two or three . net

Quote of the Day - necessity, tyrants, and repealing Obamacare

Is Obama facilitating change or forcing it? Here's today's quote.

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. ~ William Pitt

In our recent political history, this might be applied to some of the actions of GW Bush, such as the war on Iraq, wiretapping, suspending habeas corpus for Gitmo detainees, etc.  

It could also be applied to the Obama Administration, in the way that they forced through their various enormous spending bills, as well as their upcoming "carbon offsets" (a.k.a as 'cap and trade') legislation.  Trust me, it will be urgent and necessary.  

As we have seen in the Obama administration, you don't need time to read or openly debate legislation, you just need time to manipulate a majority vote.

Quote of the Day - Dan Rather the racist

Obama couldn't sell watermelons?!?  Nice.

Quote of the Day - Revival and anguish

The video below is interesting, though a little hard core for me - it both appeals and repulses.  But I like this quote:

All true passion comes out of anguish.

Quote of the Day #025: Unity at all costs?

It is better to be divided by truth than to be united in error.

Adrian Rogers (1931-2005)

Quote of the Day #024: Christianity and the Mystery Religions

I came across this while reading today (yes, it was pleasure reading ;):

It is this same basic question of historicity, moreover, that sharply distinguishes Christianity form the mystery religions that flourished in the Middle East at much the same time and with which it has often been compared.  There are, of course, certain parallels and similarities between them, although these have been much exaggerated, as B.M. Metzger and others have shown.  Many of the supposed parallels, indeed, result from an arbitrary amalgamation of heterogeneous elements drawn from a number of different religions, out of which is built up, in Albert Schweitzer's words, "a kind of universal mystery-religion which never really existed, least of all in Paul's day."

The NT, moreover, was written almost esclusively by Jews, whose "strict monotheism and traditional intolerance of syncretism" would have militated strongly against any wholesale borrowing from pagain cults. 

But the fundamental difference is the historical basis of the Christian faith over against the mythological character of the mystery religions.  The deities they proclaimed were no more than "nebulous figures of an imagineary past," whereas the Jesus of the apostolic kerygma has a historical person who had lived and died only a very few years before the first NT documents were written. 

The mystery religions essentially celebrate a dying nature god who then, like the coming of spring, is revived or reborn.  There is all the difference in the world between this and the resurrection "on the third day" of a historical figure to whose resurrection appearances many could testify from personal experience. 

It is significant, moreover, that the references to a three-day gap between death and revival that we find in regard to Attis (possibly Adonis according to one account) and Osiris cannot be dated earlier than the second century A.D., while the tradition about the resurrection of Christ on the third day, as recorded in 1 Corinthians 15, can be traced back to well before the middle of the first century. 

So, if borrowings were made from one religion to another, it is tolerably clear which way they went.

-- Sir Norman Anderson in The Expositors Bible Commentary, Volume 1, pp. 145-6.

See also Did Christianity Borrow from the Mystery Religions?

Quote of the Day #023: loquatious ignorance

From Marcus Tullius Cicero, on W vs. Obama? (courtesy of Church of the Masses):

"I prefer tongue-tied knowledge to ignorant loquacity."

Quote of the Day #022: Evolutionists like religious hypocrites

"Evolutionists have done to science what hypocrites have done to religion. They leap through the so-called paleontological record like a Disney cartoon kangaroo, making statements that have more to do with an overripe imagination rather than with true science. They are unregulated speculators with ridiculous theories that are leaving the minds of today’s youth bankrupt, and they need to be held to some sort of intellectual accountability. I’m just one incompetent idiot that’s trying to do that."

Ray Comfort, author of You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think, , responding to PZ Meyer's criticism of his questions about the absent mechanism for the evolution of male and female across the entire animal kingdom.

Quote of the Day # 021: Faith goes beyond the limits of reason

The believer uses faith to gain access to a new domain, that of revelation....The believer hopes that revelation will expose truths otherwise hidden to reason.  The believer embraces faith not 'blindly' but rather with 'eyes wide open.' The Christian relies on faith not to suppress his native powers but to guide them so that they may see more clearly.  He expects revelation to reactivate and guide his reason.  Augustine's dictum is applicable here: "Believe and you will understand."

Dinesh D'Souza in What's So Great About Christianity

Who said it?

What president made the following faith inclusive statement?

In our country, we recognize our fellow citizens are free to profess any faith they choose, or no faith at all. You're equally American if you're a Jew, or a Christian, or a Muslim. You're equally American if you choose not to have faith.

