Question 8 for Christians

[Libsmasher]

You should be a prosecutor. Then you could ask, "Do you still beat your wife?"

I ask for non-BS answers, and you say that's like asking loaded questions??

Riiiiiiiiiight.

 

[Libsmasher]

Science makes "predictions", and has many hypotheses that they routinely masquerade around as "Theories" (even when they don't meet the basic criteria of a theory), that cannot be observed, tested, or even properly predicted, yet people all over the world, especially Atheists, regularly bow down to their own God which they call "science", while rabidly denying that they even have a religion, regardless of all of the evidence to the contrary.

The truth is that anyone who is not a "scientist", in a particular field, is taking the work of others as a matter of faith, which is the very thing that they consistently accuse believers of doing, as if it were a bad thing. The biggest difference between people of faith and Atheists is that people of faith are honest enough to readily acknowledge that they do not have all the answers (they are not God), and that they take take things that they observe, but do not understand, on faith, as a matter of course. Atheists constantly deny that they have faith, even though they routinely do accept things as a matter of faith (can we say hypocrisy?).

For example, and I do not know, nor do I care, if you're an Atheist or not, but you made the observation that Quantum Mechanics "seeks to provide an explanation of what is observed, and it does it quite well", so the question to you is; do you a have a PhD in Physics, and are you now, or have you ever been, employed as a Physicist who specializes in Quantum Mechanics, or are you taking their theories on faith?

You say that people of faith make claims about fundamental truths, but their explanations are not testable. I would disagree. The fact is that people of faith aren't looking for, nor do they need to make any claims about your "fundamental truths" which need to be tested. People of faith say that God created the universe, science says that there was a Big Bang which created the universe. What created the Big Bang? We do not know, so again, science can only surmise and guess at an explanation that doesn't have any bearing on believers.

The fact of the matter, when it comes to God, a lack of evidence of Gods existence is not evidence of a lack of God, and that's exactly what Atheists are attempting to claim. It's a logical fallacy, and no amount of protestation to the contrary can change that. The other point that most Atheists overlook is that the vast majority of believers simply do not care if they Atheists believe or not. It's a matter of complete indifference to us, and a personal choice that they have made for themselves. Where the rub comes in is that Atheists steadfastly refuse to extend the same courtesy to believers, once again exhibiting for all the world to see, their inherent hypocrisy.

My astronomy master's thesis was in the area of quantum mechanics, but it doesn't take even a BS in physics to understand. I could explain the basic ideas and corroborating standard experimental evidence to anyone who has had high school math and science. Beneath that level, I can't help ya.

 

[BigRob]

a BS in physics

Science degrees are BS indeed should have stuck with the good old BA's. What was the topic of your thesis btw?

 

[Libsmasher]

Science degrees are BS indeed should have stuck with the good old BA's. What was the topic of your thesis btw?

"Three Ions of Astrophysical Interest"

 

[BigRob]

"Some Ions of Astrophysical Interest"

Nice, I would be interested to read it. Most science stuff is over my head though admittedly. My BA was in International Relations, and my MA was in Security Policy Studies.

 

[Federal Farmer]

A long-winded and fuzzy argument, Farmer. It's true that the cutting edge of science is indistinct, but throughout its history science has been codifying research and theories into facts that are demonstrably true through a process of winnowing the sheep from the goats (evidence-wise). Name any discipline in science and you can study it and repeat the experiments, or make the explosives, or build the airplane, or cure the disease, or prove the mathematical theorem just like your predecessors. Science is always working to narrow its focus on demonstrable, repeatable truth. Science is a very human undertaking and has never made claims of god-like infallibility, but has produced a world of knowledge that impacts every human being.

Religion is just the opposite, you folks started with God's Ultimate Truth in the Purest Form from the lips of the Son of God and you have been spawning new sects that dispute that truth with each other at the rate of nearly two per year since Jesus' birth. You have taken the pure product and polluted and diluted it to the point that there may very well be no truth left in it at all. Religion claims to have god-like truth, but has nothing repeatable to which it can point as being the accomplishment of more than 2000 years of religious wars and theological infighting.

Cute attempt at a sidestep, but you failed to address any of my points. Would you care to try again?

Oh, and BTW, wars existed LONG before religion, so that dog won't hunt either.

 

[Federal Farmer]

My astronomy master's thesis was in the area of quantum mechanics, but it doesn't take even a BS in physics to understand. I could explain the basic ideas and corroborating standard experimental evidence to anyone who has had high school math and science. Beneath that level, I can't help ya.

