by BurnTheShips 62 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
We barely understand the substance that we are made of ie atoms which are themselves made up of protons, neutrons and electrons which are themselves made up of quarks. The mathematics involved in trying to understand them are so complicated that only a handful of mathematicians can deal with them.
Hence my new avatar.
Burn
Burn,
The recent outburst of atheistic scientism is an ominous sign. If unchecked, this arrogance......
What arrogance?
HS
What arrogance?
From the OP:
...... to demonstrate that it is irrational to believe in God. The titles of some of these books are revealing: The End of Faith by Sam Harris, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon by Daniel Dennett, The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, and God: The Failed Hypothesis by Victor J. Stenger. The new atheists are writing with the enthusiasm of evangelists propagating the gospel of atheism and irreligion.................................................The proofs for the existence of God, he believes, are all invalid, since among other defects they leave unanswered the question “Who made God?” “Faith,” he writes, “is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. . . . Faith, being belief that isn’t based on evidence, is the principal vice in any religion.” Carried away by his own ideology, he speaks of “the fatuousness of the religiously indoctrinated mind.” He makes the boast that, in the quest to explain the nature of human life and of the universe in which we find ourselves, religion “is now completely superseded by science.”
That arrogance
Burn
I'll just respond to a few things in the first post, there's quite a lot there.
The evolution of human beings, of which science seeks to determine the stages and discern the mechanism, presents an internal finality which arouses admiration. This finality, which directs beings in a direction for which they are not responsible, obliges one to suppose a Mind which is its inventor, its creator." In this connection, the pope said that to ascribe human evolution to sheer chance would be an abdication of human intelligence.
Two misconceptions about evolution here. Evolution is blind, not directed. It is also not chance, and nobody said it was.
It insisted that faith is and must be in harmony with reason.
I really don't see any reason to believe in a god. It always comes down to faith.
Far from being able to replace religion, it cannot begin to tell us what brought the world into existence, nor why the world exists, nor what our ultimate destiny is, nor how we should act in order to be the kind of persons we ought to be.
We do know how our planet came to exist. As for destiny, how to act, science doesn't claim to have these answers, and just because religion has come up with a few, it doesn't make them true.
An important school of scientists supports a theory known as Intelligent Design
Creationism in disguise. The end.
Atheistic scientists often write as though the only valid manner of reasoning is that current in modern science: to make precise observations and measurements of phenomena, to frame hypotheses to account for the evidence, and to confirm or disconfirm the hypotheses by experiments. I find it hard to imagine anyone coming to belief in God by this route.
I couldn't agree more.
As Terry Eagleton wrote in his review of Dawkins’ The God Delusion: "Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge is The Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology. . .
And how much knowledge do we need to have of the inner workings, relationships, habitats and powers of different kinds of faries before we dismiss them?
Some evolutionists contend that morality and religion arise, evolve, and persist according to Darwinian principles. Religion, they say, has survival value for individuals and communities.
As seen by religion accepting evolution. If it doesn't, I can see it dying out.
It's the fall of man and therefore Jesus' sacrifice that I can't join up with evolution. I've spoken about it before, it just leaves too many questions. The whole point of evolution is that it doesn't 'design' so there is no need for a 'designer' to guide evolution either.
It was also mentioned that we have a desire to find God, but all I can say is 'speak for yourself'. Many people don't.
I get the feeling there are perfectly rational things one could ask about the designer even theists may reject. Complex things often need many designers, so does that mean there are many gods working behind the scenes? Makes sense if we're designed, or if the almighty force of evolution is somehow being controlled. You can't have a building without many many builders.
Seek the truth, not your comfort.
How do Theistic Evolutionists reconcile the God of the Bible with evolution? If the creation was good and mankind was made in the image of God, God must have thought that sickness, destruction, and death reflect his image. It seems that in this view, God is figuring out the blueprints of the universe left by Chance so he can steer evolution along. After all, if mankind didn't actually fall, God is doing the best he can. Maybe we should be praying for God to better understand the laws of the universe and how to raise us from the dead so we can have eternal life with everyone being in agreement with one another.
Two misconceptions about evolution here. Evolution is blind, not directed.
He ascribed the direction to the internal finality of the theory. Not to the process.
It is also not chance, and nobody said it was.
The Cardinal agrees with you:
to ascribe human evolution to sheer chance would be an abdication of human intelligence.
I really don't see any reason to believe in a god. It always comes down to faith.
Want a cookie?
And how much knowledge do we need to have of the inner workings, relationships, habitats and powers of different kinds of faries before we dismiss them?
Whats that got to do with God?
The whole point of evolution is that it doesn't 'design' so there is no need for a 'designer' to guide evolution either.
I don't know how "guided" the biological process was. At the beginning of time everything was set into motion. How much intervention came after, I don't know. However, I do know we are children of God.
Burn
He ascribed the direction to the internal finality
Okay. There is no 'finality'. Evolution is ongoing. You and I are not the final stage of human evolution. Maybe this 'finality' means something else, it's not too clear.
