Comments on: Why pick on religion? Why religion matters to the non-religious

By: Morgan-LynnGriggs Lamberth[ Carneades]

Morgan-LynnGriggs Lamberth[ Carneades] — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 02:49:54 +0000

Moses did not exist as archaelogists and historians find no large presence of Hebrews in Egypt and no detritus from them and no Exodus when there ought to be hills of detritus . So, that Egyptologist errs.
Michael errs with his silly begged question of biblical contents as fundamentalists are so wont to do. Like Gleason L. Archer, he’d use far-fetched rationalizations to show no contradictions. James Barr in ” Beyond Fundamentalism” and Timothy Callahan in ‘ Secret Origins of the Bible” attest to Archer’s doing that.
Faith, the we just say so of credulity, begs the question of its subject [ Articulett on the begging]. Science, as Sydney Hook observes, is acquired knowledge, whilst faith begs the question of being knowledge.Reason moves mountains of ignorance whilst faith rests on the argument from ignorance. Google the presumption of rationalism,please.
Michael is equivocating faith in the sense of the trust that scientists and we naturalists do indeed have in science and the reliability of our senses and so forth with [blind] faith in Him, using Paul the Sophist’s definition. He use sophistry in his apologetics but not as a philosophical sophist.- Alister McGrath, Dawkins’s nemesis, claims that Dawkins makes an idiosyncratic use of faith, but other theists belie that when they urge us to just have faith. Yes, Aquinas does indeed distinquish betwixt rational foundation for belief in Him such as his ifve failed arguments and faith for such as the Trinity, but in the end it is faith that conquers,because at heart theists find ” reasons” for there evidential arguments. Nicholas and Ryan, y’all might adumbrate on this.
Mark, indeed. One of my purposes in life is to expose the scam of the ages that is religion. We have the right and – the duty to educate others about this just as theists have the right to proseletyze their superstition.
I’m a Huxleyan agnostic [ skeptic]. Then there is the soft agnosticism that finds no evidence one way or the other for Him, and the hard form of Herbert Spencer that claims no one can know the Unknowable- God. Agnosticism is epistemological whilst atheism is metaphysica,l and so one can be an agnostic theist or an agnostic atheism [ Then some take the latter as being, in effect, soft atheism.].

By: Warren

Warren — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:39:09 +0000

@Gilgamesh – your response to my comment “It’s fine for her to tell him about Christianity”
Your Response: I don’t think it is ‘fine’ for someone other than the parents to tell a young child about a world view. How is it ‘fine’ for a cleaning woman to propagandize a child about Christianity? Is it a safe assumption, by the tone of your remark, that you are a Christian? Would it be ‘OK’ to tell your young children about Islam, Atheism, Scientology, etc.?”
Gilgamesh, I was not endorsing the proselytizing of one’s child. However, if the child had questions about religious faith(s), it’s up to the parents to explain the family’s values. Giving an educated explanation about a faith, e.g. a history of Christianity, Islam, etc. is harmless, as long as the explanation is done in concordance with the parents. I agree, however, that the general trend towards deception in order to inculcate is inexcusable.
I’m actually a former Roman Catholic; basically I’ve come to terms with the fact that faith and dogma no longer makes sense to me, and hasn’t for awhile. I’m merely saying that non-believing parents have a special obligation to explain the big faiths and their beliefs, so as to insulate the children from being unwillingly indoctrinated. Once explained, the child will no longer be as vulnerable to the deceptive practices of such as this nanny. My apologies if I have repeated myself.

By: Michael

Michael — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 13:39:17 +0000

Gilgamesh,
Brevity is a good thing. Brevity, or what particular length that suggests in your mind, may not always be appropriate. Some topics require more than soundbites. No good topic is advanced by petty quips.
I’ll be content if you at least read and considered what was discussed in the ”word salads.” How you choose to respond is your choice.
Michael

By: Gilgamesh

Gilgamesh — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 01:18:38 +0000

@Warren (first commenter) “… It’s fine for her to tell him about Christianity,…”
I don’t think it is ‘fine’ for someone other than the parents to tell a young child about a world view. How is it ‘fine’ for a cleaning woman to propagandize a child about Christianity? Is it a safe assumption, by the tone of your remark, that you are a Christian? Would it be ‘OK’ to tell your young children about Islam, Atheism, Scientology, etc.?

@ Howard & Michael - A little brevity would go a long way, seriously, your posts sound more like word salads than reasoned theses.

By: hilisgen

hilisgen — Sat, 23 May 2009 15:24:57 +0000

First of all… David

It’s such a sick thing that happened to your sun, I hope such thing would not happen again from anywhere, especially from the school.

Second of all,

Hey Michael!!!

if you are going to fallow your life based on a fiction book which your parents or your teachers insisted on being true … it’s your choice .. I have been educated the same way I just reached to a different conclusion, does that make me smarter than you … I hope not. my conclusion involved me to look at the EVIDENCE that there is nothing to support the existence of god other than a book that asks people to have faith … I mean this is just about the same tactic someone would use on another while scamming them … sad that its highly possible that you are one of those people who just can’t have a mind open enough to see through the bible.

We both have different reasons for trying to convince people, you might try to save them from the eternal fire that the book you referred to claimed to exist. The reason why I ask people to be skeptic is because if everybody would stop to question, there wouldn’t be science, or improvement. Because people simple wouldn’t need to, after all. They will go to heaven or whatever once they die.