Good, and my field is Civil Engineering, so I'm "familiar" with it too (although you're probably up on the more recent strives in the field than I), but neither of us has worked in the field, on a daily basis, so we're both taking a lot of it on 'faith'. Given that I don't work in the field, I 'believe' that those who do work in the field are in fact sticking to the basic principles of the scientific method, and haven't succumb to the temptation of "then something miraculous happened here" by way of explaination in their calculations, and I suspect that you do the same, so again, we are both 'taking in on faith' even though we don't know for certain, especially since it is merely a theory and not a scientific Law (like gravity). As an astronomer, I'm sure that you're more than aware of the many "theories" that have been posited over the years that simply turned out to be completely wrong, regardless of how widely they were believed at the time they were popular. That's simply the nature of science, you observe, hypothesize, test, eventually postulate a hypothesis, and test again, but very few "truths" and "facts" have been forthcoming.

Even Einsteins Generaly Law of Relativity has been challenged recently, by these same Quantum scientists and that's been accepted for...how long?

One of my professors told me a long time ago (and I'm paraphrasing here), "science is the journey, but never the goal, because if it were the goal, you wouldn't have a need to continue on".

 

[Mare Tranquillity]

Cute attempt at a sidestep, but you failed to address any of my points. Would you care to try again?

Oh, and BTW, wars existed LONG before religion, so that dog won't hunt either.

My post was germame, science is convergent and religion is divergent. Science consolidates its gains, but religion just continues to dissipate.

Religious wars didn't exist before religion. Your religion gave us the Crusades, the Inquisition, the witch burnings, the genocide of the indigenous Americans, and the battles between the Catholics and the Protestants.

I don't blame you at all for dismissing my post in its entirety, what I wrote was true and you have no defense for the disgusting actions of Christians down through history. You are supposed to have God's Truth so you have no excuse for the wretched excesses of your religion, science is a human endeavor which lays no such claim to godly infallibility.

 

[Federal Farmer]

My post was germame, science is convergent and religion is divergent. Science consolidates its gains, but religion just continues to dissipate.

Utterly fallacious on it's face.

Religious wars didn't exist before religion. Your religion gave us the Crusades, the Inquisition, the witch burnings, the genocide of the indigenous Americans, and the battles between the Catholics and the Protestants.

Really, and what of the millions of deaths directly attributable to Atheists? How many of his own people did Stalin slaughter? What about Mao (and no, he wasn't a Buddhist, so don't go there) and the millions he slaughtered? What about all of the wars, battles, and genocides before religion, as we understand it today, even existed?

You cannot excuse the actions of your own people by pointing to someone else and saying "they did it too!", that doesn't work when raising children, and it sure doesn't cut it with alleged adults either.

I don't blame you at all for dismissing my post in its entirety, what I wrote was true and you have no defense for the disgusting actions of Christians down through history. You are supposed to have God's Truth so you have no excuse for the wretched excesses of your religion, science is a human endeavor which lays no such claim to godly infallibility.

I dismissed your post, not because I can't rip it to shreds, but because you failed to follow the rules of polite society and public debate. I made several points in response to your post, and rather than addressing them, even in rebuttal, you side-stepped them, and introduces a flaming Strawman. Now, if you would care to act like a civilized adult, and address my points, I will be glad to address yours, until then however, stuff it.

BTW and FYI, Atheism IS a religion. Just thought you'd like to know.

 

[9sublime]

Oh, and BTW, wars existed LONG before religion, so that dog won't hunt either.

Name one war that existed before any form of organized religion.

 

[Federal Farmer]

Name one war that existed before any form of organized religion.

Humans have been at war with each other since humans have existed. One tribe wants to hunt in another tribes area, so they go to war with each other. Or is it your contention that homo sapiens sapiens were peaceful, loving creatures, all sitting around together in a big circle singing (or grunting) Kumbya before religion.

Seriously, you ARE joking aren't you?

 

[Mare Tranquillity]

Humans have been at war with each other since humans have existed. One tribe wants to hunt in another tribes area, so they go to war with each other. Or is it your contention that homo sapiens sapiens were peaceful, loving creatures, all sitting around together in a big circle singing (or grunting) Kumbya before religion.

Seriously, you ARE joking aren't you?

Excusing religious wars because other people have wars is hardly valid. Where in all of Jesus' teachings does He say that His followers can engage in war? I don't know, Fed Farm, you act like an intelligent, educated person trying to make a case for superstitious violence without anything rational to go on.

