some the Omniverse) ... that which INcludes BOTH infinities, the potentials of all and nothing ... neither to be known by mere man.

IMnsHO

Sounds like you have been reading Hindu literature.

I read that and everything else ... :-)

Is anyone familiar with the statement:"Forever learning, but never coming into the full knowledge of the truth"? I believe this statement is recorded somewhere in the Scriptures.

THE TRUTH is LOVE and IS GOD ... such can be known only in part by man. IMnsHO

Rosa,
I don't know about Abrahamic scriptures but it seems very close to passages in Buddhist and Hindu writings.

I am supposed to be on a self imposed Gather sabbatical, but I was informed that my name was coming up a lot in this discussion, so I came to take a look. I agree with most of what both Ann and Dennis have said, as well as most of what John said, (even when they disagree with each other, quite a trick).

Abiogenesis is a tricky field. Ian is right about Venter's work, it is unrelated to creation of life. The tricky part about creating life from scratch is to get an informational molecule with a code. RNA based cells can work, make some simple proteins, divide and possible even evolve a little. But RNA can only go so far (maybe to a single cell far less complex than a modern bacterium). In order to have anything like modern life, you need the versatility of DNA based protein synthesis, and that requires evolution of a code. Problem is that such evolution needs to develop in an environment where natural selection is weak, given the absense of a good connection between phenotype and genotype.

The best theories about code evolution require aptemers, a stereochemical relationship between RNA sequences and amino acids. Some have been found, (look up Yarus), but whether this could really lead to the modern genetic code is controversial (I dont believe it).

Is natural abiogenesis possible? I dont know. I doubt it, but I could be wrong. Dennis is right, there are many many obstacles, cytosine lability only one. I think the creation hypothesis is a good one, but it also needs a great deal of filling in. With Dennis, I am a theist who would like to know how God did it, and I think that is the real purpose of scientific investigation. That is certainly what Newton believed, as well as Davy, Maxwell and many others.

Dawkins also believes this, although he isnt aware of it. His hatred of faith and God is misplaced, it is a hatred of illogic and unreason, as well as a hatred of human violence, and of human hatred. I agree with all of that of course, and only differ from Dawkins in that I know that God has nothing to do with any of that. Reason and human decency is the living proof of God's majesty, and most of the God Delusion, as well as so many other atheist arguments are simply besides the point.

Science and faith are not only not opposites, but require and grow from each other. There is one truth, and it is a magnificent and holy truth, it is our purpose in life to find that truth, and to proclaim it. In doing so, we proclaim the glory of God. Denial of truth serves no purpose in the end, because truth always shines forth. We have been given many tools to use in our task, the hard part is learning how to use them. The Word of God is such a tool. When used properly, the Word gives us the same truth that we find from using the tools of science. That is a glorious thing. May the Lord be with you, and now I start my sabbatical. See you all later.

Sy,

"Science and faith are not only not opposites . . "

Yes, there is no rational justification for believing such a thing, I say. Faith means confidence, expectation, trust in something, and that is exactly what science is meant to provide. Science is a means of arriving at a state confidence about various things . . of providing a basis to have faith in those things.

The notion that faith means just accepting things without good reason, is just that, a notion. Nowhere in the Book is that spoken of as anything good, and quite the contrary, it is often spoken of as foolishness, I say anyway, when it speaks of the folly of trusting in imagination. Over and over that is directly chastised, so it makes no sense to think that's what God wishes humans to do, by way of trusting what we or someone else imagines to be true, without good (logical, evidential, demonstrated, etc) reason. Just imagining something is so, in a robotic or "blind faith" sense, cannot possibly be what God is calling for, I say, because it would necessarily involve trusting in one's imagination.

Now, the "trick" that people are falling for, I believe, is to conflate "reason" to believe, with agreement or validation from some human authority. Which is to say, that seeing something oneself, is slid subtly out of the class of "evidence", as though one could not trust their own eyes (logic, experience, reasoning, etc), but must consider themselves an invalid witness (reasoner, rememberer, experiencer), that must seek approval from some human authority, before they can rightly have faith in anything.

This is silly, because if one is not themselves a valid witness (reasoner, rememberer, experiencer), then it does not matter what another might say, one could not trust that they understand or even witnessed the other persons saying anything . . since they themselves are not a valid witness . . Another authority must validate that one witnessed correctly what the first authority said and meant . . and then what one witnessed from that validator must be validated by another authority, and so on ad infinitum. In short, if one is not themselves a valid witness to what they observe, then there is no way to ever overcome that lack of validity. One has negated their own faith in themselves, and therefor there is nothing they could observe, that would actually end the lack of faith in oneself.

"Science and faith are not only not opposites, but require and grow from each other."

Religion is pressed to reconcile itself with science, while science is not dependent upon religion.

