Jonathan Drake

Joined 10 years ago

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Posts by Jonathan Drake

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  182

  The Case for Theism

  by FusionTheism in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  10 years ago

  "theism" here means "belief in a god" or "the worldview that an intelligent designer created the universe and life.

  " ("god" here means a being with a mind who initiated and/or wound-up the universe, and designed life on earth)the most common claim that i see atheists making on twitter, is that "no evidence" exists in support of belief in a god.this post will remove any excuse atheists have for claiming "no evidence exists" in support of an initiator.

  atheists can still reject this evidence as "weak," but they cannot truthfully say it does not exist.now, it is true that we do not have "observable, repeatable, falsifiable, empirical, scientific" evidence conclusively proving that an initiator exists, but we do have many lines of philisophical, experiential, and logical evidence.and... here... we... go:1:) many leading scientists, including stephen hawking, say that the space-time-matter universe had a beginning at the singularity/big bang.

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  10 years ago
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  Jonathan Drake 10 years ago

  "All the evidence seems to indicate, that the universe has not existed forever, but that it had a beginning, about 15 billion years ago. This is probably the most remarkable discovery of modern cosmology."

  "Another attempt to avoid a beginning to time, was the suggestion, that maybe all the galaxies didn't meet up at a single point in the past. [...] However, their claim was proved wrong, by a number of theorems by Roger Penrose and myself."

  "If one can determine that there is enough matter in the universe, to focus our past light cone, one can then apply the singularity theorems, to show that time must have a beginning. [...]"

  "One can then apply the theorem of Penrose and myself, to show that time must have a beginning."

  If I'm not mistaken, I believe you have just created a straw man out of Steven hawkings lecture "the beginning of time". It seems to me you are trying to make the beginning of time have something to do with God, and it absolutely doesn't.

  
  Did you copy and paste from this lecture?

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  182

  The Case for Theism

  by FusionTheism in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  10 years ago

  "theism" here means "belief in a god" or "the worldview that an intelligent designer created the universe and life.

  " ("god" here means a being with a mind who initiated and/or wound-up the universe, and designed life on earth)the most common claim that i see atheists making on twitter, is that "no evidence" exists in support of belief in a god.this post will remove any excuse atheists have for claiming "no evidence exists" in support of an initiator.

  atheists can still reject this evidence as "weak," but they cannot truthfully say it does not exist.now, it is true that we do not have "observable, repeatable, falsifiable, empirical, scientific" evidence conclusively proving that an initiator exists, but we do have many lines of philisophical, experiential, and logical evidence.and... here... we... go:1:) many leading scientists, including stephen hawking, say that the space-time-matter universe had a beginning at the singularity/big bang.

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  10 years ago
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  Jonathan Drake 10 years ago

  "Theism" here means "belief in a god" or "the worldview that an intelligent designer created the universe and life." ("God" here means a being with a mind who initiated and/or wound-up the universe, and designed life on earth)
  

  You can't just change the definition of theism to fit your own ends.

  theism isn't merely the belief in a god, it's the belief in a God that interacts and takes an interest in our world. conversely, deism is the belief in a God that does not take an interest or interact.

  As to your assertions about the accuracy of prophecy regarding Jesus, you are not providing any of the following:

  1. Proof Jesus ever having lived to begin with.

  2. Explanation for why the gospel accounts contradict one another.

  3. Explanation of why no historians of the time reported any of the crucifixion miracles (earthquake, darkening of sky, resurrection of saints upon Jesus death - seriously no one else but a bible writer can confirm this?)

  4. Explanation of why the writers of the gospels took so long to write down their contradicting stories about a man who probably never lived after it all supposedly happened.

  What's more, you're falling into the rut of using the bible to prove itself by using scripture from Daniel. This proves nothing but the probability that the reason the bible writers took so long to write the gospels is because they had to tailor them to fit. <--- something many agree is more and more likely as time goes on.

