Sunday School

[jakelafort]

Simon do you stand by your original thoughts regarding original sin?

[Simon Paynton]

@jakelafort – I agree that it’s been used as a horrendous tool of oppression, but it remains psychologically valid.  We’re all prone to mess up sometimes, for similar reasons.

[TheEncogitationer]

Reg,

The story about Ken Ham and his Testor’s model Tower of Babel was fascinTing. Man has gone 238,000 miles in space to the Moon and back the same distance and has sent a human-made satellite Voyager II outside of our Solar System over 4 billion miles in space. That’s far higher than any human-created structure on Earth, even assuming a Tower of Babel ever existed.

By Ken Ham’s Biblical logic, not only should we be split by languages, but we all should be babbling to ourselves in every language as punishment for our “Onward, Upward, Outward” aspirations.

More To Come.

[_Robert_]

Simon Paynton wrote:

@jakelafort – I agree that it’s been used as a horrendous tool of oppression, but it remains psychologically valid. We’re all prone to mess up sometimes, for similar reasons.

Well…it was the woman’s fault. Let’s just blame the woman, LOL. Messing up is not a sin. A sin is defined as going against god.

[TheEncogitationer]

Reg and Fellow Unbelievers,

I’m back.

Ken Ham evidently thinks there is some connection between The Tower of Babel desert legend and Evolution and racism that is just not found in evidence.

One, The Tower of Babel story is about JHVH-1 splitting humans into languages to keep them from being like him.

Newsflash: The mere existence of the Internet itself–and in particular, any program from Berlitz, Rosetta Stone, or Babbel (see what they did there?) as well as any smartphone translator app–plainly show that the mythical God clearly failed in keeping humans apart forever.

With help from these programs and apps, any human can learn any language desired, especially while the mind is young and flexible. The translator apps are just a tiny step away from the Universal Translators of the Star Trek Universe that act in real time and are part of the ambience of the setting. And who knows? Alexa and Siri may be working on this upgrade as we speak.

Two, Evolution has no connection to racism. The “races” spoken of in the subtitle of Darwin’s classic refer to what we now call “species.” And Evolution is simply about the change of species over time from less complex to more complex in the wake of environmental change. Evolution does not give normative labels of “superior or “inferior” to the physiological traits of any species or group within the species, including humans.

Three, no desert legend is needed to take down Critical Race Theory (CRT) and in fact, refuting a particular desert legend is key to refuting CRT.

To tie in with the discussion on Original Sin, if no one is born with “sin,”–or for that matter, any other ideas, including God or religion– then certainly no one is born with racism and all of it’s attendant evils. Racism is taught, not inate, and contrary to CRT, racism is certainly not inate to any group within the human species, and ultimately, racism can only be fought in the realm of ideas.

And if we want an end to racism to be universal, it is crucial to teach children that the racist absurdities and horrors of human history are not their fault, that individuals living today are and can be better and will be better if they but think and act better.

Here’s hoping that Ken Ham’s Lego project isn’t a big distraction from this much-needed lesson and that everyone flashes him their translator app and offers to Instagram photos to all their friends worldwide.

[TheEncogitationer]

Simon,

It’s important to make a distinction between errors of fact and errors of morality. If errors of fact such as spelling were a reason for guilt, I could never get a post out and you might not ever have written a book (which I look forward to reading when I get a chance, by the way.)

Also, while mnemonic devices are a good thing, unlike the guilt of Original Sin, mnemonic devices should not be unduly painful and are best when based in truth.

A prime example of a mnemonic device which is based in truth is this sentence for distinguishing the words and meanings of “prostrate” and “prostate”:

“The patient will prostrate, so the Doctor can examine his prostate.”

See? Based in truth and easy to remember. (Whether unduly painful or not is a matter of preparation. 😁)

[Author]

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