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 14 May 2009 17:39:07 +0000

[comment deleted]

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 13 May 2009 23:29:42 +0000

The reason I, not try to disprove, but express my opinions on why god exist or not, is not because deep down I think there is a god.
I absolutely don’t what so ever.
There are people out in the world who I care for more than myself.
One of them having a terrible life so far, has been through a LIVING hell and still is convinced there is a god.
I don’t think it’s right, this person has been good and honest all his/her life, nothing else. Yet still has one of the worst lives I’ve ever seen.
He/She still goes to church, for what reason? I don’t know, but does and I feel bad for him/her.
I want that person to know how I feel and life isn’t supposed to only be like that.
If there was a god then I wouldn’t want any part of him. If he exist than what he has done to that person has cause me alot of pain, and even more to the person.
They deserve so much more but are treated with the worst.
I want that person to know I love him/her and hope one day you get what you deserve, which, is so much more than you have now…

-Mark A. Leukhardt

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 16:10:24 +0000

Hello Nina,

The Bible says that of all God’s creatures, only humans are made in His image. In the Christian worldview, mankind’s rebellion against God plunged him into sin. The effects of sin account for all human suffering, be it psycholgical, social, spiritual, moral, and what have you.

In answer to one of your questions, man cannot be all-knowing. Only God is omniscient. Although as finite creatures we cannot know all things, we can know what God has chosen to reveal to us.

I believe that abortion grieves and angers God. The life that is created is His handiwork. God says: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you. . .” (Jeremiah 1:5). I also believe that God is merciful and forgives our sins when we confess them and seek His forgiveness. We must humble ourselves, acknowledge our sinfulness, and turn to Him in repentance. “And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:18).

God Bless,

Michael

By: Nina

Nina — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 11:47:52 +0000

Michael,
How come you didn’t answer my questions? I have some more questions for you, but if you won’t bother to answer them, then I won’t waste my energy asking them.

Probability is meaningful when things are up to chance, or random. “A random process is a repeating process whose outcomes follow no describable deterministic pattern, but follow a probability distribution such that the relative probability of the occurrence of each outcome can be approximated or calculated” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randomness). Even when things aren’t random, the probability of those things happening is 100%, and knowing this probability would be useful.

You said, “Humans embrace such abstract things as love, justice, and beauty. How does the atheist account for these?”
Learn about psychology (esp. evolutionary psychology), which helps explain why humans think what they do. The way human brains work is similar to the way other animals brains work. Do you believe your god made other animals similar to him? There are inaccuracies in the way we perceive things, which goes against the view that someone made “minds whose thoughts correspond to the things He has made.” How would you account for perceptional inaccuracies and abnormal psychology, such as in sociopaths (who don’t embrace social justice) and in persons w/ autism (who often don’t comprehend abstract concepts)? Since you believe man was made in the image of an all-knowing deity, do you believe man can be all-knowing, despite evidence that our brains are not capable of knowing everything?

Where do you stand on social-political issues (ex: civil same-sex marriage, abortion bans, environmental regulations, death penalty, war, etc.)? What do you consider yourself (ex: liberal, conservative, progressive, communist, etc.)? I ask b/c I’d like to figure out what effect (if any) your religion has on your public policy views.

By: Michael

Michael — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 22:53:50 +0000

Andy,

There is no probability if we live in a chance universe; probability would be meaningless. You certainly may choose to reject my worldview in favor of your own. So be it. That is your intellectual right. What I am saying is that laws of logic, moral absolutes, love and other abstract immaterial realities pose no problem for the Christian. His worldview can account for them. The unbeliever’s worldview cannot. The unbeliever is borrowing capital from the Christian worldview when he or she accepts that there are abstract and universal laws of logic.

You want proof that God exists? Look around you. The universe proclaims the glory of God. The Bible reveals the redemptive plan and work of Jesus Christ. Humans embrace such abstract things as love, justice, and beauty. How does the atheist account for these? Christianity holds that God made man in His image and endowed him with moral consciousness and minds whose thoughts correspond to the things He has made.

You wrote the following: “We can have “faith” in probability and statistics. Yes, the sun will rise tomorrow. I have “faith” that it will because I know how the solar system works. And even if I didn’t, I’d have “faith” in a sunrise because it’s happened roughly twelve thousand times on a predictable basis since I was born. I have “faith” in gravity because gravity behaves according to known laws. If you want to call this “faith”, fine. But I argue it’s very different than religious “faith”, that is defined as belief without evidence.”

The distinction you draw between your statistics-based faith and “religious” faith is artificial. Your comments reflect that you assume the uniformity of nature, but outside of the Christian worldview it cannot reasonably be assumed. It makes no difference that the sun has risen trillions of time before; that does not prove what will happen tomorrow. It is circular reasoning to argue that the past instances of the sun rising prove it will rise tomorrow. David Hume described precisely this problem. It is no wonder that Hume’s empiricism led him inexorably to skepticism.

The Christian is not met with the futility of the problem of induction. God sustains the universe according to laws He has established. God’s sovereign control of all things accounts for order and abstract universal laws of logic. His control accounts for the uniformity of nature. The Christian can rest assured that tomorrow will be like today because God has ordained that night and day and heat and cold will continue until the end. Your worldview does not permit this confidence, for in it there is only contingency. You may do an experiment in the laboratory today that ends safely; tomorrow, you may perform that very experiment again under the same conditions but produce an explosion. How can you be certain that will not happen? Your worldview requires faith that things will continue on just as they have, but in a chance universe you cannot be certain of anything. All of science necessarily rests upon the Christian view of the universe!

Faith is not belief without evidence, as you suggest. You have already shown that faith is an inescapable part of human experience. Faith is the precondition of all reasoning.

As to the life, death, and resurrection of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, the Bible contains eyewitness accounts. The historical accuracy of the Bible has been shown time and time again. The unbeliever may not like this evidence, but it is evidence nevertheless. The unbeliever’s dismissal of it reflects where his presuppositional commitments lie.

Michael