Re: Faith and Skepticism
- From: "Brushwork" <late_apecks@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2005 03:18:01 GMT
bimms@xxxxxxxx wrote:
> My point is to show that reason IS reliable, but for a very different
> reason than atheists imagine.
And what might that reason be? And how could you possibly know what I
imagine? From the anti-atheist rubbish spouted by evangelical
Christians?
> > You seem to think your god has given you infallibility. (How come you
> > weren't elected pope?) It's exactly that kind of Christian arrogance
> > that leads reasonable people to repudiate Christianity.
> It is NOT that I am infallible.
But wait. You said that you "fully trust" your own reason because God
is helping you ascertain "valid truth." If that's not a claim of
infallibility, what is? You, like a lot of Christians, blithely claim
to possess Absolute Truth, but can't even BEGIN to demonstrate the
validity and accuracy of your primary source, biblical scripture.
> It is, rather, that IF ATHEISM WERE
> TRUE, then not one thought any of us EVER THOUGHT would be trustworthy.
Hogwash. Whatever led you to make such and unprovable and unfalsifiable
claim?
(Can computer outputs be considered valid? Trustworthy? Does God have a
hand in that?)
> Atheism MUST BELIEVE that the first liiving cell arose out of dead
> chemicals randomly sloshing around in the primordial sea. This is
> idiotic.
Unless you are an organic chemist, it is idiotic for you to say such a
thing. By the way, "atheism" consists of a disbelief in the existence
of a god (any god). It takes no position on the origins of life, except
to say that nothing, including life, was the deliberate act of a deity.
I wasn't there at the inception of life on this planet, nor were you,
nor were those folks who transcribed Genesis from various folk tales.
They had no idea how life came to be, just as they had virtually no
knowledge of microbiology, organic chemistry, or any other field of
science. Sounds like you're at about the same stage of scientific
comprehension.
> Atheism also MUST BEIEVE that the first self-conscious mind arose out
> of primordial slime that was little more than a stimulus-response
> amoeba. Again, this is idiotic.
I am an atheist, and I don't believe that "the first self-conscious
mind" arose out of primordial slime. Self-conscious minds - by which I
assume you mean human minds - evolved millions of years later. But
those scientific facts do not stem from atheism. Many people who
believe in God know that evolution is a fact.
Once again, you flaunt your ignorance.
> How did life magically spring out of dead chemicals, unless God helped
> out?
> How did mind magically spring out of mindless life, unless God
> assisted?
I don't know, and neither do you, but you can be sure that magic played
no part in it. Unlike Christians like yourself, atheists don't claim to
have all the answers. Just like mankind now has some understanding of
the neurochemical origins of insanity (once thought to be caused by
demonic possession), someday we may well discover the means by which
life first came to be. Betcha the answer doesn't turn out to be a wave
of the divine hand!
> 1. Life cannot come from non-life
> 2. Thought cannot come from non-thought.
Rubbish.
> Both life and thought must come from something that is ALIVE and
> INTELLIGENT.
Easy to say, but you cannot prove such a statement. Or even offer
evidence to support it.
> > I have yet to see the "rational and empirical" evidence you imagine
> > exists. It's not revealed in the scriptural sources you find so
> > implausibly reliable, it's not revealed in the writings of the Church,
> > and it most certainly isn't revealed in your writings on the subject.
> The rational evidence is:
>
> "The rational existence of the human mind, whose intelligent
> rationality implies that it sprang from an intelligent-rational
> source."
Ah, so the evidence isn't found in scripture! Instead, it's found in
your own papal decrees! You are the MAN, Bimms. And we're told - by you
- that we can "fully trust" your rational mind. Great.
("Implies"? "Sprang"? Those terms are meaningless in this context.
You've been reading WAY too much Creationist propaganda.)
> The empirical evidence is:
>
> "The existence of living organisms, which imply that they sprang from a
> living source."
The existence of living organisms "implies" nothing about their
creation, least of all that they were the product of "intelligent
design." Were that the case, there'd be no mistakes, no examples of
maladaptive traits, no vestigal organs, no examples of extinction.
"Intelligent Design" (i.e., "God did it") is not a scientific theory.
To call ID "junk science" is to overrate it. It's not science at all.
> "Life" and "mind" are the two evidences; one is empirical and the other
> is rational. Any further questions, just let me know.
> > In what dictionary did you find THAT idiosyncratic definition of faith?
> >
>
> I made it up myself. Aren't I so clever? :)
You give yourself too much credit - by several orders of magnitude.
> >
> > Yet ANOTHER expansion of the meaning of the word "faith" in order to
> > make it fit into your little theory. By your lights, is there ANY
> > belief that doesn't qualify as "faith"? Inasmuch as you've rendered the
> > term meaningless, why use it at all?
> >
>
> My point is just to show that ALL OUR beliefs are faith-based.
So how do you differentiate between faith and belief?
