Original Sin?

Quote: FrGamble

What craziness is this? Love exists does it not? Can science get at it, dissect it for us, and explain its nuances and why and how it exists?

I'll take this one.

What is love? (Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no more). As with many other things, love can be explained by science. You see, all the emotions you feel, everything your body is and does, is the result of chemical reactions. Look up "oxytocin", as it is a pretty interesting little thing we got going on. This is often referred to as "the love hormone" or "the bonding hormone". That stupid feeling you get in a new relationship? That's oxytocin at work. That pleasure it gives causes us to seek out social and romantic relationships. It is released during sex, causing a legitimate emotional bond as a way to enhance the probability a couple will stay together. It is released during childbirth and breast feeding, enhancing the bond between mother and infant. All of which are evolutionary benefits to the human race.

There are further "feel good" juices that flow in the name of love. Dopamine, seratonin, and a bunch I can't remember, all get pumped into your body and make you feel pretty fantastic, all in the name of keeping a couple together, as it is in our evolutionary best interest to have couples raising kids. And the evidence of it is plain as day. You ever been in love? You aware of the "honeymoon phase"? That's that time when everything is just great, and you walk hand in hand, oblivious to the world. But just like street drugs, tolerance eventually build to this natural stuff, and the "puppy love" fades. What's left is whatever you've built, and hopefully you can continue to build from there. It's drugs, man. It's all drugs.

Further proof - take some MDMA. Street name "Molly", "X", or "ecstasy". That drug triggers the release of all that I just listed. And I'm telling you, if Hitler appeared before you at the height of your high, you'd want nothing more than for him to sit in your lap so you could comb his hair. You would love the s#$% out of Hitler, I guarantee it. Because that drug turns all your love drug pumps up to 11 and snaps off the knobs. It's all drugs, man.

Even further proof - have a problem. Could be drug use, could be brain trauma. Have those pumps get shut down, and you will love nothing. I don't care if you had a baby, reconnected with an old flame, or won the powerball. You will feel no joy whatsoever. No matter what circumstance comes your way, love will be nonexistent. It's all drugs.

The thing we have here and in your video example is a difference in... goals? Beliefs? I dunno. Love, just like poetry, is better off experienced than explained. Perhaps you feel the same about your religion, perhaps there are many similarities indeed. But as much as I really dig the feeling of a new flame, it does not change the fact that I'm simply experiencing a rush of chemicals pumped out by my own silly brain. I could wax poetically about it for hours, and write songs about it, and compare it to a morning sunrise over a field of dewy clover. But it's just drugs. That's fact. Facts aren't sexy. They just are.

And that, dear friend, is why I feel you and EB talk past one another. You're each coming at the same problem from different angles. Yes, love is beautiful and generous and amazing and possibly the best thing one can ever feel. And yes... it just drugs, man.

Quote: Face

Yes, love is beautiful and generous and amazing and possibly the best thing one can ever feel. And yes... it just drugs, man.

But Face, buddy, you're just talking about
romantic love. Lots of other kinds that
don't involve the drugs you're talking
about.

I love my dog. I adore him. I loved my
parents when they were alive. I even
love certain kinds of food and drink.

What about that..

I also wonder about the drug that makes the lover stay at the hospital day and night when their spouse is sick or the drug that keeps one faithful through temptations.

What I really wonder about though is how far you are willing to take this argument. Is there no free will and you and I are a bunch or firing neurons and chemicals reacting only to outside phenomenon with no real control about what we say or do? If love is nothing but drugs man, how about hate, revenge, murder, kindness, generosity - are these just pre-programmed responses from which we have no control?

Quote: Evenbob

Let me save you the trouble. Anything
you can possibly come up with is just
your ego postulating.

Dalex would say this is the classic form of a fallacy called, "begging the question".

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Fact is, humans
are more important to YOU than
roaches, so you think that makes them
more important period.

Couldn't I just say that you are making roaches as important as people for YOU. Let's face facts. I already said that humans love which make us more important. We also create art, make music, sculptures. We also discover new things, form culture, make scientific discoveries, we believe in God (at least the vast majority of us). Heck one day we might find a way to help cockroaches not spread disease. If a cockroach could think and talk, which of course it cannot I can imagine it saying, "What a stupid question, of course you guys are more important than us, we're freaking cockroaches man! Just don't step on us okay."

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Who decides what one thing is more
important than any other one thing.
You like to to think it's your god, he's
made it crystal clear that you and all
humans are the important thing. But
of course you invented god, so what
else would he say.

Yeah God would pretty much be able to decide and determine what is more important than other things. I mean common sense could tell us the same thing, but then God gave us that too.

I also invite you to think about if we really invented God what would He really say. Don't you think our invention of God would be more like a genie in a bottle, a superman or woman type of god, basically any of the versions of a pagan god? Instead the true God that we did not invent does confirm what we already knew that we were special among all of creation. Then He challenges us to care for the poor and those in need, to treat everyone as equals, as children of God, to love and forgive even our enemies, to reject worldly power, greed, selfishness, and jealousy. To willingly sacrifice for others. To speak comfort to mourners, liberty to captives, hope the brokenhearted, and peace. This certainly doesn't sound like a God we would invent.

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This is why religion is do dang dangerous,
it misses the point completely. You worship
your own ego's and call it divine. You even
think all your ego's are going somewhere
to hang out for eternity, that's how much
you cherish yourselves.