Quote of the Day #020 - King's dream and abortion

"[Dr. King’s] dream of full equality remains just a dream as long as unborn children continue to be treated no better than property."

Dr. Alveda King, niece of the 1960s Civil Rights icon, commenting after the election of President Obama

Quote of the Day #019 - Atheism eliminated by natural selection?

I am immensely enjoying Dinesh D'Souza's What's So Great About Christianity.  Here's just one of inumerable choice passages (p. 19):

My conclusion is that it is not religion but atheism that requires a Darwinian explanation.  Atheism is a bit like homosexuality; one is not sure where it fits into a doctrine of natural selection.  Why would nature select people who mate with others of the same sex, a process with no reproductive advantage at all?  It seem equally perplexing why nature would breed a group of people who see no higher purpose in life or the universe.

Quote of the Day #018 - The unscientific nature of phylogenetic trees

I have long argued that modern phylogenetic trees are circular in their reasoning, and are based on evolutionary assumptions, rather than proving common descent.  They also have an arguably poor record for predictions, are so fluid in their structure as to be meaningless (they can accommodate ANY data, and can't be falsified by any), and are being regularly undermined by modern genetics.  A recent scientific paper echoes these thoughts:

"Seeking phylogenetic trees does not represent a scientific endeavor and cladograms represent not scientific but metaphysical hypotheses."

Lars Vogt in "The unfalsifiability of cladograms and its consequences", Cladistics, 24(1), February 2008, 62-73 | doi 10.1111/j.1096-0031.2007.00169.x

Related articles:

• Evolutionary Trees - In Flux or Broken and Bogus?
• More Genetic Evidence Against Evolution
• 13 Misconceptions About Evolution

101+ Quotes on Faith, Reason, Unbelief, and Atheism

In response to a very impressive list of 101 Atheist Quotes, I wanted to create some lists of my own, and have culled my favorites from the following sources:

• christianquotes.org
• grace quotes
• the quotable Christian

Quote of the Day #017 - G.W. Bush on supporting democracy worldwide

America’s vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one. From the day of our Founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image of the Maker of Heaven and earth. Across the generations we have proclaimed the imperative of self-government, because no one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave. Advancing these ideals is the mission that created our Nation. It is the honorable achievement of our fathers. Now it is the urgent requirement of our nation’s security, and the calling of our time.

So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.

—George W. Bush, Second Inaugural Address, 2005

Quote of the Day #016 - John Adams on Government and Religion

"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other."      

John Adams
US diplomat & politician (1735 - 1826)

Quote of the Day #015 - The reasonableness of being a 'single issue voter'

"Some will tell us there are many other issues: economics, global warming—issues I’m very concerned about too. Previous generations have said that as well. Previous generations of preachers have stood in the pulpit and preached until they were red in the face about card-playing and movie-going and tax-policy and personal morality and tobacco-smoking and a thousand other issues, but would not speak to the fact that there were African-American brothers and sisters of the Lord Jesus swinging in the trees! And there is judgment of God upon that. And there is [with abortion] too.”

- Pastor Danny Burk on why using abortion as a litmus test for voting is not a bad thing.

Quote of the Day #114 - Thomas Jefferson on Political Parties

Which parties in our country fit the descriptions below?  Hint: I've color coded them.

Both of our political parties, at least the honest portion of them, agree conscientiously in the same object: the public good; but they differ essentially in what they deem the means of promoting that good.

One side believes it best done by one composition of the governing powers, the other by a different one. One fears most the ignorance of the people; the other the selfishness of rulers independent of them. Which is right, time and experience will prove.

We think that one side of this experiment has been long enough tried and proved not to promote the good of the many, and that the other has not been fairly and sufficiently tried. Our opponents think the reverse. With whichever opinion the body of the nation concurs, that must prevail." --Thomas Jefferson to Abigail Adams, 1804. ME 11:52

Quote of the Day #013 - Science and Faith (Hess)

Victor F. Hess (1883-1964), American professor of physics and Nobel Prize winner in 1936 for the discovery of cosmic rays:

I must confess that in all of my years of research in physics and geophysics, I have never found one instance in which scientific discovery was in conflict with religious Faith.  It is sometimes said that the 'necessity' of the 'laws' of nature is incompatible with men's free will and, still more, with miracles.  This is not so.

When scientists formulate the so-called 'laws' of physics, they are fully aware, for example, that they can no more predict the actual life history of an atom or radium than they can predict the moral conduct of this or that person.

