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@BrotherDThomas
If one is a Christian, our pets are heaven bound: “Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your judgments are like the great deep; you save humans and animals alike, O LORD.” (PSALM 36:6)
How does this mean pets are heaven bound? I think you, like the others cited in the article from Franklin, WANT pets there to be included, but there isn't anything that deals with the issue directly. Thank you for your kind words, though!
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@Dr.Franklin
So your post basically says that most Christian denominations WANT there to be pets in heaven, but they all acknowledge there's no scriptural support in that direction. One guy seems pretty close to me: heaven's not about pets, it's about fellowship with Jesus. Screw pets. I'm curious as to how Aquinas differentaited, then CONFIRMED his differntiation, on animal souls versus people souls. I wonder what it was. If the only way to heaven is to know JEsus, then there seems to be no chance animals can get in. Glad I don't believe in such a place then :).
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@Dr.Franklin
I find your view of Christianity pretty incoherent, if I'm being honest, and most of the time I think you're not being honest about being a Christian. If they don't have souls, then they cannot have an afterlife period, because isn't that what carries on into the afterlife?
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@Dr.Franklin
But they (a) do not have souls and (b) do not know Jesus, which according to the bible seems to be two pretty big conditions they miss.
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@janesix
@Dr.Franklin
@DRFranklin On what would you base that, that they go to heaven? What in the scripture would support that?
Thanks for the condolences, sincerely.
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After fourteen years, on Friday, I had to put my dog down. I will miss her, but it had to be done. She was the greatest dog on the planet. I've had enough maudlin moments over the weekend, with many I'm sure still to come, but it gave me a chance to explain to my 11 year old that life is like the flame on a candle, when it goes out, it doesn't go anywhere, it's just gone. Of course, so many people believe in the afterlife around here. To my Christian friends, many I'm sure had dogs, do you believe animals go to heaven?
I think the answer has to be "no". First off, they don't have souls, as far as the bible seems to be concerned. Second of all, they don't know Jesus, and that's the only way into heaven. WHat do you think, and why do you think it?
Do animals, then, go to hell? I mean they don't believe in Jesus. They have no souls to torture though. So then, do they just get annihilated?
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
How would we know if a hyena died for another hyena? They don't have media or storytelling apparatus. His point about dolphins is that similar behavior is in fact observed in the wild.
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
Again you seem to be focusing on a very limited number of specimens. I do not disagree with you: the specific lion does not think about his species survival. HIS DNA is what makes him do that, it's the unidentified instinct you are detecting. There isn't anything supernatural there. It's about his genes, which are bigger, stronger, more aggressive in attributes, being in general more favorable to his species. None of them are conscious decisions. My point is neither are humans if you start to scale back the modernity of our current life, our ability to control our surroundings. If you rewind to caveman times, plenty of women, I'm sure, had plenty of babies they didn't necessarily want, through sexual encounters that they were not entirely enthusiastic about. Those drives are genetic.
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
I believe this because as I've stated earlier only humans sacrifice themselves for strangers.
Can you give me an example of this sacrifice you're referring to?
This is one example where the species doesn't matter but rather passing along the individuals genetics.
The species DID matter: this specific specimen preferred that HIS genetic material be passed along over the competitor's. His species will be stronger as a result, because he was able to reproduce and eliminate competitive genetics from another specimen. When examining these propositions, you have to look at it from a large population, not specimen examples. You're looking at one leaf on the floor of the forest, and missing the forest.
There is safety in numbers, hence herds, but that, I believe is an individual survival technique rather than a species one.
The individuals who would shirk the herd mentality are easy targets for predators and have a much much much more difficult time reproducing. REmember you're talking about a species, over thousands of generations and tens of thousands of years. Species go extinct because these tiny little "errors," like being uninterested in the safety of the herd when you have no natural defenses, are not viable long term. You may survive today. You may survive a year. You may even reproduce similar apathetic antelopes for a while, but rest assured that natural selection will act over the long term. Those antelopes who are not interested in the herd, and aren't fast and strong enough to consistently outrun cheetahs or dogs or lions when they're the only target, when they're not hidden in a stampede of strong sharp hooves, ESPECIALLY when they're babies? They can't last. Or they can, and eventually they're a new species that's no longer compatible. It's very easy to understand, but very difficult for some to accept that this is all humans are, too, because we have invented cars and playstations and monkeys haven't.
