Faith-killing questions from the trenches, and answers
Top 10 Reasons to Not Be a Christian
Q & A Session Audio
- “There is no scientific evidence whatsoever of any miracles ever actually occurring.”
- “The Jesus story just is an accumulation of myths of legendary people, all rolled into one über nice guy.”
- “Science and faith are incompatible ways of thinking. Separate realms that should be kept separate.”
- “The history of science is the story of one religious superstition after another being eradicated by reason and logic.”
- “The Bible is a translation of a translation of tales cobbled together by Constantine in 300AD.”
- “St. Paul invented Christianity by making a nice rabbi named Jesus into a god.”
- “Evolution disproves God.”
- “In their arrogant superiority, Christians think everybody else is going to burn in hell for all eternity.”
- “The Bible is riddled with contradictions and therefore cannot be the perfect word of God.”
- “More people have been killed in the name of religion than any other cause in the history of the world.”
This story starts with my brother Bryan, a tough-questions seminary student. He got a Masters degree in theology at a very conservative seminary where they work them real good, and he toed the line and he learned all the stuff that he’s supposed to learn, and he moved to China.
He’s in China for a couple of years and he basically turned into an agnostic and came within spitting distance of becoming an atheist, which really shook me up.
Bryan is a very smart guy, and one of the questions that he asked was this.
He goes, “Okay, Perry, I’ve been to seminary. I know Greek, I know Hebrew, I know Aramaic, and when I read the New Testament I do not see any reason whatsoever from the text why we should not have miracles today. So where are they?
1. “There is no scientific evidence whatsoever of any miracles ever actually occurring.”
And I’m like, “Uh…let me ask my sales manager and get back to you.” I hate it when people ask ‘elephant in the room’ questions.
Now, if you’ve been in any strand of Christianity for any length of time, you will encounter miracle stories. For example, “We prayed for my sister Debbie and she had cancer, and all of a sudden she didn’t have cancer anymore.”
Every now and then, I don’t care where you are in Christianity, you will hear those. I’ve heard a few of them, but I was in very short supply of such stories and I hadn’t thought about it much. I had always been taught that those miracles went away and they either don’t exist anymore, or at least never happen “on command.”
And Bryan’s cutting to the chase; he’s like, “Well, I don’t see any reason why they shouldn’t.” And I knew he was right. So what’s the deal? Let’s start in on this.
I went looking and I’ll teII you that one interesting book that I found along the way was by Richard Casdorph, who is a medical doctor. He wrote a book in the 1970s called Real Miracles. This is an older version of the book. It’s called, The Miracles – A Medical Doctor Says Yes to Miracles.
What this guy did was there was this lady back in the 1970s named Catherine Kuhlman and she would do these healing services. He followed her around and he documented what happened to these people. He documented the “before” and the “after” and he did so with X-rays, medical reports, letters from doctors, all of that kind of stuff. This book is 10 case studies. I’ll tell you what some of the chapter names are:
- Malignant Brain Tumor
- Multiple Sclerosis
- Atherosclerotic Heart Disease
- Carcinoma of the Kidney
- Mixed Rheumatoid Arthritis and Osteoarthritis
And he goes through, one by one, with X-rays, doctor’s reports and everything and says, “This guy had this before and it’s gone now. Here’s the X-ray, here’s the letter from the doctor, and there it is.” This is not by any means the only such book, but they exist.
Another example of this is God and The Sun at Fatima. Catholics will know what Fatima is (probably most Protestants won’t) but I think back somewhere around 1913, just before World War I, some children were playing and they had a vision of the Virgin Mary. She said that something really amazing is going to happen here at this certain date and they told everybody. Everybody showed up and they all saw it.
This book is by Stanley Jaki, who is a physicist and a Catholic priest and a science historian. He goes into 360 pages of interviewing people and documenting all this. This is as close as you can get to a scientific investigation of a miracle.
Another book that I ran across that I found real interesting that isn’t really about miracles but is about the metaphysical world is called Margins of Reality, by Robert Jahn and Brenda Dunne.
They worked at the Princeton University Engineering Anomalies Research Lab. The lab was closed in 2007, but for almost 30 years there was a lab at Princeton and they would investigate paranormal phenomena. And they proved to five 9’s of statistical confidence (that’s almost six Sigma) that people could deflect falling objects by concentrating. They proved that they could send and receive telepathic messages.
Now, most of the scientific community does not know what to do with this stuff. It freaks them out, but it’s there. This is a fascinating book. So I started investigating this, and I also started looking for personal experiences.