The Cardinal agrees with you
I know, so why did he mention chance at all? Is it to make it seem as if there was a mind behind it?
Want a cookie?
Well the piece is talking about faith and reason being hand in hand, and I don't see it.
Whats that got to do with God?
We are talking about things with no evidence here. Faries, gods, same thing. Did you do a detailed study into the 3000 gods available before deciding they were false and yours was right, or did you use common sense and say 'There's no reason to believe in them, so I won't'?
I don't know how "guided" the biological process was.
It's 'guided' by nature. Like a hurricane is 'guided' by natural external factors.
At the beginning of time everything was set into motion. How much intervention came after, I don't know. However, I do know we are children of God.
Well there wasn't any need for a god to involve himself with evolution. It's all perfectly explainable without one. Millions of people know Krishna is real. Millions know Allah is real. Millions have it wrong just as a matter of contradiction and cancellation.
I have "jumbled" the quotes a little, to collect the similar statements into one quote box:
Cardinal Schönborn shrewdly observes that positivistic scientists begin by methodically excluding formal and final causes. Having then described natural processes in terms of merely efficient and material causality, they turn around and reject every other kind of explanation. They simply disallow the questions about why anything (including human life) exists, how we differ in nature from irrational animals, and how we ought to conduct our lives.
Some contemporary scientific atheists are so caught up in the methodology of their discipline that they imagine it must be the only method for solving every problem. But other methods are needed for grappling with questions of another order. Science and technology (science’s offspring) are totally inadequate in the field of morality.
Science can cast a brilliant light on the processes of nature and can vastly increase human power over the environment. Rightly used, it can notably improve the conditions of life here on earth. Future scientific discoveries about evolution will presumably enrich religion and theology, since God reveals himself through the book of nature as well as through redemptive history. Science, however, performs a disservice when it claims to be the only valid form of knowledge, displacing the aesthetic, the interpersonal, the philosophical, and the religious.
But theistic evolutionism rejects the atheistic conclusions of Dawkins and his cohorts. The physical sciences, it maintains, are not the sole acceptable source of truth and certitude. Science has a real though limited competence. It can tell us a great deal about the processes that can be observed or controlled by the senses and by instruments, but it has no way of answering deeper questions involving reality as a whole. Far from being able to replace religion, it cannot begin to tell us what brought the world into existence, nor why the world exists, nor what our ultimate destiny is, nor how we should act in order to be the kind of persons we ought to be.
In tune with this school of thought, the English mathematical physicist John Polkinghorne holds that Darwinism is incapable of explaining why multicellular plants and animals arise when single cellular organisms seem to cope with the environment quite successfully. There must be in the universe a thrust toward higher and more-complex forms. The Georgetown professor John F. Haught, in a recent defense of the same point of view, notes that natural science achieves exact results by restricting itself to measurable phenomena, ignoring deeper questions about meaning and purpose. By its method, it filters out subjectivity, feeling, and striving, all of which are essential to a full theory of cognition. Materialistic Darwinism is incapable of explaining why the universe gives rise to subjectivity, feeling, and striving.
Basically: "Science is great for explaining the hows - but it can not be used to explain the whys." is the red thread here.
But does science even try to explain the whys? The deeper questions of "Why are we here?", "Why is there evil in the world?", "What's the meaning of life?" ? Is the fact that science doesn't touch on those subjects a fault with science?
This argument would be similar to the following:
"The science of astronomy is great for explaining the how's of the universe; how it came to be and how the stars and planets move the way they do and were formed. But it is insufficient when it comes to explaining why the stars are there; what their deeper purpose is to us. To get the answers to that, we have to turn to astrology".
But does astronomy try to explain why the universe is there? The purpose of the stars and planets? And is astrology, with it's supernatural explanations of mystical 'forces' intervening in our lives really an alternative that gives us those answers? Does astronomy need such an alternative? Again; does it try to explain any deeper, philosophical questions? Does the fact that astronomy doesn't address the questions of why the stars are there, make it faulty? No, astronomy simply observes the natural universe, and attempts to explain what we can see, measure and calculate in it. That's it.
Similarly then; how is theology or spirituality an alternative to science here? An alternative that science needs because it is insufficient?
If theology and religion had been a 'second system' of explaining certain commonly observed and perceived phenomena that could be pointed to: "Look here everyone, we have here a supernatural event; science can't measure or otherwise explain it using their instruments, but luckily we have theology and spirituality that can do exactly that", then we might have had something; an alternative method and system to explain something science couldn't. Simply saying "it's God and spirits" isn't really an explanation, it's just an opinion and an assertion, with no evidence.
Following Fred Hoyle, some members of this group speak of the “anthropic principle,” meaning that the universe was “fine-tuned” from the first moment of creation to allow the emergence of human life.