Sure, Richard, some thick as a brick dudes in lab coats can just ignore the overwhelming evidence that pretty much all human societies accepted that there was something supernatural going on, at times . . on the one and only planet that is possible to sample witnesses from. They can say; THis breed is prolly just an abnormally silly bunch, among the many many imaginary planets I think must be out there waiting for us to sample . . and therefore all those folk's opinions are irrelevant. Yep, some surely do that sort of thing, puff their chest out real tough like, and some gullible folks think that's the scientific approach to the God problem ; )

Sy:
Thanks for your contribution, I was about to get really irritated with the knobhead who is trying to argue that Bragg made false statements in saying The Bible triggered the campaign for democracy in the English Civil War because he, the knobhead, found some verses that condone slavery.

If all threads were as sane as this has been (with the exception of that one contributor), my contributions might become more positive. Alas I have never suffered such fools gladly.

John,
I have an article that would need some rewriting for Gather (and my publisher is on my case at the moment) but I must bring it here. It deals with the realities ignored by those scienceheads who are demanding we spend $$$billions on trying to make contact with the posible inhabitants of possibly life supporting planets.

The people demanding the money are sure there are other planets that sipport life. I can understand why, they certainly don't live on this planet.

I figure they can use their own money (bake sales?) to fund their endeavors and keep their hands off of everyone elses money.

Sy,

Thank you for taking time out from your Gather sabbatical. That comment is so eloquent that I can't wait for you to start posting again.

There is one truth, and it is a magnificent and holy truth, it is our purpose in life to find that truth, and to proclaim it. In doing so, we proclaim the glory of God. Denial of truth serves no purpose in the end, because truth always shines forth.

In the absolute and ultimate sense, that which a UNIverse contains, there is that One UNIversal Truth, that of GOD (not God nor gods) ... that Truth is UNconditional LOVE ! (The Truth that sets you Free)!

In order for such love to be unconditional it needs be required to accept all, both the so-called good (+)s as well as the so-called bad (-)s ... such an acceptance must be INtegrative and to be so it needs be a Neutrality (=) between the positives (+) and the negatives (-) ... IE; (+=-) ... the Basic Equation of Truth, the BET (+=-) ... a TRINITY and the formulae for ALL of Creation.

In keeping it simple (the KISS principle) we have three choices, the Singularity of the ONE (Monism), the Duality of TWO (Dualism), or the Trinity of THREE (Trinitarianism) ... any additional considerations just end in unneeded complication and fog ... but when one understands the BASICS offered here, then we can proceed with clarity.

As the God of the religions is commonly (exoterically) understood, "He" is a God of this world only ... as such a "Being" would be understood UNIversally, "IT" would be a GOD of The UNIverse ... a UNIverse being all universes, an OMNIverse.

The UNIversee (OMNIverse) would then be a BALANCE INclusive of ALL (Black Holes, Black Energy Et Al) ... Exclusivity ALLOWED such as Duality (+/-) (World thought) yet INclusive OVERALL (+=-) (UNIversal Condition) because of the OMNISCENT SPIRIT (=), of GOD (=), INterconnecting eveything !


In Dualism, God is the (+) and the Good ALL that matters ... the opposite of that is the preferred banishment of the Satanic Bad (-) that would SUPPOSEDLY turn Dualism into Monism, a "Good one", the ultimate Unity deemed (+), IE God, inclusive of all of the "saved" ...

People SHOULD be able to logically, rationally, and even subjectively, understand that a viable existence either here on earth or in a heavenly realm, is not at all practical if all were the same ... all positive and "perfectly" good without the VARIATIONS of DIFFERENCE needed to experience said differences by comparison ... BORING in the extreme!

Yet, according to the evidence, it seems that even God allows us that freedom of choice to "side" with either (+) or (-) and supposedly in the final God ruled heaven the (+)s will be separated from the (-)s who will be in Hell ... duality (+/-) ... yet WITHin TRINITY (+=-) IF one allows that potential of GOD ...

So allow Trinity and prefer Duality is allowed ... deny Trinity and select Duality is also allowed, as is the selection of Trinity ... to each their own ... we do make our own reality in the choices we make ... I know the ONE TRINITY that I have selected. Good Luck with yours. :-)


IMnsHO and E.

Dorothy,
Agreed, I once caused outrage on a UK blog by suggesting that to get government money scientists should be required to demonstrate a public benefit. If they want to prove God does not exist, look for life on planets in distant star systems or find out how big the Uinverse really is let them raise their own funds.

Jerry,
Just this morning there was a Hindu scholar on the TV over here who was being attacked by Christians over the Hinu belief in many hundreds of gods. He explaied that in the Hindu system there is a oneness (Brahman, the Universe, nature) ard ll the major and minor gods are different ways of relating to it.

Yes Ian, the Hindu Religion also has a "Trinity" called the Trimurti .... which very much equates to the BET (+=-).