logjam600

Sung to the tune of "O Christmas Tree"

"Oh, Desiree, oh Desiree

your thoughts are in great disarray

though atheists all tout your fame,

We Christians think your thoughts are lame

Oh Desiree, oh Desiree

God sends you Merry Christmas Day!

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Mormon, believes Jesus Christ literally, tangibly, resurrected and has a body of flesh and bones, along with His spirit in Heaven. Do you as a Christian take the resurrection that literally, or do you believe He's a spirit, or that He wasn't resurrected at all, but only showed the apostles visions etc., to comfort them. If I hear correctly, there are a lot of beliefs on this, and I'm curious as to a sampling. I've heard the L.D.S. church is the only Christian religion that believes this way regarding the resurrection; am I wrong? Thanks.

(Respectfully to my atheist friends; I already know your feelings on this. I'm just kind of "polling" the Christian world as it were. Thanks anyway.)

(Ref. Harper's Magazine, July 2012, page 73.) The third law of scientism states, "If you admit that there are things you don't know about reality, how can you know that you won't be surprised by revelations to come?" Doesn't this at least augur for agnosticism over atheism? Surely, unless you're a teenager, you don't claim to know everything about reality? (OK, sorry, kids, just being snarky.)

I refer to the July issue of Harper's Magazine, which contains a review of three books written by atheists justifying their beliefs. Note please: this isn't some fundamentalist preacher raving, nor is it something that could be considered a religious oriented magazine. One of the books cited was written by the chair of philosophy at Duke University, hardly a lightweight in this conversation. His conclusion for religious beliefs was, "Get over it", and "Take drugs." This from a Ph.d. in philosophy. The two other books reviewed made similarly weak and silly arguments for atheism.

I'd prefer this question not be answered until you've referenced the source, but in any event: I've never seen the bankruptcy and emptiness of atheism so well illustrated by the best and brightest of its believers and leaders. If I were an atheist, I'd be having serious second thoughts about the "intellectualism" of my position.

For my own enlightenment, I asked R & S visitors to tell me how old they were. Interesting results, if you like number analyzing and crunching. (I do.) No reply is necessary; I pass this info on just for the curious. Ages spread from 13 to 70. Teens are the biggest group; 11 of 22 respondents, including 4 17 year olds and 5 15 year olds. Youngest: 13. Oldest: 70. (That's my group, the second largest; 5 ranging in age from 61 - 70. In the mid range; 0ne 20, 3 30-39, no one in the 40's and only one in the 50's at 59. Again, I stress unofficial: Yahoo Answers didn't commission me to run this survey. Thanks again to those who responded, and for those who gave smart a$$ answers; that's OK: I've been known to do that myself.

Just curious as to the age demographics here on R & S. Sorry, no prize for best answer, and thanks in advance for taking the time and trouble to answer.

If so, thanks! I appreciate the compliment. (See Isaiah 33: 14-15, Ezek. 8: 1-2, Matt 13: 43 and Daniel 12: 3.)

There were eight people who wrote about Jesus, four of them, The Gospels, are biographies; four others wrote of His teachings from personal experience. (James, Paul, Peter and Jude.) Socrates wrote nothing, in fact, he was against writing; the only record we have of Socrates is the writings of Plato, his pupil. To believe in the existence of Socrates with so little evidence, and not believe in Jesus with at least 8 times as much evidence, or proof, is illogical, irrational. And this from people who demand evidence, reason and logic. BTW, I believe in both.

I do believe that God created the Heavens and the earth, but that He used a process that is currently described by evolution. I think evolution, as its discoveries unfold, is sort of a reverse-engineering description if you will of the creation process.

"We believe that religion is instituted of God; and that men are amenable to him, and to him only, for the exercise of it, unless their religious opinions prompt them to infringe upon the rights and liberties of others; but we do not believe that human law has a right to interfere in prescribing rules of worship to bind the consciences of men, nor dictate forms for public or private devotion; that the civil magistrate should restrain crime,but never control conscience; should punish guilt,but never suppress the freedom of the soul." Sound ok? It's from Joseph Smith, founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. (Mormon.) D & C 134: 4.

