Want Happier LOVE? Selflessness is the Key

Well there's nothing wrong with the bible I think (being somewhat of an agnostic). Thou shalt not steal, nor cheat on your wife makes sense to me. The thing I have a problem with is organised religion, i.e. the people standing between me and whatever spiritual entity is out there. Not stealing is logical, not molesting should be too, not too mention the problems I have with the riches the churck hoards.

edit: churck = church. And I'd also like to say that I respect all religion (just not necessarily the organisation behind it)

The link doesn't work for me but... my first reaction to your comments was: science continues to confirm what the Bible teaches? What science have you learned? I suppose science supports the women as slaves (Exodus 21:4), legalized rape (Deuteronomy 22:28-29; Numbers 31:1-18), punishing the descendants of "sinners" (Exodus 20:5-6), murdering someone because they used birth control (Genesis 38:6-10), murdering non-Christians (Kings 18:17-40; Exodus 32:1-4; Exodus 32:26-28; Exodus 32:35), or the murder of children (Kings 2:23-24). What Bible have you read?

What science have you learned? I suppose science supports the women as slaves (Exodus 21:4), legalized rape (Deuteronomy 22:28-29; Numbers 31:1-18), punishing the descendants of "sinners" (Exodus 20:5-6), murdering someone because they used birth control (Genesis 38:6-10), murdering non-Christians (Kings 18:17-40; Exodus 32:1-4; Exodus 32:26-28; Exodus 32:35), or the murder of children (Kings 2:23-24). What Bible have you read?

She's making a point about JUST the relation of selflessness as it stands with science and the Bible.

No more, no less.

It's too bad good, respectful people have to consistently be attacked in what they believe in just through posting a simple article. It's truly a sad state of affairs when those that don't believe that have to feel the need to take away the rights of those who do. On the other hand, it's also sad in many ways what many organized faiths have become due to the bad apples within them or the extremists that take meanings and pervert them to their own ideals.

It's also very easy to take everything out of context (as you're doing and most do) without a full understanding of the passage and life's lesson of it all. It's also a little known fact by agnostics and atheists but everything evil mentioned in the Bible is directly followed by good. Read it for yourself and see! :)

My best friend happens to be atheist and we have great chats about what each doesn't understand about the other. All I do is pray on my own that he may come to them some day for guidance and to be saved by believing in Christ dying for our forgiveness of sins.

I'm definitely not perfect but I know I ask for guidance to help work through me to do His work.

God bless!

P.S. Science is a great tool. God wouldn't have given it to us if we weren't meant to go out and discover. :)
I'm a meteorologist, after all. :)

She said:

I find it interesting that science continues to confirm what the Bible has taught us all along.

That's a general statement, not specifically about the article (the link to which is still broken for me). As a general statement, it's nonsense. By design, science can say nothing about what one ought to do. The article is purporting to do just that. That's not even going into to the pick-your-own-Bible approach that ignores all the monstrous behavior it supports (including context!) in favor of the gems. I don't care about her or your belief, but this is an encroachment on science.

To be fair, if you look at the 'Science'-tag in Newsvine, you see 'Religion' as a sub-tag, so perhaps your anger can be directed elsewhere also? But I didn't take the statement Shannon made so literal, as you did. In science there are many unknowns, in religion there are many unknowns, perhaps there's an overlap somewhere? I'm reminded of the story of Tibetan monks displaying unusually strong Gamma-activity in their brains, while meditating on "unconditional loving-kindness and compassion.", for instance. A story very related to this one I think.

Don't misunderstand; I'm not angry, but I suppose toneless text could make it seem that way. But as to your remarks, religion is such a vague term that you most likely can find some common ground with science. Where you can't find common ground is with theism.

I had some remarks on the monk story as well. Buddhist universal love is a bit different than Christian selflessness: in Buddhism, there is no eternal self, no soul, for one to sacrifice in an act of selflessness; simply existing is selfless. Christianity, of course, has the soul and the concept of sacrifice and so selfless means something different.

Oh, and I the link for the story still doesn't work. I've had no luck finding it through Google so if anyone has it, could you kindly pass it my way?

Linky no worky for me. Bummer.

Science does not prove anything right or wrong: it makes observations and attempts to explain them using natural methods. I thought you were just talking about morality, but since you weren't... Science is necessarily naturalistic; the Bible posits all sorts of nonphysical entities (God, angels, souls, etc.). In this regard, they are mutually exclusive.

Wow, there's so much wrong with that article I don't know that I could hit all the points. There's no science in it (expect social "science", give me neurology any day), there's not even an attempt to hide the Western Judeo-Christian worldview (making it poor social science), altruism is never defined and shows up meaning several different things, it completely ignores the fact that one can do good without being altruistic... Just, wow.

Wolfanoz wrote:

She's making a point about JUST the relation of selflessness as it stands with science and the Bible.
No more, no less.

The article description says:

I find it interesting that science continues to confirm what the Bible has taught us all along.

That kind of vague generalization seems to indicate more than just a point about this one article. I'm all for selflessness as a virtue in people and the Bible (especially the New Testament) really is a great source of teachings on that. I would also tend to file this under 'science confirms what commons sense tells us: that feeling you get from doing good deeds is real.'