> So the
> when atheists try to claim that "Christianity is based on faith, but
> atheism is based on reason" they are just being stupid. Because BOTH
> are based on faith.
Only if you S T R E T C H the meaning of the term "faith" to mean ANY
means by which ANY knowledge is acquired.
I often hear Christians - especially evangelicals - say something akin
to the following:
"I realize that there is no scientific evidence for my beliefs, and no
historical confirmation beyond scriptural attestation. Nonetheless, I
have faith that what is written in scripture is the inerrant Word of
God."
Such statements tell me - and they should tell you - that they have
erected their belief on a foundation of toothpicks, e.g., their beliefs
have NO FOUNDATION WHATSOEVER. They simply believe what others -
preachers, church fathers, the writers of scripture - tell them. They
make no attempt to determine the truth for themselves. For example, few
Christians even realize that CHRISTIAN scholars believe that the first
gospel - Mark - was written by an anonymous individual about 40 years
after Jesus was said to have been crucified. And that Luke and Matthews
were largely derivative from Mark. This phenomena of invincible
ignorance - and disregard of evidentiary standards - goes all the way
back to the gospel writers who themselves didn't even CLAIM to be
eyewitnesses or to have based their writings on eyewitness testimony.
For Christians, from the very beginning, evidence has been irrelevant.
Faith was all that mattered. That lack of concern with historical
evidence and scientific fact does NOT suggest rationality, Bimms.
By "reason based," atheists mean that we give overriding priority to
VERIFIABLE SCIENTIFIC AND HISTORICAL FACT. We think that evidenced fact
must always prevail over unevidenced faith. Unconfirmed "attestation"
just ain't enough, we want independent confirmation of the sort that
normally supports historical claims. For example, you may take as fact
the scriptural claim that the Jerusalem sky became dark and the dead
rose from their graves as Jesus was suffering on the cross. Well, the
only place that that is mentioned is in the NT. No contemporaneous
writing mentions it. There are NO eyewitness accounts by Roman
officials or anyone else, no coins minted suggesting that such a
strange phenomenon occurred, no inscriptions about it, no mention of it
in the works of Roman or Jewish historians of the period (including the
works of Pliny the Elder, who specialized in odd natural occurances).
Yet, that it happened is widely believed by Christians, solely on the
basis of secondhand accounts by pious Christians whose singleminded
objective was to spread the Christian message, i.e., the gospel
writers. And which were written in an era when stories of miracles and
magical occurances were widely believed to have been performed by MANY
charlatans.
Is it rational to believe hearsay accounts by such biased individuals?
If you think so, I sure wouldn't want you on MY jury!
Are you starting to see the difference?
> This is why I take ALL of the giant living religions seriously. I take
> the existence of "life" and "mind" to be proof of God's existence.
Well, you would be wrong about that. You've proved nothing.
> Having proved the existence of God, I then am FORCED to take every
> giant living religion seriously. (Because IF God exists, THEN He would
> ensure that at least ONE of the giant living religions is TRUE.
> Otherwise, He would be either evil or careless)
I dunno. Your god likes to torture mankind. Look what he did to
Abraham. And Job. And to his own SON! Your god often behaves in an evil
and careless manner.
> Thus, I have examined all the giant living religions carefully.
That's false on the face of it.
> Therefore, Christianity wins.
More arrogance. You are the victim of your own hubris.
> I certainly respect ALL the giant living religions. But not one of them
> (except Christianity) teaches universal love to both God and Man.
They all do, actually. But none of them practice it.
> > The love of an omnipotent god who had to resort to torture and human
> > sacrifice in order to "redeem" his creatures? If that's the Christian
> > notion of love, you're welcome to it.
>
> God didn't "have" to resort to torture and human sacrifice. He
> deliberately "decided" to. Nothing was forcing Him to.
Why did he choose such a horrible means of salvation, then? I've never
heard an answer to this question. It's usually waved off as "He did
what he did and his reasons are for him to know; we shouldn't
psychoanalyze God; it's a great a mystery" etc., etc. But the answer is
profoundly important, since his choice of crucifixion as a salific
device suggests a sadistic obsession with violence, suffering and
death. Plus it presented a terrible example to mankind. Even the Romans
were appalled by Christian belief that a "loving god" would embrace
such horror.
Why can't the question be answered forthrightly?
> But the fact remains... God set up THIS PARTICULAR economy of
> salvation. Jesus DIED IN OUR PLACE, and then ROSE AGAIN TO TRIUMPH OVER
> DEATH. And if you refuse to accept this particular plan of salvation
> (for whatever absurd reason you can manufacture), you will pay the
> penalty.
Faith born of fear. Is that the Christian message?
In any case, why SHOULD I believe that? There's certainly no evidence
of it. Or maybe I shouldn't require evidence. Maybe I should have...
faith - just like you.
Brushwork
.
- References:
- Faith and Skepticism
- From: Betty Jo
- Faith and Skepticism
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