The End of Time

[QUOTE=apb;394202]As far as Rich's question, morals are something that evolved with humans. Its how humans are able to interact with each other as social creatures. I've seen many cases of non-religious people doing good and religious people doing bad. Certainly plenty of cases of the reverse. Religion neither helps or hinders people from doing good or evil.

Andrew[/QUOTE]

Interesting, so moral judgement was developed as we evolved from apes in order to get along. I too believe that there is a right and wrong, a moral compass in all of us no matter what our beliefs are......it is the Light of Christ.

I would feel safe to say that criminals and murderers are not "religious" people.

True no one is perfect, if we were, we would be Gods. For he is truly the only perfect being.

I would have to disagree with your statement that religion neither helps or hinders people from doing good or bad. I can't speek for other religions, but Christianity teaches nothing but loving thy neighbor and obedience to God's commandments. This teaching helps me every day to be a good and moral person. Without it, I know that I wouldn't be as good a person as I am today. That is why I am amazed at how atheists and scientologists can remain morally clean, although then....everyone's definition of moral clean is different. What I consider to be morally clean may be completely different than that of the atheist or scientologist. It is all in one's perspective I guess.

Thanks for the answer, always curious as to what others believe and why.

-Rich

[Quote]
Interesting, so moral judgement was developed as we evolved from apes in order to get along. [/Quote]

Short answer, yes. Those morals that allowed humans to work together helped them survive, so were passed on to the next generation and so forth. As an example, one common thread that we see in all hunter-gatherer socieities is the sharing of food. Given that we see this cross-culturally, it suggests this is something that is part of humans, it helped them survive.

[Quote]...I would have to disagree with your statement that religion neither helps or hinders people from doing good or bad. I can't speek for other religions, but Christianity teaches nothing but loving thy neighbor and obedience to God's commandments. This teaching helps me every day to be a good and moral person. Without it, I know that I wouldn't be as good a person as I am today...[/Quote]

Good points. Guess we are looking at it from two different perspectives. When I say religion neither helps or hinders people from doing good or bad, what I mean is that, just because someone is religious does not mean they will not do bad things. For example, the stories of pediphile priests a few years ago. The priests were religious people, but their religion did not keep them from doing evil things. Likewise, you will find many people in jail who would consider themselves religious people, they just messed up.
A lot of what I have read in the New Testiment certainly is in line with what you indicate: love thy neighbor, do unto others, etc. Topics that we can both agree are of good moral value. However, look at some of the stories in the Old Testiment. For example, the story of Lot. There is much about that story (e.g., offering up his daughters to the masses, incest) that we would not see as moral. This suggests that, while the bible can certainly provide some good moral direction, there is something outside of religion that shapes our moral values. I would argue that this something is genetic. Humans have the capacity for both good and bad. I have no doubt that religious people who do good things would still do those same good things without religion.

The way I see it is that a person of good moral charactor will do the right thing even when no one is looking or no one will know. It is so much a part of who they are that they do the right thing because that is who they are. I am amazed at the people who say things along the lines of: if one does not believe in god, then there is nothing stopping them from doing evil. These people scare me. Suggests that these people would do all kinds of evil if they were not somehow forced to do right.

Interesting topic. I could go on, but have work to do. Be back after the new year if you want to continue discussing this.

Have a great New Years everyone!

Andrew

Religion is a fascinating topic.....Doesn't matter which side of the fence you are...

"if one does not believe in god, then there is nothing stopping them from doing evil. These people scare me. Suggests that these people would do all kinds of evil if they were not somehow forced to do right."

That is scary to think about isn't it......As far as criminals being religious, I guess it would depend on your definition of "religious" ...If it means believing and practicing what the bible teaches then I doubt there are many religious "criminals and murderers" but if it simply means just believing in a god then I know a few folks that have spent about as much time in jail as out of it who say they believe there is a god and a heaven and hell all that stuff....

I'm probably going to get beat with a switch for saying this but I think the farther you get away from civilization ( not just the jungles in other countries but the ares of this country also that are a little farther out in the sticks so to speak) the bigger the percentage of people who claim to believe in the higher power concept...

