Maybe not laughed at, but it does not work to quote scripture to those that do not see it as authoritative. @Patrick has a point.
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I am sorry about your father. I am two years older than you. I guess that makes me the older. My late uncle, Louis Miller, was with General Doug MacArthur during that time. Oh, you did not answer a question. Is Pontifex Maximus going to make you a knight of the Holy See? My wife and I would like to come to your knighting-the Agnostic Knight of Pope Francis.
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My grandfather, Rosario Trischitta, (born 1880, died 1945) was a Founder of St Rocco’s Knights of Columbus chapter and my father was a fourth degree Knight of Columbus. I, in their memory, spend a lot of time and money counteracting the Knight of Columbus’ efforts to close down Planned Parenthood. For every dollar, K of C raises to fight Planned Parenthood, I work to raise ten times that amount for Planned Parenthood. I am sure my father and grandfather would be proud as they were social New Deal democrats who lived life kind and compassionate to all.
You will need to remember that New Deal Democrats in the 30’s and 40’s did not believe as the Progressives do socially today. Listen to Harry S. Truman’s speech at his swearing in ceremony in 1949. You must be writing another doctoral dissertation , oh boy.
Growing up, I admired Robert F. Kennedy. Today my politics would be considered far left socially and far right fiscally. Left of Bernie Sanders (an atheist Jew) socially and to the right of the rich liberal Republican Nelson Rockefeller.
I am proud to live in an American where the grandson of Italian immigrant, and son of a working class social democrat can be educated in science and technology, have a long and prosperous career in science and technology, get rich on his investments in those technologies, and be a secular humanist atheist in the ideals of the Enlightenment fighting for justice and the American way and raise two fine sons who are scientist and technologist themselves on technologies that help people in ways I never dreamed of.
My motto in living life: Some men see things as they are and say WHY, I dreamed things that never were and say WHY NOT?
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Sure, Patrick has a point, after you remove the laughter of those who discount what they don’t understand (or haven’t read), and after you ignore the original claim about the book being the ravings of a psychotic, and after you assume that the the appeal to the book was made only as an appeal to authority, rather than to information, or illustration, or all the other reasons people quote books.
Without those subtle restatements, it still sounds like cant to me.
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I can agree here of much of what you say. My father was a labor leader at the Ford Motor Company in Norfolk, Virginia. I did not know that Bernie Sanders was an atheist; however, I knew he was at least a Reform Jew. I supported him for the Democratic nomination, because Hillary was an Eisenhower Republican running as a Democrat. President Clinton was that too. I would have supported Nelson Rockefeller over Hillary. Bobby Kennedy would have been a good president. It is a shame that he was murdered. I will make a deal with you. We can disagree about philosophy and the Church; however, you must leave my faith alone. I do not agree with what you say concerning the Church; however, you have a right to believe as you do and so do I. Truly agreed. That means no name calling and no lying. Do I make myself clear and do you truly agree? Answer me, Patrick , before you talk with Jon.
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Let’s discuss the Book of Revelation scientifically. You can lead the discussion. Where do we start?
Though I pointed out that eschatological texts are not amenable to scientific discussion, maybe I could be tempted - but only after you’ve started a scientific discussion on your “dreams of things that never were,” which, you say, underpin your own way of living. That should give me some tips on how to proceed.
I agree to leaving your faith alone, if you agree not to proclaim that your faith as truth and that others should adhered to your faith or ideals. Let’s agree to discuss what we KNOW is true and agree to say we don’t know when we don’t know what is true. In other words, let’s let science be neutral on God. Then we can discuss the latest and greatest in science PEACEFULLY and much more productively. And we just might learn something about ourselves, each others, and the world that we live in now.
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Is anyone laughing at me now? I really want to know.
Well this is better then the prior pattern.
Not a bad plan when we know also that it’s okay to explain to what we personally think about God and atheism.
Glad to see you guys working things out.
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Can we discuss also some history along with science as long as we keep our agreement? You know, Patrick, science, which we both enjoy, is history too.
Why are eschatological text not amenable to scientific discussion? Please elaborate.
As for my “dreams of thing that never were” That is a technologist speaking. A technologist who “believes” that people working together can solve ALL of the world’s problems.
Yes, of course, historical science is great to discuss. New things are coming out every day in this area. Sequencing of ancient fossil DNA is exploding. Every day new things are discovered. It is hard to keep up.
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I believe we will get along fine. I was glad to learn about your dad and your politics. I wonder if Bernie will run again. I believed as Teddy Kennedy did in Universal Medicare. Do you have some thoughts? We can read that tomorrow. My bones hurt. I am quite glad to come to an agreement.