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@janesix
You're not unusual in that way: part of why we dominate the resources and the other members of the animal kingdom so thoroughly is we are convinced we are special. Information to the contrary, even when it's so plainly true and demonstrable, is not comfortable to accept.
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@janesix
So what makes other, "living" matter have a motive force(or desire, whatever you want to call it?)
DNA / RNA. At the very base level of these two chemical compounds is coded somewhere "REPLICATE." I don't know why it'd be more than that, but we can demonstrate it. No species of any living thing anywhere on earth today does NOT have a desire to replicate, be it a virus or a vicar. One is just supposed to control itself.
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
some choose not to have children or are celibate so I wonder how we arrived to this point.
Those are specimens, not species, operating under modern conditions. If you were a cavewoman living 15,000 years ago, it seems exceptionally unlikely that you'd have any choice at all about bearing children or not.
if you what you say is true, we've far exceeded our purpose.
How? We continue to procreate. Population continues to rise. It's about, at a primal level, control of resources. You're saying purpose and adding in an unspoken "destination" rather than a species wide goal. THink of it like a sports team. If you are a basketball team and injuries were never a concern, would you ever decide you'd won enough games? Do you think the UCLA Bruins, of the 88 game win streak, decided in game 89 "enough winning?" THey have a goal, every day, to win the game, just like living things ultimate goal is to reproduce, as much as possible. You seem to be thinking of it in terms of someplace every species wants to "arrive" at. It's not the same thing, though it might be a subtle distinction. Does that make sense?
Our advancements seem to have no real or practical purpose and is far beyond any need to procreate and yet here we are.
Which advancements are you talking about specifically? The important ones, like medicine, which gives us years and years more reproductive opportunity potential? Which made childbirth a far less dangerous proposition? Large scale farming which makes food more available?
Humans teach strangers, non genetic linked others to survive and thrive. I can't think of any other animal that does that as well.
Why do antelopes move is such massive herds? They're not all genetically linked, at least not directly, but they all have an interest in making sure the maximum number of antelopes survive. Monkeys adopt orphaned monkeys on occasion. Elephants have sophisticated societal markers. Why? To ensure the maximum depth of their genetic pool, perhaps. This sort of altruism exists in the animal kingdom all over the place. It's not as explicit as with humans, but it's there.
An alpha predator isn't looking to be more alpha because the only competition they have is with each other generally speaking.
You lost me here. Are you talking about APEX predators, or ALPHA Male / Female specimens? The latter is an alpha because they compete and make others subjugated. The former never stops trying to control more and more resources. WE're an apex predator.
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@janesix
Why should it want to reproduce? Or do anything at all? Shouldn't matter just be inert, only moving when the forces of nature move it?Yet we all sit here, horny and hungry.
You're conflating inanimate matter with the collection of matter that creates organic living matter. In many forms, like a simple stone, it doesn't want to reproduce and is indeed inert.
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@janesix
I think it's a little weird that anything has the urge to procreate at all. Why should anything? I would think a piece of matter, if it didn't have a motive force, or soul, wouldn't have any "urge" to do anything at all.
This is to say that anything with a drive to reproduce has a soul, correct? The "motive force" is reproduction. It's literally motivated to reproduce. You have to separate the two: one is demonstrable (all species of living things have a reproductive drive), the other is a guess currently at what is creating that motive. I'm not sure why there has to be anything else beyond "continuation of genetic material."
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
I would change 'unnatrual' to 'apparently unique'. Don't mistake human purpose as being somehow above procreation and proliferation of the species, either. We think the way we can (and again, we cannot definitively demonstrate that other species do NOT think how we do, we can only assess them through the human lens, it is not currently possible to translate lion thoughts into human thoughts) for one reason: agriculture. We're the only species who figured out how to eliminate the need to hunt or to forage for food. This allowed us to conquer the needs that other animals haven't: long term controllable food supply. Having conquered that allowed us to turn our intellect to challenges like livestock breeding for work and food, the detection of and defense against predators, and maintaining our "pack" in ways other animals simply don't have the bandwidth to do. We see some of these more advanced behaviors in various primates, like the forming of and utilization of tools to complete tasks (monkeys using sticks to lure ants to eat, for example), but those examples are infinitely less complex than what we're able to accomplish.
