Oh, one thing I did forget to say, that promise he made to god as a child to get what he wanted. (the deal to never smoke), it would appear it did mean something to him because he quite proudly states that he kept that deal. He made that 'deal' as a child. But claims he wasn't indoctirnated as a child. I don't believe it.
Atheists V Creationists ... FACE OFF
by snare&racket 122 Replies latest jw friends
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Christ Alone
Creationism is not a fact-based worldview, its about starting with the conclusion and making the facts fit, or even better, finding some reason to ignore them. all appolegists end up doing that.
I haven't read the posts after bohms, but I will. I just wanted to clarify that this book is not about Creationism. Collins is a theistic evolutionist.
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frankiespeakin
Ca,
I hope you don't mind.
Theistic evolution:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theistic_evolution
Christianity
See also: Allegorical interpretations of Genesis and Framework interpretation (Genesis)Evolution contradicts a literalistic interpretation of Genesis; however, according to Roman Catholicism and most contemporary Protestant Churches, biblical literalism in the creation account is not mandatory. Christians have considered allegorical interpretations of Genesis since long before the development of Darwin's theory of evolution, or Hutton's principle of uniformitarianism. A notable example is St. Augustine (4th century), who, on theological grounds, argued that everything in the universe was created by God in the same instant, and not in six days as a plain reading of Genesis would require. [5] Modern theologians such as Meredith G. Kline and Henri Blocher have advocated what has become known as the literary framework interpretation of the days of Genesis.
[edit] Contemporary Christian denominations
All of the traditional mainline Protestant denominations support or accept theistic evolution. For example, on 12 February 2006, the 197th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth was commemorated by "Evolution Sunday" where the message that followers of Christ do not have to choose between biblical stories of creation and evolution was taught in classes and sermons at many Methodist, Lutheran, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Unitarian, Congregationalist, United Church of Christ, Baptist and community churches. [16]
Additionally, the National Council of Churches USA has issued a teaching resource to "assist people of faith who experience no conflict between science and their faith and who embrace science as one way of appreciating the beauty and complexity of God's creation." This resource cites the Episcopal Church, according to whom the stories of creation in Genesis "should not be understood as historical and scientific accounts of origins but as proclamations of basic theological truths about creation." [17]
The positions of particular denominations are discussed below.
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A Ha
I've just finished part I, which is more about the emotional journey, so I'm willing to give him a little leeway, assuming the hard scientific stuff will be tackled in the later parts.
In his defense, I'll note that he says early on that his book is aimed at believers, non-believers, and undecideds, so it's not unreasonable for him to make some emotional and faith-based arguments. But when he gets to the part that skeptics will be most interested in, he'd better come correct!
Side note: Part I is basically a tribute to C.S. Lewis. This is a bit annoying to me, because I find Lewis to be a hack.
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Christ Alone
Yes, I am very well versed in creationism, and not just from wikipedia...
When most non believers talk about creationism, they are referring to 6 day or yound earth creationism. Theistic evolution is very different in that it accepts all scientific findings, but realizes that a transcendant God completely fits in with the scientific record. Also, theistic evolutionists are not even necessarily Christians. Many are, but many others are not.
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frankiespeakin
CA,
I see no need to beleive in a god over nature it may or may not be true a 50/50 probability. A finely tuned universe like our own to the order of 1/10^120 to produce life can be managed when we concider infinities of bigger and smaller size and that ouruniverse could be a smaller infinity inside a bigger multiverse infinity makes it all possible with or without a personality in some image form we would call God.
This belief in a God with a distinct "I-ness" to it that made everything also leads us to ask further what is "It's" purpose for making all this? Which to me is a paradox. We can't read its mind unless our consciousness(awareness is part of it consciousness/awareness in a tangle of known/knower awareness and oneness is achieved. Maybe some deep samadhi, satori/or nirvanna might happen where there is a rupture in planes back to the void out of which everything comes. But can such expriences be relied upon as getting in touch with ultimate reality? Objectivity/Subjectivity get blurred somewhere in the process.
Jung said Psyche and the material world may all be the same thing known/knower. If so then we are all this thing that makes the world we live in, to which our psyches have been tuned there is no you and me there are only computing simulation of you and me.
But I reserve the right to be totally wrong on everything I say, because of the indeterminate nature of the things I speak.
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A Ha
[edit: sorry for the formatting. it keeps bolding the last part of my post.]
I tend to agree with ST's suspicion that Collins was indoctrinated more than he realizes as a child. That, or he just does a very bad job of explaining how he got from "Moral Law + Longing for Something Greater than Ourselves = Christian God with all the Baggage that Concept Carries." He doesn't explain why he rejected a deist or pantheist notion of God. Later he rejects secular, liberal interpretations of the Christian God, but gives no reason for doing so.
Unfortunately, he doesn't do much of a job explaining how a man with a scientific/empirical leaning accepts a God, and doesn't even attempt to explain how he got to the conservative Christian version. This is my biggest frustration with this section.
I have a post limit, so I'm going to combine a few thoughts (need to talk to Simon about getting my old account back):
Page 35 he starts rebutting the four main objections to the idea of God.
1) Isn't the idea of God just wish fulfillment?
He describes various numinous feelings, then asks if they, like the Moral Law, are, "an inkling of what lies beyond..." Well, he didn't establish how the Moral Law proved anything. After first asking if the numinous might also be an example, he seems to just assume it for the rest of the section.
p. 37 He explains that atheists view such longings as wishful thinking, not indications of the supernatural. He rebuts this by attacking a [crackpot] view from Freud that we creat God in the image of our fathers. I don't think anybody today accepts this notion. This is a straw man.
p. 38 He concludes by quoting Lewis (which he does 48,736 times in this section), saying the wishful-thinking inherent in everyone is proof that it was created in us. " Why would such a universal and uniquely human hunger exist, if it were not connected to some opportunity for fulfillment?"
