Excellent post, JonothanH.
FAITH, the biggest excuse for IGNORANCE.
by nicolaou 111 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
-
-
Mad Sweeney
Scully, the video you posted on page one is PRICELESS!
-
Mad Sweeney
I do not think it is right to show any direspect to people who "believe", there is nothing wrong with believing in the concept of God, after all, it is a concept that is provable, admittedly we will have to wait until after we die to prove the truth of God's existence or not, but it is a concept that is potentially provable.
Just as the concept of life elsewhere in the Universe is potentialy provable.
The problem with this analogy is that thinking people do not "believe in" life elsewhere in the Universe any more than they "believe in" God. They merely trust the established* science and mathematics that show such a thing is likely. This is not belief.
Where are the mathematics that show a theistic God is likely? Where is ANY evidence? What religious people do is define their god in such a way that absolves them from needing evidence at all; it is an intellectual cop-out that doesn't deserve respect.
For what it is worth, wobble, I agree with your overall point that a god that truly exists should be provable and that there isn't a religion that presents him perfectly accurately (otherwise it would have been proven by now). My guess is our 'experimental theologians' keep looking in the wrong direction, outward, when they should be looking inward. Perhaps there's something there.
(*established via testing of falsifiable theories and other scientific and mathematical methods that build a level of relative confidence, not belief)
-
PSacramento
Where are the mathematics that show a theistic God is likely? Where is ANY evidence? What religious people do is define their god in such a way that absolves them from needing evidence at all; it is an intellectual cop-out that doesn't deserve respect.
Here you go:
http://www.reasonablefaith.org
Please feel free to register ( the first site) and search the scholarry essays and articles to your hearts content !
LOL ! -
tec
Just to be clear, I wasn't offended earlier in this thread. I just thought I would point out what I see as hypocrisy in telling others why they believe (excuse to ignorant/intellectually lazy)... when some of those people also argue against some believers telling them why they DON'T believe (excuse to be immoral/arrogant).
Peace,
Tammy
-
Mad Sweeney
Thanks for the links, PSac. I was hoping for something actually in a peer reviewed scientific journal but I'll certainly browse through those sites a bit.
Not sure why you felt the need to "LOL" there. You've been kind of smarmy lately, bro.
-
JonathanH
I've been to biologos plenty of times. It doesn't offer evidence of god, rather it's main goal seems to be to try and argue that god isn't superflous by marrying liberal christianity to areas of science where there might still be room for god. It's what's known as "accommadationist" science. It's merely an attempt to show that god is not disproven by science (and I've already talked about disproving things), but offers little in the way of actually offering evidence FOR god(s).
When it does it rests on the same tired arguments of ID (or theistic evolution as they call it there) and fine tuning that have been put in their place time after time. Biologos has clout in the liberal religious community, but it seems to be largely based on it looking more scientific than your average baptist flyer claiming the earth is 6000 years old. But it's arguments are only marginally better than what you find in the "Life how did it get here: By evolution or creation" book published by our dear friends, the Watchtower. They attempt to give themselves credibility by sidestepping some of the stupider objections (such as thermodynamics disproving evolution), but still simply rely on god of the gaps while saying "be careful to avoid the god of the gaps argument."
It engages more in philosophy to try and marry religious ideas (specifically liberal christian ones) with science, but does little to nothing to actually offer up evidence for it's claims, merely alluding to possibilities. It's hardly something that offers rational evidence to the notion that deities exist.
-
PSacramento
Thanks for the links, PSac. I was hoping for something actually in a peer reviewed scientific journal but I'll certainly browse through those sites a bit.
Not gonna find scientificaly peer reviewed articles in regards to essays or research into the historicity of Jesus, but if you do, please let me know because I would love to read them also.
Not sure why you felt the need to "LOL" there. You've been kind of smarmy lately, bro.
Sorry, I didn't mean for it to come off rude, it's just that particular site has SO MANY articles and they are so "OVERLY' Scholarly that, well, anyone that has read William Lane Craig or seen him debate would "LOL" at the "lack of evidence" comment.
Again, sorry if it come off in the wrong way, it wasn't my intent but that it came acorss that way and that you feel I have been so as of late...well I think I should take that to heart.
It may well be that debating things with the likes of Mat on that "Jehovah thread" is getting the better of me...
Sorry.
-
PSacramento
It engages more in philosophy to try and marry religious ideas (specifically liberal christian ones) with science, but does little to nothing to actually offer up evidence for it's claims, merely alluding to possibilities. It's hardly something that offers rational evidence to the notion that deities exist.
You do realize that the "evidence: you seek for God is philosophical and not scientific, right?
Scientifc evidence is based on our perception of the natural world as we know it, God is NOT part of that "natural" world (not in the way most see it) nor is God "slave" to our perception.
-
JonathanH
oh lord, I didn't visit the first one on reasonable faith, but then I clicked on it and realized it's william lane craig's website. That guy is bat**** crazy. Just because he knows how to form a syllogism doesn't make him reasonable. This is the guy that said killing babies is a good thing because they get to go to heaven instead of living on earth, and that the worst part of the old testament genocides is that it must have really been hard for the israelites to slaughter so many innocent people. It must have really hurt them. He's not logical, he's barely sane, and definitely not reasonable. He, like biologos, has managed to make a name for himself by looking smarter than the people picketing dead soldiers funerals with anti-gay slogans. By comparison to kirk cameron, he's a genius, but he's still not reasonable, and he definitely doesn't proffer evidence of god. At best he offers old syllogisms that from the standpoint of formal sentential logic hold up, but have no basis in reality.