Some positivity... Alontae Taylor

#151
#151
DeusExMachina said:
K.

“The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole cartloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity.”
John Adams

“Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise.”
James Madison — Letter to Wm. Bradford, April 1, 1774

“History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.”
Thomas Jefferson — in letter to Alexander von Humboldt, December 6, 1813

“The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole cartloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity.”
John Adams

“The civil government functions with complete success by the total separation of the Church from the State.”
Founding Father James Madison, 1819

“And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Govt will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.”
James Madison — letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822

“Have you considered that system of holy lies and pious frauds that has raged and triumphed for 1,500 years?”
John Adams

“When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obligated to call for help of the civil power, it’s a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.”
Benjamin Franklin — letter to Richard Price, October 9, 1780

“And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with all this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this the most venerated reformer of human errors.”
Jefferson’s letter to John Adams, April 11 1823


There's a few of the founding fathers, in their own words, saying that you're wrong. Would you like me to keep going??
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As is today, individuals have differing beliefs. I can make as many quotes of those who believed in the Christian God. That does not change the points I made earlier about what our country was founded on.
 
#152
#152
VFL-82-JP said:
And sometimes science isn't built on evidence. A famous quote about the Big Bang Theory goes, "you give me one miracle, and I'll explain the rest." Heh.

Of course, the current state of affairs in physics doesn't explain the rest. Given that 75% of the content of the universe is believed to be Dark Energy, and another 20% is hypothesized to be Dark Matter, neither of which we can prove exists by any scientific inquiry ... it's really more like, "Give us one miracle and we'll explain 5% of the rest."

Heh.

My wife and I were discussing the limits of rationalism as a philosophy just last night. Scintillating, I tell ya.
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Be careful or you will reduce science down to a hunch. You should not do so. Science is valuable for what it is.
 
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#154
#154
DeusExMachina said:
K.

“The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole cartloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity.”
John Adams

“Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise.”
James Madison — Letter to Wm. Bradford, April 1, 1774

“History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.”
Thomas Jefferson — in letter to Alexander von Humboldt, December 6, 1813

“The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole cartloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity.”
John Adams

“The civil government functions with complete success by the total separation of the Church from the State.”
Founding Father James Madison, 1819

“And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Govt will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.”
James Madison — letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822

“Have you considered that system of holy lies and pious frauds that has raged and triumphed for 1,500 years?”
John Adams

“When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obligated to call for help of the civil power, it’s a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.”
Benjamin Franklin — letter to Richard Price, October 9, 1780

“And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with all this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this the most venerated reformer of human errors.”
Jefferson’s letter to John Adams, April 11 1823


There's a few of the founding fathers, in their own words, saying that you're wrong. Would you like me to keep going??
Click to expand...
I’m your Huckleberry. Pick the most powerful quote and then we’ll look at it in context. I’ll wait.
 
#156
#156
Roustabout said:
I’m your Huckleberry. Pick the most powerful quote and then we’ll look at it in context. I’ll wait.
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Let’s pick this one since I happen to agree with it and it was already in his post.

“And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Govt will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.”
James Madison — letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822

edit: found the full letter. Haven’t read it yet. Founders Online: From James Madison to Edward Livingston, 10 July 1822
 
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#158
#158
Col_Cathcart said:
Let’s pick this one since I happen to agree with it and it was already in his post.

“And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Govt will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.”
James Madison — letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822

edit: found the full letter. Haven’t read it yet. Founders Online: From James Madison to Edward Livingston, 10 July 1822
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Nice choice. It’s one I agree with.
Madison stated that religion can exist in purity. Hmmm?

Nearly every quote you provided, in its context, doesn’t say what you think it says.
 
#160
#160
Y’all... I really don’t want this thread to get bumped to the politics forum, but I would assume the mods are considering it.

Let’s keep this about Alontae, not about this debate.
 
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#162
#162
Col_Cathcart said:
So are you asserting that Jews don’t worship the same God as Christians just because they don’t believe in the divinity of Christ? That’s going to be a tough position to defend.
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in a sense, absolutely. Worship, means to express worth and admiration. If a person or persons denies the very truth of God’s being, that isn’t worship. It’s idolatry.

If you say that the idea of Islam’s Allah is built on those Abrahamic roots, I’d agree. But ideas aren’t God.
 
#164
#164
Roustabout said:
in a sense, absolutely. Worship, means to express worth and admiration. If a person or persons denies the very truth of God’s being, that isn’t worship. It’s idolatry.

If you say that the idea of Islam’s Allah is built on those Abrahamic roots, I’d agree. But ideas aren’t God.
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At some point it’s definitely just semantics. The way I view the 3 religions is that they’ve got different opinions about the big guy but they’re all talking about the same guy. At some point you could say that those opinions might diverge to the point that they’re talking about different people, but since the start they’ve all claimed the same origin. Doesn’t mean they agree on everything, just that there is some common ground.

There’s a lot of potential pitfalls in defining “the very truth of God’s being.” I prefer not to put too many details in there, but there’s plenty of Christians I’d call idolatrous. Maybe that’s why I try and separate out the identity of God from the Truth about him.