I can't really argue with the quote, but it just seems like a baseless assertion to me. Can a theist help explain what's compelling about this argument?
2) What about all the harm done in the name of Religion?
He offers two main answers: 1) many great things have been done as well, and; 2) the Church is made up of fallen people.
pp. 41, 42. He makes the typical argument that atheist regimes are no better. My first reaction to this is, "So that's the feather in your cap: 'we might suck, but we're no worse than anybody else.'?"
More importantly, the charge is not accurate, according to historians and experts on the cultures used as examples. He says Marxist Russia and Maoist China were, "aiming to establish societies explicitly based upon atheism."
Actually, they wanted to establish totalitarian regimes, and worked to remove anything that would get in the way of that. Religion was just one of the obstacles. They did not work to set up an atheist government, just a godless one. North Korea is an example of an “atheist” state that far more closely resembles a theocracy than anything else.
3) Why would a loving God alow suffeing in the world?
This section really pissed me off.
p. 44. “Science reveals that the universe, our own planet, and life itself are engaged in an evolutionary process. The consequences of that can include the unpredictability of the weather, the slippage of a tectonic plate, or the misspelling of a cancer gene in the normal process of cell division. If at the beginning of time God chose to use these forces to create human beings, then the inevitability of these other painful consequences was also assured. Frequent miraculous interventions would be at least as chaotic in the physical realm as they would be in interfering with human acts of free will.”
So this omniscient God couldn't come up with a better way of creating us than a process that would cause us suffering and death later on? There were no othe forces available to the Creator of the Universe? Correct me if I'm wrong, but God didn't 'intend' for the rebellion in the Garden or The Fall. So he created us to be perfect, but his creation process was going to randomly kill a bunch of us for millions of years?
Maybe someone can explain the last sentence to me. Is he saying that God can't prevent earthquakes and tornadoes because that would violate our Free Will?
But this is where he really starts to lose me.
p. 46 After quoting Lewis again, he says,
"As much as we would like to avoid those experiences, without them would we not be shallow, self-centered creatures who would ultimately lose all sense of nobility or striving for the betterment of others?”
Earlier he said this nobility was innate in us, perhaps it was God speaking to us. Now the nobility is created or developed only through pain?
This is the clincher:
p. 46. He tells about how his daughter was raped, an event which traumatized her for years.
“In my case I can see, albeit dimly, that my daughter's rape was a challenge for me to try to learn the real meaning of forgiveness in a terribly wrenching circumstance. In complete honesty, I am still working on that. Perhaps this was also an opportunity for me to recognize that I could not truly protect my daughters from all pain and suffering; I had to learn to entrust them to God's loving care, knowing that this provided not an immunization from evil, but a reassurance that their suffering would not be in vain. Indeed, my daughter would say that this experience provided her with the opportunity and motivation to counsel and comfort others who have gone through the same kind of assault.”
I understand that there is sometimes a desparate need to find a silver lining to horrific events like this, but I just can't respect someone who uses this babyish reasoning. How does it ever enter your mind that God caused/allowed your daughter to go through this so you could learn forgiveness? Or perhaps you, a grown man with a grown daughter, hadn't yet quite realized that you can't completely protect her, so God caused/allowed her to be raped so you'd get this very important lesson.
God: "Hey Jesus, we've got a 45 year old man down there with a 20 year old daughter. He thinks he's able to protect her completely from any and all harm.
Jesus: "Where did he get that notion? Most of them figure that out before they ever reach adulthood. Is he slow in the head?"
God: "No, he's actually a very smart scientist, but he has been reading a lot of C.S. Lewis."
Jesus: "So, what do you want to do about it? Want to let him figure out on his own that he can't always protect her?"
God: "No, where's the fun in that?"
Jesus: "So... car accident?"
God: "No need to be cruel. Let's just rape her."
Jesus: "I'm on it."
And here's the part I love about these kinds of desperate rationalizations... he's still not sure what the message was! He's got a couple ideas, but he believes that God caused/allowed his daughter to be raped to teach him a lesson, and he's not sure he got the lesson.
I did not intend to read this book with the goal of finding every nit-picky objection I could. But at the same time, I was expecting more from a 'man of science' than the same braindead stuff you hear from other apologists.
4) How can a rational person believe in miracles?
He discusses Bayes Thorem. I think he's misusing it.
pp. 49-50. He seems to indicate that a "committed materialist" wil not recognize a miracle, no matte how unlikely the odds. But he gives examples that are actually very feasible in the real world. A 1:2407 or 1:10,000 event is not so astonishing that a materialist is just burying his head in the sand if he doesn't proclaim it an obvious miracle.
He goes to some length to credit himself personally with a healthy dose of skepticism, while being able to go where the math leads him, but he doesn't credit the naturalist with the same open-mindedness.
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A Ha
A finely tuned universe like our own to the order of 1/10^120
We cannot get this number without a denominator. We don't have one, so the odds are incalculable.
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frankiespeakin
1/10^120 Iwas refurring to was the cosmological constant:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_constant
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A Ha
This isn't the thread for it, but we simply do not know enough about the universal constants to say what their possible ranges are. Some of the constants (some say all but one of them) may be derived from other constants, or a single foundational constant, and would therefore not have any possible value other than what they have.
I searched your linked articles for a reference to 10^120, and found only one that said it is that much smaller than it was predicted to be under a certain model. That's not addressing the available range for the cosmological or any other constant