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  34

  There is no right and wrong

  by campaign of hate in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  10 years ago

  so i am a little tangled up in this train of thought, as it can go quite deep.. as a jw, albeit fully awake, we are taught that there is right and a wrong.

  smoking is wrong.

  going on the ministry is right.

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  10 years ago
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  Jonathan Drake 10 years ago

  In any event, regardless of how politics and morality interchange (a subject id love to read more about), my earlier posts stand to demonstrate that if religion affects morality it's only to poison it. What little good religion has done for morality may easily be attributed to our altruistic tendencies. But I see no reason to do this, let religion have what little good it's done because whatever positive morality may have come of religion you can garuntee it is drowning in an ocean of injustice and atrocity from the same source.

  original point and back on topic: morality is an evolutionary development that does not rely at all on religion.

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  34

  There is no right and wrong

  by campaign of hate in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  10 years ago

  so i am a little tangled up in this train of thought, as it can go quite deep.. as a jw, albeit fully awake, we are taught that there is right and a wrong.

  smoking is wrong.

  going on the ministry is right.

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  2. 
  3. 

  10 years ago
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  Jonathan Drake 10 years ago

  I believe Lincoln's letter speaks for itself. He was politically for the Union at all cost but personally against slavery. His personal belief did not change his political aim or belief.
  

  But a political aim of his politcal party was to abolish slavery. 😂

  and they wanted to abolish it because of their belief it was wrong. 😂

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  34

  There is no right and wrong

  by campaign of hate in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  10 years ago

  so i am a little tangled up in this train of thought, as it can go quite deep.. as a jw, albeit fully awake, we are taught that there is right and a wrong.

  smoking is wrong.

  going on the ministry is right.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 

  10 years ago
• 

  Jonathan Drake 10 years ago

  Also I'm not trying to say that wars have NO political aspects to them. But morality is absolutely involved, especially now and admittedly less so in the past - tho it was at times. I would never say politics was absolutely not involved in world war 2 or civil war, but morality definitely was. That is my only point.

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  34

  There is no right and wrong

  by campaign of hate in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  10 years ago

  so i am a little tangled up in this train of thought, as it can go quite deep.. as a jw, albeit fully awake, we are taught that there is right and a wrong.

  smoking is wrong.

  going on the ministry is right.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 

  10 years ago
• 

  Jonathan Drake 10 years ago

  Abolitionist Movement summary: The Abolitionist movement in the United States of America was an effort to end slavery in a nation that valued personal freedom and believed "all men are created equal." Over time, abolitionists grew more strident in their demands, and slave owners entrenched in response, fueling regional divisiveness that ultimately led to the American Civil War.
  

  Strictly moral concern.

  A bit of light research yields the information that Lincoln was a member of the National Union Party - a anti slavery Republican Party who's ideology was influenced by, wait for it - Abolitionism.

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  34

  There is no right and wrong

  by campaign of hate in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  10 years ago

  so i am a little tangled up in this train of thought, as it can go quite deep.. as a jw, albeit fully awake, we are taught that there is right and a wrong.

  smoking is wrong.

  going on the ministry is right.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 

  10 years ago
• 

  Jonathan Drake 10 years ago

  Though he personally believed in freedom he nonetheless would have set none of the slaves free if it meant the Union would be preserved.
  

  This is absurd. Abolishing slavery did not need to happen in order to preserve the union and it had no effect at all on the outcome of the war. There was no reason to do it aside from believing it was the right thing to do - a strictly moral concern.

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  34

  There is no right and wrong

  by campaign of hate in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  10 years ago

  so i am a little tangled up in this train of thought, as it can go quite deep.. as a jw, albeit fully awake, we are taught that there is right and a wrong.

  smoking is wrong.

  going on the ministry is right.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 

  10 years ago
• 

  Jonathan Drake 10 years ago

  Also, and I had to look this up before posting.

  America was involved before they knew about the holocaust anyway. But again, morality should be in part measured by the reaction. And it was because of the atrocities of World War II that this happened:

  The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 10 December 1948, was the result of the experience of the Second World War. With the end of that war, and the creation of the United Nations, the international community vowed never again to allow atrocities like those of that conflict happen again.