You couldn't possibly miss the point any further. Again it is painfully obvious that your conception about religion, faith, and especially Christianity, and especially, especially Catholicism is dangerous twisted. You allude to the true teaching that we will live for eternity somewhere, either Heaven or Hell. How do you think that is determined? If you had to boil it down I would say we will be judged on if we did in fact worship our own ego's. If we made life all about ourselves, welcome to Hades. If you checked your ego and cared for others and served the common good rather than yourself, welcome to the pearly gates.

I think you are making the mistake of taking an anthropocentric religion, for which I make no apologies for, and extrapolating that to mean that every individual human person should or does considers themselves the center of the universe. That is a huge mistake, against Jesus' teaching, and doesn't make sense.

Quote: FrGamble

It is insulting and ironic to compare YHWH to an Egyptian Pharaoh

In any case I did no such thing. Amun is an Egyptian deity.

I can see the confusion. Many Egyptian names were built around a deity's name. Akhenaten carries the Aten's name. Ankhasunamun and Tutankhamun carry Amun's name.

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and to think you can compare Him to Zeus or dismiss Him in the same breath as Thor.

They're still all the same in principle.

Do you know there were pagan Romans who worshipped Jehovah in addition to their real gods?

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For all you say about history you seem to not grasp the impact the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has had on the world.

Oh, I do. What you don't like is that I find such impact regrettable.

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We don't have to worry about that hypothetical do we? Maybe that is because we are talking about reality and what really happened, not fictional stories.

I wouldn't bring up the Jesus part of the deity if I wanted to stress reality.

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I think this is more true for philosophy and especially theology than it is for science.

I have a question for theologians: why did you choose a field with no object of study?

Quote: FrGamble

What craziness is this? Love exists does it not? Can science get at it, dissect it for us, and explain its nuances and why and how it exists?

No, but then they cannot dissect a galaxy, either.

IN the XIX century the West experienced a most unfortunate period of extreme arrogance. Believing itself not only different from the rest of the world, but also vastly superior, perhaps even perfect. That which they most admired about themselves, they refused to recognize as even possible for lesser mortals. One such thing was romantic love.

Well, a scientific approach would have told them not to overlook love poetry going as far back as Egypt and Mesopotamia, or monuments like the Taj Mahal.

So, you see, there is plenty that science can say, and does say, about love, beyond biochemistry.

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You my friend need to watch again this clip from a great movie called Dead Poets Society:

Nice movie. I liked it. But it's much overrated.

Quote: FrGamble

I also invite you to think about if we really invented God what would He really say. Don't you think our invention of God would be more like a genie in a bottle, a superman or woman type of god, basically any of the versions of a pagan god?

Let's see:

Super powers: All-knowing, all-powerful. Capable of creating tall universes in six days. Not much left for Superman after that, is there? Jehovah is also probably faster than a speeding photon.

Genie in a bottle: how many people pray to Jehovah/Jesus to grant their wishes, material and otherwise?

Like a Pagan god: Do this for me and I'll do this for you, goes on all the time with Jehovah. He got into that with Abraham, Moses, Sampson, David and others. When a Roman noble man began to worship Jesus, he did so as one would a pagan god. Constantine further claimed Jesus himself told him to paint his sign, the Chi-Ro, on his men's shields, and to carry this banner into battle, and he would conquer. Throughout Byzantine history, there existed a sense that victory in battle, prosperity and abundance were a sign of Jehovah's pleasure with them, while defeat, famine, plague, etc. were signs of disfavor by their god.

I honestly fail to see the difference.

Quote: FrGamble

Quote: Dalex64

So, on one hand (most) scientists (I think) are not trying to prove that God doesn't exist, but are trying to prove what created the universe, believing that God didn't do it.

I don't really see how it matters what religion or lack there of a scientist practices, that is what we call a red herring. Most scientists know the shoulders they stand on, the really great scientists in the past, were strong believers in God and it doesn't seem to bother them. By the way I think scientists should plumb the mysteries of the universe including its beginning, but I'm sure you and they realize there is an event horizon so to speak of before the universe began that it is impossible for them to know anything about simply because there is nothing to observe, no matter, energy, nothing to test or experiment on.

The difference is you are claiming that you know what happened before the big bang.

Here is an equally unprovable (so far) theory that doesn't require a creator, a first cause, or an immovable mover:

Space is big and empty. It is void and without form. Due to vacuum energy, particles are winking into and out of existence. Some of those particles wink into existence near each other, stick together, and stick around. Perhaps they form hydrogen. Perhaps they accumulate enough mass and pressure to start nuclear fusion and become a star. Eventually it burns out, but continues to gather mass, and becomes a black hole. That black hole gains mass - we don't know what the upper limit on black hole mass is, if there is one, and what might happen if it reaches it - and becomes a big bang.

Here are a couple of articles on virtual particles winking into and out of existence:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-virtual-particles-rea/
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/something-from-nothing-vacuum-can-yield-flashes-of-light/

This physical explanation of creation doesn't have the problems describing how a disembodied consciousness can exist, and how it can itself create something out of nothing.

My point is, you can't claim that you are right any more than I can. You can't claim that my violations of the laws of thermodynamics are any less valid than your claims that violate the laws of thermodynamics.

My other point is - we think we see particles entering and exiting existence in experiments. Is God doing it?

Quote: Nareed

Nice movie. I liked it. But it's much overrated.

Much overrated?!? You need to watch the whole movie again not just that great scene.

Anyway the point of that scene is what happens when science tries to get at things like poetry. It makes it cold and dead, like Face attempted to do equating love to drugs. Believing that the only things that are real are the things science can get at is to borrow a phrase, "excrement".

Quote: Nareed

I honestly fail to see the difference.

Some very good points if you ignore the revelation of who God is in the person of Jesus Christ and His teachings.