Jesus is billed as the Prince of Peace, but somehow His followers just don't get the message. What part of "turn the other cheek" and "return good for evil" and "love others as yourself" lets you wage war?

 

[SW85]

Humans have been at war with each other since humans have existed. One tribe wants to hunt in another tribes area, so they go to war with each other. Or is it your contention that homo sapiens sapiens were peaceful, loving creatures, all sitting around together in a big circle singing (or grunting) Kumbya before religion.

Seriously, you ARE joking aren't you?

You should've said that killing has existed long before organized religion -- which is true, to the best of our knowledge. IIRC they have found ancient skeletal remains of humans that have clearly been deliberately killed by other humans.

War is a function of civilization, since it requires the capacity to recruit, train, organize, equip, and field armies. It is quite different than ordinary killing (though sublime and Mare no doubt disagree and object to it on those grounds). Organized religion is similarly a function of civilization. This means there is, at best, a kind of second-hand correlation more easily explained by a second-order factor.

It's like how the relative density of churches correlates positively with murder rates. It doesn't mean churches promote murder. It means there is a relative density of churches in places where murder rates are highest -- i.e., the inner city. This second-order factor (population density) accounts for a larger proportion of the variance in the correlation than the first-order ones.

That said: does it matter? Not really. The existential truths which religion attempt to convey are in no way diminished by the actions of their human adherents. This is especially true when the religion in question is predicated on the assumption that humans are fundamentally, indeed irrepairably, flawed.

You have taken the pure product and polluted and diluted it to the point that there may very well be no truth left in it at all. Religion claims to have god-like truth, but has nothing repeatable to which it can point as being the accomplishment of more than 2000 years of religious wars and theological infighting.

I don't actually understand what you mean by "repeatable," but there are two logical responses to this:

(1) The most important benefits of religion, if indeed it is correct, are naturally unobservable; and

(2) You ignore entirely its massive contributions to culture, government, education, humanitarian efforts, and yes, science.

I don't see why you regard it as fundamentally impossible to acknowledge that organized religion has done wrong and similarly acknowledge that it has also done right.

 

[Mare Tranquillity]

Utterly fallacious on it's face.

But deep-down it's true, you started with a single pure truth from God's own lips and now you have more than 3500 sects arguing about who's right. From Santeria to the Mormons to the Quakers to Fred Phelps and Tammy Faye Bakker, to the multitude of different Bibles which don't agree. I don't blame you for being defensive, you folks have done a piss poor job for 2000 years.

Really, and what of the millions of deaths directly attributable to Atheists? How many of his own people did Stalin slaughter? What about Mao (and no, he wasn't a Buddhist, so don't go there) and the millions he slaughtered? What about all of the wars, battles, and genocides before religion, as we understand it today, even existed?

Are you really going to excuse the people who have God's Truth for their sins by pointing to all the other sinners in the world? I bet that will fly well when you stand before God on Judgment Day shouting, "But Mao and Stalin did it!" That'll convince God won't it?

You cannot excuse the actions of your own people by pointing to someone else and saying "they did it too!", that doesn't work when raising children, and it sure doesn't cut it with alleged adults either.

But that's exactly what you did in your previous paragraph. Hmmm.

I dismissed your post, not because I can't rip it to shreds, but because you failed to follow the rules of polite society and public debate. I made several points in response to your post, and rather than addressing them, even in rebuttal, you side-stepped them, and introduces a flaming Strawman. Now, if you would care to act like a civilized adult, and address my points, I will be glad to address yours, until then however, stuff it.BTW and FYI, Atheism IS a religion. Just thought you'd like to know.

What twaddle, coming from the religious tradition that claims God's Truth and behaves like Stalin and Mao you have microscopic credibility. Not being an atheist, I don't really have an opinion on it being a religion. On the other hand not being an organized religion sucking on the public tit, I pay my taxes.

 

[BigRob]

Jesus is billed as the Prince of Peace, but somehow His followers just don't get the message. What part of "turn the other cheek" and "return good for evil" and "love others as yourself" lets you wage war?

There is quite the case to be made that Jesus preached a "divine violence" against the Roman occupiers of the day and that his message was solely directed towards an oppressed people. The claim that the Bible does not have undertones and outright examples of horrible violence brought about by God or people "doing God's work" is outrageous.

The message of "turn the other cheek" can easily be seen through the lens of an occupied people who have no recourse for their suffering. The whole Kingdom of God notion would appeal to them because it would be a kingdom without Roman rule and a kingdom where God would avenge their suffering in a perfect example of divine violence.