Books For Believers in Intelligent Designer and want to get deeper in to the Debate without getting angry!

by PokerPlayerPhil 5 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  PokerPlayerPhil

  Hi, there's been so many threads going off on atheism, evolution and science but most end quickly because many can't hold their own without getting abusive, angry and lots of hard feelings against our friends here who helped us get beyond all the confusion and fear plus uncertainty we all felt trying to leave the Cult! When you can bring up interesting topics and share ideas through intelligent discussion it's possible we could lose all the anger that ensues on our adult boards!

  Here's a book I heard Dr. Richard Dawkins bring up saying he liked the logic and reasoning of Peter Medawar's book, why not evaluate it yourself? Its written by a highly skeptical scientist who presents Science in a very fair place the Christians and believers can respect because you will become stronger in bringing your views forward without getting mad!

  You want to share the Gospel or Spiritualism, build up your brain with everything on each side physical time constraints allow you! It's not by accident Mr. Cofty knows the current arguments and debates, he's done a heck of a lot of reading as much literature on the Evolution and Atheism as he can. Why not be like him and build your educational arsenal to new higher bounds? Have you ever read posts by him, by Simon, by Steve and DJ (He coined the term for the GB, "Dark lords of Watchtower", he writes very well.). Here's a very short book on where Science ends and Speculation begins as well as showing the reader why many areas in Science can't be ignored because you don't want to believe, in the debate I watched over a year ago they both said this book was fair and reasonable, those are the books we need to read, I thought it was really good!

  "Science," writes Sir Peter Medawar, "is incomparably the most successful enterprise human beings have ever engaged upon." In this brief, brilliant book the Nobel laureate explores the nature and limitations of scientific pursuit. The three essays included touch on some of the largest questions known to man: Can science determine the existence of God? Is there one "scientific method" by which all the secrets of the universe can be discovered? "

  
  

  "THE LIMITS OF SCIENCE" by Peter Medawar
  
  
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  Oubliette

  Thanks for the recommendation.

  It's now on my Amazon.com Wish List
  
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  PokerPlayerPhil

  I think you will find his skeptical approach very balanced, one issue that's popping it's head up of late is people making claims there are not "absolutes" while the following statement just contradicted itself (The claim "there are not absolutes" is a absolute :).

  Watching the video where the bullies attacked the poor JW trolley or cart pusher bugged me because he turned someone's hypothosis in to a theory without any backing. Find the video where the man said "Dr. Lawerence Krausse has proved the Universe came from nothing", when pushed on what "nothing is", Krausse getting blasted by several scientist of his caliber said he was being dishonest with the term "nothing". How was the JW kid suppose to know and if this kid decides, "I am going to look up what the apostate said" discovers the apostate does not know what he's talking about because he blindly used Dr. Krausses(Quantum Vacuum Model) hypothosis to impress a JW Kid, how does that help our efforts to get kids outside the Cult while their still kids, read the following if you don't mind from the website "Why Evolution Is True":

  I also read other scientist from other Us blasting him because he used "something" as "nothing", if that JW Kid read this, what's he going to think of the proud attack of his faith making outlandish claims in his quest for truth?

  " I have a confession. I was not keen on Lawrence Krauss’s new book on the origin of the universe, A Universe from Nothing: Why there is Something Rather Than Nothing. I couldn’t share the chorus of approbation and acclaim for the book, and wondered if I, as opposed to everyone else, was blind to its merits. (Let me hasten to add that I am a big fan of Krauss’s public lectures, and also that I haven’t read any of his other books.)

  I found A Universe from Nothing awkwardly written and poorly explained; indeed, in places I felt completely at sea, and had to reread bits of it several times to figure out what he was trying to say. Even then some of it baffled me, and since I have a Ph.D. and have read a fair amount of popular physics literature, I figured this must have been a case of unclear writing rather than simple ignorance on my part..."

  
  

  "Further, I felt to some degree cheated: much of the book was not about the origin of the universe, but dealt with other matters, like dark energy and the like, that had already been covered in other popular works on physics. Indeed, much of Krauss’s book felt like a bait-and-switch. It also seemed to me that Krauss came to grips with the real problem—how do you get matter from an initial condition of nothing?—only in the last 40 pages of the book. The whole argument could have been written more concisely, and clearly, in a smallish book the size of Sam Harris’s Free Will.

  https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/04/02/david-albert-pans-lawrence-krausss-new-book/
  
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  Oubliette

  PPP, you do know that science is a philosophy, right?

  The difference between science and religion is that science is evidence based, whereas religion is all about allegedly revealed truth which, not too surprisingly, comes through a single individual or group who just happen to end up in control as a result of "God whispering in their ear."

  The former is mankind's best attempt at a rational, objective understanding of reality; the latter is scam at best and a delusion at worst. Often it's both.
  
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  PokerPlayerPhil

  Here's what Stephen Hawkings said about Philosophy, I think you might be interested in how he views it. I heard people call it "soft science" or less. That's not how I view the subject, structuring how I spoke about philosophy was not to discredit it's merit in science, certain scientist are attacking it's usefulness or asking if philosophy should be labelled as science at all. I came across this topic some time back on a "Physics and Chemistry Blog", and thought "How do you debunk Philosophy as dead", how would you respond to Stephen Hawkings because he's pure brain and thinks so brilliantly on so many subjects.

  "

  Stephen Hawking tells Google ‘philosophy is dead’

  Physicist Stephen Hawking has told Google's Zeitgeist conference that philosophers have not kept up with science and their art is dead.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  Dr. Hawkings said something throwing the Philosophy World in Chaos, he's remarks has several scientist from other fields congratulating him. They called it "Pseudo Science" others totally went off saying "it was long due Hawkings put a nail in it's coffin!"

  
  

  Stephen Hawking, the renowned physicist, has declared that “Philosophy is dead”.

  Speaking to Google’s Zeitgeist Conference in Hertfordshire, the author of 'A Brief History of Time' said that fundamental questions about the nature of the universe could not be resolved without hard data such as that currently being derived from the Large Hadron Collider and space research. “Most of us don't worry about these questions most of the time. But almost all of us must sometimes wonder: Why are we here? Where do we come from? Traditionally, these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead,” he said. “Philosophers have not kept up with modern developments in science. Particularly physics.”

  Prof Hawking went on to claim that “Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge.” He said new theories “lead us to a new and very different picture of the universe and our place in it”.

  In a 40-minute speech, Prof Hawking said that the new “M Theory” of the universe was the “unified theory Einstein was hoping to find”. He compared the idea to the computer programme Google Earth, saying it was a “map” of theories, but added that a new, bigger Hadron Collider the size of the Milky Way was needed to collect more data to prove it.

  “This technology is some way off,” he said, “and I don't think even Google could afford to build it.”

  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/8520033/Stephen-Hawking-tells-Google-philosophy-is-dead.html
  
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  Oubliette

  PPP: certain scientist are attacking it's usefulness or asking if philosophy should be labelled as science at all

  You misunderstood me. Science IS a philosophy.

  To deny that is to reveal ignorance as to the essential nature of science.