If you started to strip away the basic human advances like safety of shelter or agriculture, rest assured that we'd see an eventual backslide to monitoring those very basic genetic demands: procreation. Everything goes back to procreation, even if it's not obvious. Humans engage in mating behaviors CONSTANTLY. How we dress, what we drive, how we live, the way we obsess over our appearances, it's all mating behavior.
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I'm not sure why you just wouldn't call it education then. Or understanding. THe term enlightenment seems to carry with it unnecessary spiritual baggage.
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@Dr.Franklin
I'm not sure if you're intentionally being obtuse, or if you just don't realize it. Let me make it more clear: my point is that Jesus didn't ask either of the thieves on the cross to describe their lives full of sin before saying one of them would be admitted into heaven. In fact, the one guy only asks Jesus to REMEMBER him, not even to FORGIVE him, and because Jesus likes that the guy acknowledges that Jesus is innocent of the crime for which he's being crucified, Jesus gives him a pass. To be even more plain, it's extremely unlikely that the thief who Jesus decides he likes ONLY committed the sin for which he was being crucified. And Jesus DOES NOT SAY "I can get you in only if you didn't murder anyone, I can't help you there." He absolves, according to Christian doctrine everywhere, all sin, equally. So you want to jerk off? cool. Just say sorry and love Jesus and you don't have to worry about it. Want to look at child porn? Not a problem for Jesus if you're sorry. Again feel free to refute with biblical passages, but I have a sneaking suspicion you're just a garden variety ignoramus. You don't even try.
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@Dr.Franklin
something about wait what are you on the cross for bs
Yeah, I said very clearly that's NOT what he says. Look:
Verily I say unto thee that you shall be with me in paradise on this day or whatever the heck is in the crucifixion story. It's not "Wait, what are you on the cross for?"..."Murdered someone."..."Wow, too bad, if you'd just stolen something instead you'd totally beon the up elevator with me later."
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@Dr.Franklin
The rest of your post is merely false claims about God
Please elaborate.
Purgatory isn't in the bible, dude. It's an 11th or 12th century invention put in place as human understanding of the concept of justice evolved, specifically to deal with gray areas of transgression. That word isn't in the bible at all.
And, yeah, jerking off and murder aren't the same thing. But they're both mortal sins. Hmmm...sounds like you're questioning the perfection of perfect justice. Knock it off or eventually you're going to realize that you're making better moral judgement than Jesus ever did.
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@Dr.Franklin
So you are a Roman Catholic? The support for classifying sins as mortal and venal is at best VAGUELY supported by the bible, one verse in John I think. Incidentally murder is in the same class as being gay, jerking off, or viewing porn according to the Catholic Catechism.
So you do not believe faith in Jesus can absolve every sin? I wonder how your fellow Christians see that.
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@Dr.Franklin
TO quote my favorite philosopher, without biblical substantiation for those assertions, "that's just like...your opinion, man." Purgatory isn't remotely biblical. And murder is not a special class of sin, it's just a sin, and as such, if you repent it on your deathbed sincerely, you go to heaven to love on Jesus for all eternity. Are you not a Christian? Verily I say unto thee that you shall be with me in paradise on this day or whatever the heck is in the crucifixion story. It's not "Wait, what are you on the cross for?"..."Murdered someone."..."Wow, too bad, if you'd just stolen something instead you'd totally beon the up elevator with me later."
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@Dr.Franklin
hell or VERY HARD pergutory
Please provide the biblical substantiation for (a) murder being unforgivable, this is clearly not what the majority of Christians think and they base that assessment on the bible and Jesus's apparent ability to absolve any and all sin just by loving him, (b) purgatory from the bible, (c) biblical passages referring the LEVELS of purgatory.
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@Dr.Franklin
No? Is murder an unforgivable sin? Where's the substantiation for that?
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Meeeeh, I'm a logical critical thinker who doesn't believe in the supernatural at all!
I don't know man, you're tough to do that way :).
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@Tradesecret
How do you pick which ones to believe and which ones you think are valid?I don't believe a lot of people's versions of how things happened. However I am happy or content to suspend my judgment until sufficient evidence appears to prove or disprove. This is how science operates, does it not?