I see a lot of intellectual criticizing of the Book of Mormon from people who obviously haven't read it. What kind of intellectual approach is that, to judge a book without reading it? You claim to be intellectual, to judge for yourself? Fine. Wouldn't have it any other way, but without actually reading this book, you have no grounds on which to critique it.

I've heard that, if it wasn't for the nonsense of hell; burning lakes of fire, demons with pitchforks and all, that the idea of God wouldn't be so far-fetched. So, I ask: Do you reject all supernatural theology (God / Heaven . . . Devil / Hell) or would you be open-minded to the idea of God if it wasn't for the attached nonsense of Hell?

I've been doing some research lately that shows the current myths of hell weren't part of the original Christian teachings, and came into the church later, in the Middle Ages. (Dante's Inferno and the like.)

The square root of -1 = (Function of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle) 1. Yeah, ok, I'm just jerking your chain. I drive a dump truck for a living, and have a lot of spare time on my mind. But, really: once the Heisenberg kicks in on the sign, then the sign of the other number instantaneously becomes the opposite, does it not? Nobel Prize, anyone?

I think it is. Here's why: I read it as a recorded book. I drive a truck, and that's how I have to do most of my reading. Anyway, I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, (Mormon) and when he mentioned the Book of Mormon, I sat up. But not for long. He said it's the story of Nephi (prounouncing it nefee') son of Nephi. #1: there's a pronunciation guide in the back of the book; a slight bit of effort on his part would have given him the correct pronunciation, an act of professionalism for a recorded presentation, don't you think?

Next, Nephi isn't the son of Nephi, as the first page of the Book of Mormon makes perfectly clear; he's the son of Lehi. Obviously, Hitchens didn't even bother to read the first page of a book he sets out to condemn. Is it not a basic of scholarly research that, if you're going to evaluate a book, you should, perhaps, read the darn thing? I would think so.

I assume from there that his research for the rest of the book is of the same shallow, superficial quality, and is therefore just a knee-jerk regurgitation of all the old anti-Christian hatchet jobs over the centuries.

Sorry to pee on your idol, my atheist friends, but scholarship and integrity should count for something; they do for me, anyway.

In James Gleick's book, "Chaos: Making a New Science", he writes, "Evolution is chaos with feedback . . . randomness with direction can produce surprising complexity . . . God plays dice with the universe, but they're loaded dice. And the main objective of physics now is to find out by what rules were they loaded and how can we use them for our own ends." Page 314. If, therefore, there is no pure randomness in evolution as the theory is used in its extreme form, then we must assume that there is an organizing force at the end of it; a first cause, or . . . God.

We've all heard the problem, "If God is omnipotent, (all powerful), then can He make a rock so big He can't lift it? Supposedly, if He can't, then He's not all-powerful. The problem is not with the power of God; it is with the size of rocks. If you make a rock big enough, gravity takes over and it begins to implode; fusion occurs, and it becomes a sun. God can move the sun: (Joshua 10: 12-13.) Therefore, the limit is not with God, but rather the size of rocks. (lol.) One could say that God could change the laws of the universe so bigger rocks could be made, but that would screw up the laws of physics, and life as we know it would be impossible. God isn't in this to win a bench-press contest; He has bigger fish to fry.

I ask this in friendship. I just want a bit of focus from you if I may. What would I have to bring to the table to satisfy you that there is a God?

The regretable human tendency towards extremism and strident control-freak militancy isn't just a religious or atheist weakness. Their true enemies are those of us in the middle, which, according to Aristotle and Buddha is where the truth lies.

Our brains come in two halves; the right, or imaginative, creative half. It's where some people think the "God Spot" is. The left half is the rational, number crunching part. I'd say atheists use only that half, largely, and fundamentalists use only the right half, for the most part. I think both sides of the religion issue need to use both halves of their brain to be fully human.