Also, this is way more entertaining than talking about that video interview!
 
#165
#165
knox-townVOL said:
For those that don’t know, a young couple just started Heart and Soul Church at Bearden High School, and it seems to be doing really well.

They recently brought in Alontae Taylor to speak, and did it interview style. He seems to have a great heart and a true passion for Jesus. Very cool to watch, certainly makes me view him in a different light considering how hard it must be to stay rooted in your values at as a D1 athlete in a major program.

You can watch the interview/testimony here:

Alontae Taylor Interview — HEART & SOUL Church Knoxville
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My new favorite player !! GO VOLS and PTL !!
 
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#166
#166
Roustabout said:
The reason they are called analogies is that all things are not analogous. Nice analogy fallacy. An Omni-3 being is just that and therefore how do you know that the ultimate metanarrative isn't good? You don't.
BTW, how are you measuring evil?
Also waiting for your material explanation for the laws of the logic.
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There is no “ultimate metanarrative” that justifies a innocent child being tortured and murdered or slowly suffering in agony while being destroyed by a horrible disease. There may be a true answer to measuring evil. There may be a god. But one thing it is not is the tribal diety of ancient Israel made famous through the cobbled together writings of Bronze Age goat herders.
 
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#168
#168
MrWiz said:
There is no “ultimate metanarrative” that justifies a innocent child being tortured and murdered or slowly suffering in agony while being destroyed by a horrible disease. There may be a true answer to measuring evil. There may be a god. But one thing it is not is the tribal diety of ancient Israel made famous through the cobbled together writings of Bronze Age goat herders.
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Since you are neither omniscient or omnipotent, how could you possibly be qualified to say that? Hint, you aren't. So, if nature indiscriminately destroys a child, there is no chance for any redemption. Zip. It's just another flesh sack of DNA experiencing what nature does. Why do you think your brain fizzing out emotions about a child has any bearing on the idea of God and His character? It ignores the immeasurable counterfactuals and possible worlds where there most certainly could be a consummation of all things. You're basically just whining that God won't conform to your limited, temporal and narrow view of reality. You might as well cross your arms, stick out your bottom limp and stomp your foot.
 
#170
#170
Roustabout said:
Since you are neither omniscient or omnipotent, how could you possibly be qualified to say that? Hint, you aren't. So, if nature indiscriminately destroys a child, there is no chance for any redemption. Zip. It's just another flesh sack of DNA experiencing what nature does. Why do you think your brain fizzing out emotions about a child has any bearing on the idea of God and His character? It ignores the immeasurable counterfactuals and possible worlds where there most certainly could be a consummation of all things. You're basically just whining that God won't conform to your limited, temporal and narrow view of reality. You might as well cross your arms, stick out your bottom limp and stomp your foot.
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You are arguing for deism or a generic first cause. Defend the biblical god. I don’t argue with people defending a generic god or deism. If you don’t actually believe in Yahweh, the national god of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, then my apologies. I only want to address arguments for this specific version of one of the thousands of gods mankind has created, not the god of Einstein and Spinoza. I am talking about the belief that a cosmic jewish zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree. See the difference? Argue generic creator god with someone else.
 
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#172
#172
MrWiz said:
You are arguing for deism or a generic first cause. Defend the biblical god. I don’t argue with people defending a generic god or deism. If you don’t actually believe in Yahweh, the national god of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, then my apologies. I only want to address arguments for this specific version of one of the thousands of gods mankind has created, not the god of Einstein and Spinoza. I am talking about the belief that a cosmic jewish zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree. See the difference? Argue generic creator god with someone else.
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As soon as you get around to providing a material explanation for the laws of logic.

Did you make your zombie argument or read it in some online atheist echo chamber? I think we all know the truth there.
So, I've heard your silly characterizations dozens of times. It's lazy. If you have the capacity to discuss the old testament in the context of ancient near east literature, and stop your nonsense, I'm happy to provide a case for Christian theism.
 
#173
#173
Roustabout said:
As soon as you get around to providing a material explanation for the laws of logic.

Did you make your zombie argument or read it in some online atheist echo chamber? I think we all know the truth there.
So, I've heard your silly characterizations dozens of times. It's lazy. If you have the capacity to discuss the old testament in the context of ancient near east literature, and stop your nonsense, I'm happy to provide a case for Christian theism.
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I only spoke up because there were people on this thread claiming Christian theism should be taught in schools. I know I can't convince a you, or any believer, of anything because your belief is not based on evidence, it is based on a deep seated need to believe.
 
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#174
#174
MrWiz said:
I only spoke up because there were people on this thread claiming Christian theism should be taught in schools. I know I can't convince a you, or any believer, of anything because your belief is not based on evidence, it is based on a deep seated need to believe.
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Or, like you,I’m just dancing to my DNA.

You can go on using those immaterial laws (ones you can’t account for) to try and reason your way through a material universe.
 
#175
#175
Alontae Taylor is a good kid. I think he runs his mouth too much on the field, but we need him to break out this season.

We brought in a perhaps faster version of him in Christian Charles.
 
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