Anti-Quackery & Science Blog
its a fricking spam magnet.
Evolution and Religion Can Coexist, Scientists Say
Stefan Lovgren
for National Geographic News
October 18, 2004
"Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind." —Albert Einstein
Joel Primack has a long and distinguished career as an astrophysicist. A University of California, Santa Cruz, professor, he co-developed the cold dark matter theory that seeks to explain the formation and structure of the universe.
He also believes in God.
That may strike some people as peculiar. After all, in some corners popular belief renders science and religion incompatible.
http://
news.nationalgeographic.c...e_religion.html
` Yes, yes, lots of scientists are religious. And....?
` Unexpectedly, I got the same result. I wonder if there's a more rigid one than that?
An atheist (particularly an ardent atheist) is someone who claims to know that there is no God.
How can anyone know that there is no God? What if God is hiding? An ardent atheist would have to scope out the whole universe to make sure that God is not hiding on the other side of the Milky Way or something. But, God can move, so even if an atheist was able to scope out the whole universe, he would have to really be everywhere at once. He would have to be omnipresent.
But even that would not be good enough, because God can be invisible and undetectable to our 5 senses. So, an atheist needs to be more than omnipresent. He would have to be all knowing - aka - omniscient.
So, basically, in order to know that there is no God, an atheist needs to be omnipresent and omniscient. In other words, the only way an atheist can deny with certainty the existence of God is if he was God himself. Thus, he would have to deny himself. Atheism is self-defeating.
The truth is that people who are atheists (especially ardent atheists) are lashing out at the Man Upstairs who they do not think exists. So, why are they lashing out? They are lashing out because they hate Him and accuse Him of injustice. So they rebel against Him. They deny His existence, because they smell in the gospel an aroma of death unto death. They know that if they don't repent, they will die in their sins and go to hell, so they seek to exert their own authority over epistemology and metaphysics by insisting that God doesn't exist - that there is no God. But that very rebellion is stemming from the fact that they have been created in God's image. God wouldn't even be an issue if there was no God. There would be no reason to be angry at one who didn't exist.
But atheists don't arrive at their worldview because they are objective scientific people. No. They choose their worldview, because deep inside, they want to be completely independent of God. Reason has nothing to do with it. They choose their presuppositions, and then proceed from those presuppositions in a logical manner. But no one arrives at presuppositions via reason. You start with postulates that can not be proven or disproven logically. Atheists have chosen to believe that God doesn't exist. That choice is not based on any evidence whatsoever.
ConcernedEngineer - Two points :
(a) A strong atheist, such as myself, should say, not that there is no God, but rather that there is absolutely zero evidence for God. Thus, why believe in God? To understand this point of view, substitute "pulsing purple fairies" for the word "God" in your little tirade and see how much sense it makes. There is absolutely no reason to believe in God.
(b) Secondly, an atheist is a completely cosmopolitan being, who disbelieves in all Gods equally. You make the typical Christian mistake of assuming an atheist disbelieves in your God, specifically. Can you give me one good reason why, if I was to believe in any God, I should believe in yours, rather than a Hindi God, or Shinto's concept of holy ancestors.
We're not running away from your "gospels", we're running away from blind belief in everything we get told, which is why the majority of atheists are skeptics, as well; and vice-versa.
Colin,
The difference between the gods of Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Shinto (etc, etc) and finally Christianity, is that only the God of Christianity offers us a Savior. No other belief system does that.
You might say, "Well, we don't need a Savior anyways." (This reflects Concerned Engineer's statement that atheists refuse to repent, since what have they to repent of?)
This shows the belief that we don't even really need a God, anyways (unless He decided to fix all of our problems, of course).
So:
Without a God, how do we know what morality to follow? Our personal own? How can mankind, a species where everyone has a differing opinion about everything know where to draw the line?
We wouldn't. Majority opinion sways with the times, making truth seem absolute, since hey, this was wrong last decade, but now it's totally in.
Truth cannot be absolute. It's not even logically possible.
(ie: "Truth is absolute."
"...do you claim that statement to be true?")
Dang it...that last thing should say:
(ie: "Truth is not absolute."
"...do you claim that statement to be true?")
without a god, we can follow our own personal code of morality, yes. we can live to the best of our abilities, in accordance with what we believe -- based on world experiences -- to be the right courses of action. i don't believe in god, but i don't need religion to know that it's not right to kill another human being. i don't have faith, but i don't believe it's okay to do anything that will harm another person.
on a deep level, no human has any more right to live or prosper than another. if i take away the life or happiness of someone else, that is tantamount to my saying that i believe it's okay for that person to have taken away those things from me.
i don't think concernedengineer was asking for a perk of being a christian -- your reply was more along the lines of "take this job because you get a better benefits package," rather than "take this job because it's the job that's right for you."
from an atheist's standpoint, it doesn't make sense to favor one deity over another. colin's point about not disbelieving in one specific deity is spot-on. we have no concrete evidence to point us in any direction. you're telling us your religion is the wiser choice than others because you're a christian; if we asked a muslim this question, s/he would tell us that allah was the better choice. just because christianity is the dominant religion in a lot of countries doesn't mean it's the best -- in ancient egypt, the majority of people believed in amon-ra, osiris, isis, anubis, and so forth, and when we're taught about that in historical or anthropological studies, we examine it with a sort of "oh, how cute" detachment. there is no reason to believe that people 2000 years from now won't be doing that with christianity.
First, a major edit! (I guess I proofread too fast.)
"Truth cannot be absolute. It's not even logically possible."
SHOULD BE:
"Truth cannot be relative. It's not even logically possible."
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Anon,
"i don't need religion to know that it's not right to kill another human being"
Ok now, let's keep with your idea.
Killing another human being is wrong for YOU. What right do you have to tell someone else that another human being is wrong for them?
(Apparently)
If you think is wrong, fine. If Stalin thought that was ok, then fine, too.
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I'm very sorry if my first reply came off as a "benefits package".
I believe that the reasons I gave (about being a sinner and needing a Savior) pointed towards the correct way, not just a certain way with a nice benefits package.
We are sinners; therefore, we need a Savior. Only the God of the Christian faith offers us a Savior. It's not about the so-called "benefits package", it's about the fact that it actually makes sense. (If we are willing to admit that humans do commit some type of wrongdoing from time to time.)
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[Personally, I would like to hear why the Muslim would say that Allah is the better choice. Because Allah might decide to allow the Muslim into Heaven?]
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"you're telling us your religion is the wiser choice..."
No, sir.
If I was telling you that my religion (or, as I prefer, my faith) was the "wiser choice", that would be implying that I believed that the alternatives were other "good" or "better" choices -- just not the best one.
I believe that Christianity is the only correct choice.
Not because of blind faith.
Seriously, The Case for a Creator (by: Lee Strobel) presents the evidence around us.
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