[QUOTE=HURRICANEBOB;394319]Y2K was nothing.....wait till Windows 7 hits the ground![/QUOTE]

Windows 7 has been around for a LONG time already.........

AND it is working GREAT for me.

Later,

Geo

[QUOTE=GeoFisher;394600]Windows 7 has been around for a LONG time already.........

AND it is working GREAT for me.

Later,

Geo[/QUOTE]


She hasn't had any problem with it either...I suspect it will be good, vista has been the most stable system I have had to date...... what my comment was about is she couldn't find the mail program that she was accustomed to in the last machine she had and I think they took the windows calendar away that she had been using.

[QUOTE=apb;394459]Modern man, as in Homo sapien, originated in Africa around 120,000 years ago and spread out from there. Several competing theories right now on how that spread occurred.

Andrew[/QUOTE]

In my opinion, modern man came to be when they introduced the first cell phone that had texting capability. Before that it was just [B][I][U]all talk. [/U][/I][/B]

[URL]http://www.december212012.com/[/URL]

[QUOTE=apb;394355]Grumpy,

I'm not finding anything on the 25k year cycle. Those numbers seem right for some reason, just don't know why. I did dig up a few things on Archaeomagnetic Dating:

[URL]http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/archaeology/dating/dat_mag.html[/URL]
[URL]http://www.museum.state.il.us/programs/archmag/ism_archaeomagnetic_laboratory_008.htm[/URL]
[URL]http://www.nmarchaeology.org/archaeomagnetic-dating-laboratory.html[/URL]

Andrew[/QUOTE]
Interesting reading! Thanks for the links.

There is ONE part of this whole theory that I find credible. Some of these prophecies talk about what man has constructed coming crashing down, and lights in the sky. Do you all remember the satellite collision in February 2009? There was already quite a bit of debris in that orbit, the same orbit that is shared by most telecommunications satellites. There is some concern that that debris could impact other satellites, disabling them and releasing more debris, and this could eventually have a snowball effect, in the end destroying or disabling every satellite in that orbit. Sunspot activity has been shown to have an effect on satellite navigation systems, and the current sunspot cycle is predicted to peak around the end of 2012 or the beginning of 2013. So it is not inconceivable that on or around 12/21/2012, sunspot activity could lead to the destruction of all those satellites, and as their orbits decayed and they hit the atmosphere, there would be quite a few "lights in the sky." And if this does occur, I don't think it would be an overstatement to call it a global catastrophe.

Well, it's almost here. What are your plans? I took a vacation day myself. It's a Friday, so I'll have a 3-day weekend, and I really want to be able to keep track of the news, and watch what crazy things people do. I hate to say it, but I really think there are going to be some people who commit suicide. I saw an interview with a guy from NASA and he said he'd gotten a lot of disturbing emails, one of them who said they were going to commit suicide before 12/21/2012, and take their children with them. Some people are just made that way, and all it takes is something like this to trigger them.

[QUOTE=RoadToad;503266]Well, it's almost here. What are your plans? I took a vacation day myself. It's a Friday, so I'll have a 3-day weekend, and I really want to be able to keep track of the news, and watch what crazy things people do. I hate to say it, but I really think there are going to be some people who commit suicide. I saw an interview with a guy from NASA and he said he'd gotten a lot of disturbing emails, one of them who said they were going to commit suicide before 12/21/2012, and take their children with them. Some people are just made that way, and all it takes is something like this to trigger them.[/QUOTE]

Hmmmm I haven't put any thought into it. I'm more amazed you remembered this post, found it and posted on it again!! :)
I'm making no plans for it. It will be nothing more than another day of news and the start to a weekend to me. Maybe some stores will do an "end of life sale" that gives away everything???? Better read the fine print though....I'm sure it will be a gimmick. ;)

It seems the closer "the end" gets the less you hear about it, makes you think nobody puts much faith in the prophesy or whatever it is.... Maybe the myans weren't as far ahead of their time as some folks gave them credit for... I suspect it will come and go and nobody will speak much about it from the next day on.