Real Faith, for me as a scientist, as for anyone else, is often a matter of bitter struggle. The victory must be won - or the gift must be discovered - by each one in his own soul.  It often takes the personal experience of grave danger or death to bring conviction and to prepare the way for Faith in Divine Providence.  What is certain is that, when Faith comes, there follows a great serenity of soul and a deep peace in the human heart.

Quote of the Day #012 - Ignorance

Local commenter mynm made a very profound comment, which I thought deserved to be enshrined here.

The greatest barrier to progress in knowledge is not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge.

By the way, this mimics the wisdom of Jesus in Matthew 6:23:

But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

Quote of the Day #011 - Islam

"What kind of an ideology causes a man to show no remorse for murdering his own daughter, but then rant and rave at being served ham sandwiches while in prison?"

- www.thereligionofpeace.com

Quote of the Day #010 - Darwin and Hitler

This is my own quote/statement, but I think it is succinct and should be said:

"Darwinists refuse to see the historical and logical connections between Darwinism and Nazi eugenics because they are not objective, but rather, are merely self-referential.  If they themselves, would not use Darwinism to justify eugenics, then obviously neither would anyone else who was following sound reason.  However, what they fail to admit is that they are held back from the eugenic conclusions of Darwinism by arguably Christian and humanist ethics rather than reason."   Daniel G.

C.S. Lewis on liberal Christianity

C.S. Lewis from Letters to Malcolm:

By the way, did you ever meet, or hear of, anyone who was converted from skepticism to a "liberal" or "demythologized" Christianity? I think that when unbelievers come in at all, they come in a good deal further.

Quote of the Day #009 - Religion and Science

"Science can purify religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes."
     - Pope John Paul II

False absolutes and idolatries like scientism (science is the only valid way of knowing), evolutionism ('it's real science, I swear! As sure as gravity'), feticide ('it's just a blob of cells, and it is better to kill it than to allow it to suffer'),  eugenics ('we're just helping Darwinism along, it's for the good of the species'), slavery ('of course they are less evolved!'), sexual permissiveness ('people can't be expected or encouraged to abstain, it's against nature' or 'just because we can never produce progeny doesn't mean that it's unnatural'), etc.

Superstitions and errors like ... [anti-religionists and thinkers (somewhat mutually exclusive groups), have a field day]

Politicians say the darndest things

Here are some of my favorite quotes about politics, by politicians or somehow vaguely connected to politics only in the deep recesses of my brain.

My favorite atheist quotes

Just to show that I can listen to and appreciate a good quip even if I disagree with the sentiment, here are my favorite atheist (or "agnosticish") quotes from Quotes of the Day.

'Reason is the Devil's whore'

This famous quote comes from Martin Luther the reformer.  Interestingly, infidels have long used this quote out of context to show that religion and Christianity are contrary to reason, but this is actually not Luther's meaning, nor is he rejecting reason, but rather, reason divorced from revelation and faith.

Quote of the Day #005 - Pacifism

"Love your enemies" is not a complete philosophy in itself - it must be balanced with "protect the weak" and "do justice."

- danielg

Quote of the Day #004 - Security or opportunity?

Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem more afraid of life than death.
  - James F. Byrnes

Quote of the Day #003 - Luther and "Vile Dirt"

"Your book is, in my opinion, so contemptible and worthless that I feel great pity for you for having defiled your beautiful and skilled manner of speaking  with such vile dirt....To those who have drunk from the Spirit of the teaching of my books, we have given in abundance and more than enough, and they easily despise your arguments....Hence, you see, I lost all desire to answer you, not because I was busy, or because it would have been a difficult task, nor on account of your great eloquence, nor for fear of you, but simply because of disgust, indignation and contempt, which, if I say so, express my judgment of your diatribe."

- Luther, responding to Erasmus' Freedom of the Will, in his counter-argument, The Bondage of the Will.

Quote of the Day #002 - Love the sinner?

"Love the sinner, hate the sin." - Ghandi (+ Augustine + ???)

This aphorism is probably a mix of two well known quotes:

• "Hate the sin and not the sinner" (Mohandas Gandhi's 1929 autobiography)
• St. Augustine's letter 211 (c. 424) contains the phrase Cum dilectione hominum et odio vitiorum, which translates roughly as "With love for mankind and hatred of sins."

Quote of the Day #001 - Atheists giving thanks

"The worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank."

- Dante Gabriel Rossetti, artist (1828-1882)

HT:  Neatorama