  
  

  Source
  
  

  Clearly, morality was at the forefront of all of this. It was not merely a political concern.

  Once the world saw what had happened, and the news was out and verified, THIS is how they responded - with a strictly morality concerned declaration.

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  34

  There is no right and wrong

  by campaign of hate in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  10 years ago

  so i am a little tangled up in this train of thought, as it can go quite deep.. as a jw, albeit fully awake, we are taught that there is right and a wrong.

  smoking is wrong.

  going on the ministry is right.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 

  10 years ago
• 

  Jonathan Drake 10 years ago

  This is a nice idea but it does not support the reality that the powers which primarily fought off the Nazis did not jump into the war at first blush when other weaker nations were falling. They jumped in when it became necessary to jump in.

  Britain and the U.S. did a "good" thing in fighting off the Nazis but they did not do it for "moral" reasons. We knew about the persecution of the Jews but refused to accept Jewish refugees. This is not a condemnation on my part but the recognition that governments' first priority is to do what they believe will be of benefit to themselves as well as what they believe their citizens will tolerate or not tolerate.

  You're absoluty correct. And again, religion was the reason for the view of Jews in the Christian portions of the world at the time. The affect of the church brewed hatred was so old and well spread into society that even the JW religion felt the need to issue a letter declaring they didn't except money from the Jews.

  When you combine this fact with the mistakes that the American media made during World War I concerning the report of German atrocities you get a fact based picture of why America was slow to get involved and it has nothing to do with them not thinking it necessary and everything to do with their ignorance of what was going on and their not wanting to repeat mistakes made in the first War.

  The extermination of European Jewry began when the German army invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941. The Nazis attempted to keep the Holocaust a secret, but in August 1942, Dr. Gerhart Riegner, the representative of the World Jewish Congress in Geneva, Switzerland, learned what was going on from a German source. Riegner asked American diplomats in Switzerland to inform Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, one of America’s most prominent Jewish leaders, of the mass murder plan. But the State Department, characteristically insensitive and influenced by anti-Semitism, decided not to inform Wise.

  The rabbi nevertheless learned of Riegner’s terrible message from Jewish leaders in Great Britain. He immediately approached Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles, who asked Wise to keep the information confidential until the government had time to verify it. Wise agreed and it was not until November 1942 that Welles authorized the release of Riegner’s message.

  Wise held a press conference on the evening of November 24, 1942. The next day’s New York Times reported his news on its tenth page. Throughout the rest of the war, the Times and most other newspapers failed to give prominent and extensive coverage to the Holocaust. During World War I, the American press had published reports of German atrocities that subsequently turned out to be false. As a result, journalists during World War IItended to approach atrocity reports with caution.

  
  Source

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  34

  There is no right and wrong

  by campaign of hate in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  10 years ago

  so i am a little tangled up in this train of thought, as it can go quite deep.. as a jw, albeit fully awake, we are taught that there is right and a wrong.

  smoking is wrong.

  going on the ministry is right.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 

  10 years ago
• 

  Jonathan Drake 10 years ago

  @HMTM

  You are confusing the political parts of lincolns letter with his own wishes. I suggest you re read it. He specifically states that it is his "oft expressed wish" that all men everywhere be free. The part that was politics is all the bits before that where he talked about the union and preservation of it. But his last point, the conclusion he chose to wrap it all up, was his personal expressed wishes that all men be free.

  Further, the Emancipation Proclamation destroys your notion that it was merely political,

  And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.

  And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.

  And I further declare and make known, that such persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.

  And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God.

  I am more than willing to admit that religion has had some positive moral effects on society (though far less than bad). But in order for you to really make people believe that freeing the slaves was not a moral concern, you would have to (and apparently have) ignore Lincolns own words in the very letter you reference, as well as his claims of justice in the Proclamation and his deference to God, as well as convince them that these clear religious declarations are not moral in nature but instead political."Judgement of mankind"? Those are his words, do you think he believed their politics were being judged or their morals? Which is God more concerned with?

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