No, it isn't to "Suspend your judgement", it is to maintain the proper neutral starting point. Clearly neither of which you're doing with the Exodus tale. You're seeing the lack of evidence, shrugging your shoulders at it, and then saying "but I'm pretty sure it was real because it's an old story and lots of people believe it." In this case, the lack of evidence isn't exactly like the paucity of evidence for, say, a multiverse, where it's theoretical, there are mathematical models that make it look like maybe it's possible, but we have to say we don't know. In THIS case, in the Exodus case, there's a lack of evidence for something THERE SHOULD BE EVIDENCE FOR if it happened: 600K people, apparently all of them too stupid to pick a direction, and wandering around as en entire culture in a desert for 40 years. It's in the same bucket of mythological tale as the global flood. If it happened, there would be evidence. There isn't any, when there should be plenty. Ergo, the lack of evidence is enough information to move from "unsure" or neutral into "probably not."
In Australia the dreamtime is one of those situations. Were Australian scientists to dismiss such dreamtimes because of the lack of evidence then it would create a nightmare. Better to simply suspend one's judgment.
Science in no way ignores mythology for reasons of "creating a nightmare." Unless I guess you're talking about climate science denial, but then they're not really doing science either. It's not suspend judgement, it's take the neutral position.
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@EtrnlVw
Science doesn't assume theories: science makes observations then FORMS theories based thereon. When those theories stand up to testing, they are deemed viable scientific theories. Unlike, say, your version of a creator, who is essentially as you describe them the god of the gaps. Please demonstrate the supernatural intelligence, mind or thought behind the evolution of dogs from wolves. Your post is as usual a lot of bunk.
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@janesix
To me, that didn't happen by accident.
What's your support for this opinion? I think a lot of people get caught up thinking "natural selection" is the same as "random chance", it isn't. Why couldn't a flying squirrel be an accident? Would it seem less mysterious if it didn't have the name "squirrel" and instead was something else? Your point about marsupials is interesting: what's the orthgenic reason for Australia having so many animals that are ONLY found there?
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@janesix
Explain then how I can see the same "predetermined direction" you do, like what's your evidence for this "aim point." Because to me, evolution and changing over time are the same thing. A predetermined direction should be pretty plain, and also able to explain why that direction includes 300K species of beetles, for example, and innumerable bacteria and viruses.
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By all means, please elaborate. In my view, and for no reason at all but humoring the discussion, I will ignore the reams and reams of scientific support this theory has, it's an exceptionally simple concept: living things must adapt to the environment around them in order to reproduce. What is it about that that doesn't make sense? How does EVERYTHING point to a creator? If that's the case, then why hasn't it been confirmed? Jane, you have to think about this: humans have been trying to prove there's a specific creator for literally thousands and thousands of years, to no avail. Evolution (not sure why you're adding "Darwinian", it is superfluous) has been scientifically accepted as correct for less than two centuries, and has an entire apparatus associated with religion trying to prove it wrong, again, to no avail.
I don't know what you object to in the theory, but I don't think by any means that you have actually studied it. Does it make you uncomfortable in some way?
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@Tradesecret
You must also believe a lot of native people's versions of how things happened, no? Like you have to believe the story of Devil's Tower, right?It is a myth that Jews seem in part to accept as part of their history. Personally I am not sure that I could dismiss someone's else culture just because I could not find evidence to support it.
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@Dr.Franklin
I found wood from Noah's Ark when I climbed Mt. Ararat.
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@Dr.Franklin
This is clearly not true: it's the evidence and the people, particularly when you're making extraordinary claims. I bet you'd take your medical advice from a doctor, let's say, and not a guy raving on a street corner, right? You have to weigh the evidence in proportion to the claim it supports. For example, if I told you I climbed mount ararat and found what looked like a really old 8 x 8 beam up there, and then I said it's definitely Noah's Ark, would you just believe me, or would you want expert corroboration? if the answer is you'd want expert corroboration, then you have to qualify the experts. If the answer is you just believe me, then you don't even need to see the wood I found.
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@Dr.Franklin
who cares who
Anyone with intellectual integrity and genuine curiosity and that cares about the truth? What you're saying is basically the same as "This doctor says he cured Alzheimer's," link to crackpot CBD oil homeopathy website, someone asking you "Which doctor?" and you saying "Who cares, it's cured." It's not exactly compelling. Be better at this.
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@SkepticalOne
How dare you question Dr. Henry Jones Jr.?
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Can you define "god" or "creator" without use of any mythological text? I'm having trouble understanding what you're asking atheists to do. If you erase the entire bible from the history of culture, then the god within it disappears.
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@Tradesecret
Does this mean you don't believe in free will?
