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Bzzzzzzt. You fail Science 101. For any question that you'd be tempted to answer "Cuz that's the way it is," the actual, correct answer is, "We don't know - yet - and I'm really curious to find out."This here's a boy who hasn't tried to study Aquinas.
I know what you're saying, and at the simple, teleological level you are 100% correct.
But as with everything, the beauty is in the details. You could as easily say, science is easy because the answer is always "Cuz that's the way it is."
Nonsense. That used to be the answer to why the sun rises and sets, too. And why light passes through some objects but not others. And pretty much every other scientific principle you can name.
I almost put "but we're just arguing over usage of the word "why" at the end of my last post...
Oh really?
Tell that to a 10 year old.Oh really?
But parents love their children, get angry when the kids screw up, and always welcome them with open arms.
OK, should. There are some that never get the memo. They're sperm donors/egg providers, not parents
Well, I'll defend the "because God" crowd a little because of my fascination with medieval philosophy. Even if you've stuck "because God" as the end of the infinite series, that doesn't preclude some really interesting thinking about the earlier steps. Also, we tend to associate "because God" with stupid people because since the bifurcation of science and philosophy, well, it kind of deserves it. But prior to that division, EVERY* really smart person was also sticking "because God" on the end of all his thinking. So in and of itself it doesn't render interesting thinking impossible. It's just that, since the division, choosing "because God" as an overriding claim means actively discarding conflicting knowledge.
It's a selection bias problem -- you couldn't tell anything about people from NYC in the 19th century because that's where immigrants came in. Now you can tell they're jerks because they have other choices and yet persist in being there.
(* well, not every. There have always been materialists, and the Greeks weren't having any of this purpose nonsense til Plato showed up. But you get my statistical drift.)
You are correct. The fact that the focus is on being in a pew on sunday morning each week falls far short of what is intended here and is one of those western/American concepts that isn't really what was meant in the verse you reference. The essence is that there is a lot of value in gathering together, whether it be sunday morning at a building, Saturday morning on golf course, Wednesday night for dinner, or whatever.
Yes, a lot of people through history for various reasons couldn't meet in a church building on sunday mornings, whether due to persecution, lack of money to build a building, lack of having enough other believers around to have a big sunday meeting in a building, etc. Unfortunately an all too large slice of American Christianity measures how well a person is doing in their walk by whether they attend a sunday morning meeting weekly or not. Attending a sunday morning meeting doesn't necessarily mean one is doing well or poorly in their walk or even believes in Jesus. But, again, I do think that the verse you reference makes the important point that getting together with other believers in some manner as best works for a person is valuable and important. How we each do that is first and fundamentally between each of us and God.