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But still nothing to get ones teeth into scientifically - to which I don’t object, because man cannot live by science alone, but by dreams, beliefs, hopes, global generalisations, mores and and social commitments. All of those are embedded in the book of Revelation too, but I wouldn’t want to be twee.
The last two chapters of Revelation are about a hope, based on belief in the historical fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which was to a new kind of imperishable life - a hope for a transformation of the whole creation to that same kind of existence.
Christians recognise that transformation in their own experience, which is why, despite their apparent strangeness, they resonate with us. Purely fortuitously, I read those two chapters in their completeness to a study group last evening to complete a Bible overview, and not only were they visibly moved, but they recognised them as a summation of the themes they had come to recognise through the whole Bible, from Genesis 1 on, and as a powerful stimulus to be willing to serve the world and suffer in it if necessary.
The New Testament describes that future in terms of the “spiritually empowered” (Greek pneumatikos) as opposed to the present “naturally empowered” (phusikos, from which we get “physical” and “physics.” It is described as the kind of world in which the immortal God dwells “face to face” in the midst of his renewed creation. If that hope is true, then it is a radical change from the way the universe has operated for the last 12+ billion years, and is as scientifically intractable as any putative world before the Big Bang - the point at which laws, matter, and even space-time break down.
The sciences one could, I suppose, use in studying Revelation are literary: recognising and accounting for the hundreds of allusions to the Hebrew Scriptures (amenable, and greatly helped, by statistical tools, I’m told by the scholars); recognising and correlating the conventions of apocalyptic literature; recognising the allusions both to specific local conditions and the broad political setting; recognising the instances of numerology similar to that found extensively in OT texts; likewise recognising chiastic structures and other sophisticated literary devices only shown on detailed analysis, which were familiar to the original readers and emerged as they studied it to reveal additional meaning.
All these are soft sciences - it’s no more appropriate to try to find physics in an apocalypse than it is to find it in Genesis 1, or in your dreams, come to that.
A quick edit - to start the first of those scientific studies adequately, one needs to be thoroughly familiar with the Hebrew Scriptures, and I mean thoroughly. Otherwise, you’ll be as lost as my Fundamentalist trying to comment on Stephen Hawking.
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Isn’t there any way for you to “bow out” of theological discussions? Your participation in every thread is not exactly the long term goal.
I am sorry that your bones hurt. I hope that you are getting the very best in medical care and attention.
Regarding medical care, I am very fortunate that my wife (63) and I (60) are relatively healthy for our ages compared to most people we know. We are both optimistic that we can both live into our late 90’s with good physical and mental faculties. My wife’s mom lived to be 97 and with the advances in medical science, we might have a reasonable shot at 100.
As Dr. Swamidass has said, it is not the medical facilities, nor the medical research and practices that are in need of reform, it is how we collectively as a society pay for them. We are living longer, some are living healthy lifestyles, some are not. Because of the success of medical science, living longer costs more. During the plague of the middle ages, you didn’t need health insurance, as one in four died quickly in the year 1350.
So what to do about paying for healthcare in America in 2018? My case is rather typical and representative of the problem. I am retired, and so is my wife. We are too young for Medicare but don’t get health insurance from our former employers. We are quite comfortable in what we can afford and we have access to the finest doctors and medical faculties in the world. Given the reality of healthcare in America, I pay $2000 a month for Health Insurance that has a $14,000 deductible, meaning that all medical expenses up to $14,000 in a year is paid by me and not the insurance company. So in a given year, let’s call it a “healthy year” where we just go for checkups and normal preventive and diagnotic tests like colonoscopies and various cancer screenings like mammography and prostate cancer screenings, we pay $38,000 a year and the insurance company pays $0. Fortunately we are able to afford this expensive medical care, but most people are not.
How can we make the system better and fairer in the cost sharing?
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Focus more resources on preventative and healthy lifestyle efforts, to begin to stave off the need for palliative care. There are such things as food stamps for the needy; what about subsidization of good nutritional supplementation? Immediately increase the number of federal time-off holidays; work on getting the costs down on effective in-home exercise options; how about a national “Health and Well-Being Holiday?” Incentivize good health. Maybe even give tax breaks for time spent volunteering for social service projects that meet federal guidelines and oversight. That way, any cash-strapped elderly folks might, nevertheless, regain a sense of social purpose while serving outside the home, or inside, as volunteer local 2-1-1 operators.
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