Enemies Of Reason -Richard Dawkins (page 2)

SweetBabyCheezits

if it wasnt like a faith you wouldnt feel the need to ask me that question as it wouldnt bother you what I thought.

To paraphrase Ingersoll on faith, if these ideas were reasonable, there'd be no virtue in believing.

return of parakeet

Seraphim: " if it wasnt like a faith you wouldnt feel the need to ask me that question as it wouldnt bother you what I thought. "

That sentence makes absolutely no sense. Please elucidate.

Cold Steel

CS: I don’t think God hides from anyone, but the entire idea about being here is to learn to live through faith.

RP: Based on what?

CS: Based on what God has revealed and the way He revealed it. In short, the Lord’s mission statement is, simply, “For this is my work and my glory, to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.”

CS: Science has always been more blind than insightful. It only believes what it can see or detect.

RP: Yet here you are communicating with others through science and technology. Do believe your doctors are more blind than insightful? Do you pray instead of depending on medical science when you and your loved ones get sick?

CS: I believe you misunderstand. What I meant to say is that science will always have more questions than answers. The existence of “dark matter” and black holes, galaxies, anti-matter, quantum physics and the like have opened new and exciting areas of investigation. But are there are new questions and new discoveries which show man has only scratched the surface of what we think we know. Once one advances past the known universe, will there be untold billions more blinking back at us from incalculable distances. Will ours be surrounded by other, older and larger systems?

CS: I understood it was a decisive victory...for the ancient scripture professor. The geologists showed up with their textbooks and the professor showed up with a Dutch science journal he’d been reading. There, in a peer-reviewed article, was the evidence.

RP: What article? what evidence? what debate? Details, please. A general summary is not very convincing.

CS: It had to do with earthquake faults, one of which ran under Salt Lake City’s Wasatch front. The point wasn’t that the professor of ancient scripture beat a professor of science; it’s that the changing nature of scientific knowledge is very rapid. Textbooks contain old information while journals contain the new. How can we trust something that’s changing that rapidly so much while rejecting the entire moral foundation of revealed religion as mere superstition?

RP: What university is this? Wattsamatta U? Again, details would be nice.

CS: Brigham Young University

CS: The truth is that if God emblazoned incontrovertible evidence across the heavens, many would still reject Him.

RP: If the evidence were incontrovertible, why would anyone reject it? I wouldn’t. Speaking of which, why doesn’t God provide such evidence?

CS: God provides evidence, quite overwhelming for me, actually. It’s that he doesn’t provide proof positive and for the reason stated. In God’s eternal worlds, disobedience is answered immediately and justice is exercised without delay. Not so in our world, where we’re under a temporary quarantine. We’re placed in bodies that make our spirits enemies of God and justice is delayed to give us enough time to overcome and master them. And while you may accept something pertaining to God if presented with proof, you’d be the exception. If you’d care to see some evidence, drop me a PM, which would give me time to come up with some examples. But whether you would or wouldn’t, most men and women of science would not suddenly become spiritual and subject themselves to God. And by not accepting the evidence, the Lord would proffer them, they would bring about their own condemnation.

RP: If God is [deliberately] hiding from humanity, that puts the blame on him if people don’t believe in his existence. That’s one devious and vicious god you’re describing.

CS: Devious? Vicious? No, Jesus said He stands at the door and knocks. He who answers and invites Him inside are those who find. God represents himself through prophets and His Son. Jehovah, or Christ, is the great mediator between the Father and mankind.

CS: When our evangelical friends talk about Hell and burning I cringe. At our stage of development we’re not capable of bringing down that kind of judgment.

RP: If God has “revealed” the existence of hellfire to evangelicals, why are they wrong and you right? And who exactly are “we” when you talk about bringing down judgment on unbelievers?

CS: God has revealed no such thing to evangelicals, as a never-ending Hell would be counter to His very nature. By “we” I mean, of course, the human race. We’re in no position to be so harshly judged at our spiritual and intellectual immaturity. It would be like punishing an infant, which is what we are. To merit eternal punishment, our spiritual development would have to be at a much higher level.

CS: It would be like killing an infant for having the colic!

RP: But your god would damn them all the same.

CS: Not at all. There's too much talk of damnation. Like I said, we need men of science. We need skeptics.

RP: You just said science is “more blind than insightful.” So why do “we” need it? And why do “we” need skeptics? If science is blind and skeptics are to be judged and damned, why are they necessary?

CS: Many think that religion is an open and shut book, and when the Millennium comes, we will find ourselves at the end of a very long and arduous road. But it will be just the opposite. Science has given us an intellectual edge among the nations, but spirituality has given us other needs. The two are not mutually exclusive, but work together for the benefit of man. We need science now to give us the edge in survival. As the Millennium progresses, we’ll learn more about science until we see that it and religion work in tandem.

lost

Cold steel thanks for posting this.

Didn't God send prophets. Jesus actually walked the earth, isn't that undisputed fact ?

Witness My Fury

Jesus actually walked the earth, isn't that undisputed fact ?

No, most things including facts are open to dispute.

cofty

How would a world with no god and no supernatural realm look different from the one we inhabit?

The hiddenness of god is one of the strongest arguments against theism.

The only response is to make a virtue out of the vice of believing things on inadequate evidence.

Heaven

I have not yet watched the videos but will try to set aside some time later to do that.

For those of you on this thread who are believers, are you familiar with the story of Hypatia of Alexandria, the first well-documented woman of mathematics? You might want to check her out, what happened to her, and begin to familiarize yourself with the legacy you are signing up with.

lost

I thought History actually teaches Jesus was an actual man that existed and walked the earth ? Is History wrong or has it been changed.

Take away morals and laws from society and see how fast it degenerates without the controlling force keeping things in order.

Phizzy

Dear Lost, History is a doubtful science, "written by the victors" is one view of it. It is simply opinion.

True, many scholars put in a lot of effort, their work is peer reviewed, and hypothesis stand or fall as new facts become apparent, but mostly we are reliant upon the opinion of the historian. "History" constantly changes.

As to the Historicity of Jesus, this has been debated for centuries, and outside of the Bible and a doubtful reference in Josephus, who himself is not free from identity questions, there is no proof for the Jesus of the N.T

LisaRose

You do not need religion to have morals and laws.

Enemies Of Reason -Richard Dawkins

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