[Marcus Marulus]

Originally Posted by Waarnemer

Its easy to broaden faith in such a way that it could mean anything, but philosophical approaches like this tend to end in contradiction.

It does not broaden anything. Allegorical explanations of the Biblical passages were commonplace in the Christian theology since the inception of the Christianity. So nothing new, no broadening.

Originally Posted by Waarnemer

For one, if Genesis is not a correct display of events

Allegory...

Bible was never meant to be a textbook on geology or biology anyway.

Originally Posted by Waarnemer

that directly undermines Christianity

It does not undermine Christianity, but some fundamentalist sects only.

Originally Posted by Waarnemer

the need of Jesus crucifixion and the idea of original sin.

The original sin is something people knew of since times immemorial. There is something wrong with the world...and there being some primordial cause to it is a well known theme of many myths and legends.

As for Jesus' crucifixion, it is something that fits in perfectly with what we know how the world functions in general. You need first ti humiliate yourself, in order to later elevate yourself. Nothing of worth is ever achieved, no worthwhile achievement, by presumption and arrogance. All the most brilliant scientists in history, who discovered great things, were humble and modest people. You need to sit a lot in order to learn something, you need to train, in order to achieve results in sports etc. Most things that are of value, are achieved by a kind of self-sacrifice. Jesus' (God's) self-sacrifice fits with this analogy perfectly.

Originally Posted by Waarnemer

But you are right, moral conclusions are not to be drawn from empirical data, sure.

They obviously can't, otherwise there would be no ethics. Of course, I don't say that only Christianity brings ethics. You can find ethical teachings, or seeds thereof, in Confucians', Buddhists' scriptures. But they did not come to those conclusions through empirical observations either. It came from their heart, so to say.

Originally Posted by Waarnemer

Still it limits speculations on the purpose of life and it narrows down the first cause

Well, I think not. It seems to me that it is rather the strictly materialistic view that narrows down speculations on the purpose of life and eliminates even the question of the first cause. As if it had a commandment: "Thou shalt not ask after the first cause!" While the assessment of an intelligent creator arouses speculations about his nature and on how to approach him...

I was brought up in materialistic atheism, but I rejected it because it seemed illogical to me and as a mental prison.

If the world were only material, there would be no poetry, no aesthetics, no nothing, we would be robots and slaves to our instincts. No free will...

Originally Posted by Waarnemer

and even more it delivers an idea of the mentality of the possible creator in that the Human spieces at this point is about 130 000 years old, and it seems heaven waited and watched 128 000 years of a harsh and meaningless waste of human lives until it decided to interfere with ideas of sin, hell and immaterial human liberation.

Religious conceptions similar to Christianity existed since times immemorial. For me it is one yet proof in favour of God and immaterial reality. Some bigotted versions of Christianity claim that all people who did not hear the Christian message, go to hell automatically. The explanation is that man's nature got so corrupted with the fall (original sin), as to make him practically uncapable of any good deeds. We are so evil, evil and irredemiably evil that we all automatically deserve hell, only through blind faith and not through any good works can we attain salvation. Some protestant sects, but even some branches of Catholicism (Jansenism), make this claim. Well, it seems very illogical to me and, if that were the essence of Christianity, then I wouldn't be Christian (because such an approach is illogical and leads nowhere). Another extreme, saying that there is no original sin (Pelagianism) is also unacceptable (the everyday evidence defies it).

The question of why Jesus was born only 2000 years pertains to the mysteries of the world. We cannot know the whole truth and understand everything, being in the state of fall and captured in the material world and dependent on it (yet having the ability of knowing something about the immaterial world, unlike animals). Our capability for knowledge is limited, but it does not mean that we should not pursue (sceintific) knowledge. On the contrary...

Originally Posted by Waarnemer

Religion was a manner of explaining and justifying events in the material world which still is the only reality we know of.

And what about the first cause? you observe something, yet you can't observe the ultimate cause and/or purpose thereof.

And it seems to me that since the development of the quantum physics the old-fashioned materialism became out-dated. They say that matter is energy. And what it energy? Not something very observable...

Originally Posted by Waarnemer

Speculations on immaterial realities and entities hold no grounds

The whole life is composed of speculations. You need speculation on immaterial concepts even in order to posit a scientific hypothesis (or theory), after you have collected observable data.

Originally Posted by Waarnemer

they don't mean anything since they don't exist

How can you be sure they don't exist? You can only be sure that you don't see them, nor hear, nor smell them, but that they don't exist, you can't be sure.

Originally Posted by Waarnemer

to exist is to be observed, that is the only real standard in a logic world.

However, to posit that the world moves by itself, through accident, is not very logical. For example, mental concepts cannot be observed, but they still exist.

What about infinity? There is an infinity of particles of the material world, whenever you discover some small one, you can always discover a smaller etc. It is something impossible to solve seen only from the materialistic point of view.

There are two types of cognition: one is strictly empirical-rationalistic. It collects observable data and draws some conclusion on how the world externally works. By the way of this cognition you cannot reach any ultimate truths. You can only come to the conclusion: "We (I) don't know." (the agnostics)

Another is more profound and it works through intuition and analogies. You need this kind of pre-conceived knowledge even to start any scientific inquiry. Some general principles that you simply "know" that they are such. It is through such intuitive-analogical cognition that you come to the knowledge of immaterial things and ultimately God.

Originally Posted by Waarnemer

It concerns us, Islam is a religion on the rise on our grounds and this event provides us a good idea of religious censorship in even secular models.

If it can be used as an argument against immigration, then it is OK. But I don't see any point in interfering into how they sort out these things in their own lands. It leads to moral imperialism and to negecting the more important themes (such as ethnic preservation here).