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@3RU7AL
@Athias
Guys, can you please start calling each other names, like immediately? BEcause I'm not comfortable with the straight reasonable discussion you're having even though I think you disagree. There needs to be more personal attacks, how else will I decide which argument is better?
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@3RU7AL
We are star-stuff?
What I don't understand is how understanding that this is the fact somehow makes life LESS meaningful or mysterious or beautiful. I have teared up so many times explaining this to my kids.
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@3RU7AL
THe bible describes ways in which people can be passed on as property like jewelry or furniture. THe question then becomes pretty stark: is it now or was it ever moral (this is different than "allowed" or even "sanctioned by god") to own a person in this way? Where you could leave them to your child like you would a goat? Because people as property = slaves. Calling them "unpaid contract laborers with severe limitations on their personal freedoms" can be shortened to "slave." These apologetics for it are just straight embarassing. "Yeah, but they got to live in the house!" or "Wives! Not sex slaves!"
THe problem is that they cannot simply say "The moral code in the bible, even if every word of the bible were straight tap truth, does not apply today."
ETA I know I am not arguing with you, you seem to agree with me.
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@Snoopy
Thanks for proving my point: you would accept literally no proposition that's far, far, far less outlandish than "magic being spoke universe into existence", without evidence and reason to do so. And you're also not being very sporting about the idea of debate with someone who disagrees with you, at all. I almost feel like I've bullied you, I'm sorry.
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@Snoopy
I'm sorry, but I am having a hard time believing you're engaging in a good faith discussion on the topic. You'd believe me SIMPLY if I told you I had a job as a rancher who rides a rhino? You'd believe it on its face based only on that information? I hate to think the religious are all this credulous, it's too much of a stereotype. But you're making it tough.
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@Snoopy
Really? I think you're being a little slippery here. If I took a picture of me (presuming you knew what I looked like, who I was, etc.) on top of my rhino, in my company parking lot, with my workbag, holding today's newspaper, you don't think that'd be at least enough evidence for you to say "feasible based on this evidence." If I showed you receipts for rhino food, a ticket I got from a police officer two days ago for riding an unauthorized animal on city streets and not cleaning up after it, and a local newspaper account of my rhino causing all sorts of problems in a parking lot, you wouldn't think "definitely him, reasonable to assume he is riding a rhino to work"?
My point is you'd demand evidence of this, right, in order to even begin to believe it? And even then you'd think "Well, he could be faking it, photoshop, friend at the newspaper," etc.? Wouldn't that be reasonable? THen I said Ok, snoopster, I know you don't believe me. Here's what I'll do: you can come to my house and ride my rhino to YOUR work. If you did that, then you'd have no choice but to be convinced, because you'd experienced my riding rhino first hand, right?
We know rhinos exist. This is beyond dispute. You would still demand proof because my claim is so outlandish, even though (a) people have jobs (b) people have animals (c) rhinos exist and (d) people use animals as transport sometimes. Is that fair to say?
You do not demand this same level of proof or evidence for your religion. Your answer is "you have to believe it before you believe it."
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@Snoopy
What would convince you I rode my rhino to work today?
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@Snoopy
Why do you not believe me? Actually more importantly, what would convince you?
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@Snoopy
So, then short answer is "no"?That isn't what I'm asking. If there's a god that's timeless, it should not require time travel to demonstrate it. It's either there or it isn't. Can you offer any demonstration at all?Everything is expected to be the way it is. We can't go back to the times of Moses and talk to a bush. We can't see Jesus go to his crucifixion.
Totally random but, hat would be awesome. I love it when people ride ridiculous things to work.
It WAS awesome. Do you believe me?
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@Snoopy
Ok, but there is significant demonstration of gravity, including formulas, multiple and consistent demonstrations of it working according to these calculations, consistently across the universe as far as we can tell. No one says "well, that's what it is, it's just gravity, and if you don't get it, it's because you don't really WANT to get it." And the best part is if you want to offer an alternative to gravity, you're free to do so. Scientists don't say "how dare you question my understanding of gravity." They say "show your work." When I ask you to show your work, you say "You can't ask that, you're not a true believer so you'll never believe it."
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@Snoopy
That isn't what I'm asking. If there's a god that's timeless, it should not require time travel to demonstrate it. It's either there or it isn't. Can you offer any demonstration at all?
If I told you I owned a rhinoceros, and I rode it to work today, would you believe me?
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