I'd like to touch on the 'anthropic principle' and 'fine-tuning' - - that whole concept can be turned on its head: We are here, able to contemplate, research and investigate and marvel at the intricacies of the universe and life. And if things had been slightly different, we might not have been. And if we hadn't been, no one would have been around to marvel at the details, even if they were 95% the same as what they are now. Or - we may have been here, but may have looked and behaved differently according to that different set of circumstances. That life evolved to fit the universe, not vice versa.
Notwithstanding these advantages, Darwinism has not entirely triumphed, even in the scientific field. An important school of scientists supports a theory known as Intelligent Design. Michael Behe, a professor at Lehigh University, contends that certain organs of living beings are “irreducibly complex.” Their formation could not take place by small random mutations, because something that had only some but not all the features of the new organ would have no reason for existence and no advantage for survival. It would make no sense, for example, for the pupil of the eye to evolve if there were no retina to accompany it, and it would be nonsensical for there to be a retina with no pupil. As a showcase example of a complex organ all of whose parts are interdependent, Behe proposes the bacterial flagellum, a marvelous swimming device used by some bacteria.
This has already been debunked, point by point. All the various 'irreducibly complex' things Behe could come up with, was shown to indeed be able to be reduced and still function (with a different function than before, or in a different way, or in a different species). Interestingly, since I mentioned astrology above, Behe had to admit - in court - that if we were to open up school science classes to teaching Intelligent Design, we would also have to broaden the scope of science to include astrology (because the supernatural would have to be included).
At this point we get into a technical dispute among microbiologists that I will not attempt to adjudicate. In favor of Behe and his school, we may say that the possibility of sudden major changes effected by a higher intelligence should not be antecedently ruled out. But we may take it as a sound principle that God does not intervene in the created order without necessity. If the production of organs such as the bacterial flagellum can be explained by the gradual accumulation of minor random variations, the Darwinist explanation should be preferred.
And it can, and it has, and we should.
As a matter of policy, it is imprudent to build one’s case for faith on what science has not yet explained, because tomorrow it may be able to explain what it cannot explain today. History teaches us that the “God of the gaps” often proves to be an illusion.
Yes! Thank you.
Religion/spirituality is very important to people, it gives them comfort, it gives them a feeling of purpose and meaning. Science may seem cold in comparison, but then there really is no comparison. Natural science is not the tool you use for the job, just like you don't say the saw is faulty because it performs lousy as a hammer.
It seems religious people believe that evolution theory tries to move in on 'their turf', and that they need to defend their beliefs against it, and as 'ammo' they say "Well, evolution can't explain why we are here, how we should behave, what the meaning of life is, etc." Well, no - it doesn't, and it doesn't try to.
In a strictly atheistic, naturalistic view, there is no deeper meaning than what you may find in this life. And morals are guidelines we have to come up with ourselves in order to live peacefully and orderly together in communities and to care for others, not solely because we are told to by an unseen force.
Natural science is not the system used to even try to come up with those answers.
Sure, science and reason has over the centuries explained natural phenomena that previously were thought to be the acts of God(s), and it continues to do so in more an more detail. Right now it's the creative process itself that's "at stake" because of evolution theory, and that is of course a huge blow to a lot of people. God is slowly and steadily running out of work he might have done. You can put him into the gaps where science lacks knowledge, but those gaps may soon be filled with more knowledge. Of course - perhaps we eventually do find God within those gaps. I wouldn't mind, actually. He's just done a good job of hiding in them so far.
Of course - you can jump out of this whole 'box'. Out of the universe, out of everything, out of anything science can possibly measure, and say that that's where God is. He's out there. OK, perhaps He is. I still fail to see how religion has done Him any favors when it comes to explaining Him. Which is after all the "job" of most religions. Not of science.
And - just because we don't get the answers we want and need through science, doesn't mean the answers are wrong. Perhaps thereis no need for a Creator, and perhaps then there is no truly deeper meaning of life, other than what we can find here in this life. If so - if that is the ultimate truth - it doesn't help that we may find it "unfair", or throw a temper tantrum at the then non-existent deity. If there really is no new Ferrari in the garage even when you were told so, denying that fact won't make it appear. If it isn't there, it simply isn't there.
(I wanted to write more, and more to the point, but it's getting really late)
Atheistic scientists often write as though the only valid manner of reasoning is that current in modern science: to make precise observations and measurements of phenomena, to frame hypotheses to account for the evidence, and to confirm or disconfirm the hypotheses by experiments. I find it hard to imagine anyone coming to belief in God by this route.
I don't understand what other manner of reasoning they could possibly use.
The Intelligent Design manner of reasoning goes something like this: A bacteria flagellum is a biological system comprised of various parts that by themselves would be non-functioning. Therefore it had to have been designed. Case closed.
If this manner of reasoning is superior to the one that the one described above, and therefore should be the manner of reasoning that becomes the norm for all of science, then I would have to ask - who decides what is irreducibly complex? Would a list of do-not-research subjects be listed somewhere, so that all scientists know that they're not supposed to conduct any experiments or hypothesize about natural causes when it comes to these specific subjects?
Give me a break!
