The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday (page 14)

wearewatchingyouman

Professor Schroeder is really a Deist then

He's an Orthodox Jew.

His writings and video series were a large influence in me transforming from an Agnostic Atheist to an Agnostic Theist/Deist (I'm currently agnostic on the theism vs deism debate).

yadda yadda 2

Interesting. I thought I spotted a little Kippah on his head.

Orthodox Jews hold to the historicity of the Pentateuch, in which God commits or sanctions acts which if committed by any human would be regarded as morally abhorrent. As for their theodicies, they ultimately belief God's reasons for permitting underserved suffering is a 'mystery'. In other words, they have no convincing theodicy, you must just have faith. From Beliefnet.com on Orthdox Jews:

Undeserved Suffering
Sometimes it is believed that suffering is caused by a weakness in one’s devotion to God. Generally, it is believed that God gave humans free will to feel pleasure and pain, and His purpose in allowing deep suffering of the innocent must be good even if mysterious. God suffers along with the sufferer. Some Jews (e.g. the Hasidim) believe that suffering is punishment for past-life sins. Knowing why God allows suffering is not as important as knowing that God will punish the perpetrators.

KateWild

J. Hofer,

I nearly missed your post in all the 7 pages. First off I was baiting cofty, but you took the bait, good enough for me. cofty knows I am a wind up merchant. Second I don't call athiests anything. You are an individual, J, I haven't called you anything personally. Cofty worships Dawkins, he persuaded me to read him.

I did, and now all that I have read I can and will use against him on a thread. Dawkins is IMO a fundie, and he is arrogant the way he speaks of arming people, his followers, with his books. Its all to preachy for me I am afraid.

As for calling atheism a belief system, yes I do it as a friendly wind up, but also IMO for some atheists is actually is. My mother has no belief system whatsoever and that is what catogorises her as an atheist. She never discusses God or the Bible and is not inteterested what I say about atheism. She simply believes if there was a God her and her family and millions of others would not have suffered during the Holocaust.

J. Hofer,

Thanks for taking the bait, cofty is bored of me pulling his leg now. I get very bored and enjoy a good intellectual exchange. I also want lurkers to see both sides, so to conclude IMO many not all atheists have a belief system, and Dawkins is a fundie.

Kate xx

KateWild

Other than that I would say it is pretty mild on the god bashing.-zound

I agree, that Dawkins is not all about God bashing, some parts I read I found very interesting, but he didn't get to the point quick enough and there was no substance to his science. Biology is science for bods who are rubbish at maths. I would have liked to have seen some stats on the fox experiment.

So although the God bashing was minimal, so was the scientific stats, he is not for me, the minimal God bashing was enough for me to draw my opinion of him. But thanks for accepting there is a level od God bashing about him, you show humility in your post, thanks for your view, I respect you for being so honest.

Kate xx

FlyingHighNow

There are papers and lectures that notice the same things, Kate. I'll have to ask my friend Michael who is a clinical psychologist in practice and teaches classes at the college level, psychology and abnormal psychology. One night, after a class we attended, I told him how many atheists behave so much like evangelists and fundamentalists. He had just seen a lecture on the same subject or maybe read the transcript. I'll have to ask him about it and share the link to any info about it with you. Most atheists I know do not behave that way. Most of them just live their lives and atheism doesn't come up unless the occasion calls for it. It is really odd though, when it happens.

cantleave

I would have liked to have seen some stats on the fox experiment.

A popular science book is not the place for reams of stats. Dawkins references all his work, if you are really interested you would obtain the original research papers and read them - wouldn't you?

KateWild

if you are really interested you would obtain the original research papers and read them - wouldn't you?-cantleave

YES!.

But my main interest is to get to know you guys not research stats, if Dawkins would have provided them I would have read it with intetrest, he didn't so I put the book down and chatted on the internet, eh?? such is life. We are friends now Angus, wouldn't life be boring if all your friends agreed with you?

You remember you could have spat your tea out with laughter at some of my posts, so having a laugh is more interesting to me right now than stats

Sam xx

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

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