A couple of years ago I was in India with my friend, Jeremy. He has spent a lot of time doing healing and practicing Biblical healing. We were at a little church service and Jeremy goes up to the pastor and says, “Tell these people that if they want healing prayer at the end of the service, I’ll pray for them.” So the pastor tells all the people and everyone was like, “Well, okay, I’ll go over there!”
Jeremy was like, “Perry, Perry, come over here and help me!” I’d never done this before. There was a woman whose whole left arm was paralyzed. She had had brain surgery a year and a half before. She had an indentation in her head from the surgery. She had been having seizures ever since the surgery and she had no feeling in her left arm. She wanted us to pray for her.
So Jeremy’s like, “Okay, Perry, start praising God, start praying for this lady!”
I’m like, “Okay, me Robin, you Batman, I’ll do whatever you tell me to do,” and we started praying. He would poke her on the hand – “Can you feel that?”
“No, can’t feel that.”
He’d pray some more and ask, “Can you feel that?”
“I’m starting to feel something!” So he would pray some more and at the end of 20 minutes, all the feeling was back in her left arm. She was so excited, she didn’t know what to do with herself.
A guy came in with a broken wrist, holding it like that; by the end, he was jumping up and down, he was so excited.
There was another lady who had a severe shoulder injury and she couldn’t move her shoulder past about here. I put my arm on her shoulder and I could feel this crunching going on in her shoulder and we prayed for her for about 30 minutes. The crunching was all gone and she was moving her shoulder and she was all excited.
Then I go home and I’m like, “I wonder if this actually stuck. I wonder if it did.” So I emailed this guy and I asked him, “How are these people doing, anyway?”
He said, “In the glorious name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Mr. Perry Marshall, I am so excited to tell you, they are telling everybody they can’t wait for you to come back!”
I said, “Wow, this is great!”
Now, I’ve got to cover 10 of these things in 50 minutes, which is kind of insane, so I don’t have time to go any more. The church that I attend, a Vineyard Church, we practice this.
I of all people know what it’s like to sit here and pray for someone and go, “I feel really stupid! What if this doesn’t work?” You know, sometimes there’s no obvious result, but sometimes there is. You know what? It’s less risky than going to the emergency room.
I have a few friends who actually go to the emergency room every Tuesday night and they pray for people, and trippy stuff happens sometimes. If you want to read some more of these stories, go here. You can read the whole India story in more detail.
This brings up another thing. You know a lot of the people talk about Christians living by faith. Well, I totally understand and agree with that, but I also think that as you mature as a Christian, you live more and more by experience. That faith leads to results which gives you experience, and there’s kind of an upwards spiral and it’s not just like, “Well, you know, life is miserable, but by and by in the sky, someday God’s going to make the world a better place.”
No, it can be now. I think the Kingdom of God is now. I think a lot of Christians kind of have this, “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach to the higher gifts, and I guess the question that I’d like to raise for people that want to take that approach is, well, if we took the New Testament and took all of the miracle stories out, what would we have left?
I think my brother was right. I don’t see any place in this book that says these miracles are supposed to stop. There’s a little challenge for you on that.
Note: For more information on documented healing events, see my extensive article on miracles which includes videos of live healings taking place, links to mainstream media coverage and recent reports in scientific journals. Read and watch here.
2. “The Jesus story is just an accumulation of myths of a legendary people, all rolled into one über-nice guy.
Let me expand on that a little bit. People say, “The God and the Jesus that Christians worship today are actually amalgams formed out of ancient pagan gods. The idea of a virgin birth, a burial in a rock tomb, a resurrection after three days, eating a body, drinking blood, had nothing to do with Jesus.
“All those things were already in other myths and legends before that, so they just took them all and they kind of rolled them into these Jesus stories. So Christianity is a snowball that rolled over a dozen pagan religions and as the snowball grew, it freely attached pagan rituals in order to be more palatable to converts.”
By the way, I got this verbatim from an email that a guy sent me, so I just went and fished one up, and there you go. This is a very common thing. Well, I would like to reduce this to a question, so let’s look at the logical question behind the question.
I think the question is this:
“If a myth precedes a fact, does that make the fact a myth? Does it logically follow?”
Well, let’s take 9/11 as an example. On 9/11/01, as we all know, two planes flew into the Twin Towers. The Last Jihad by Joel Rosenberg, on the first page puts readers into the cockpit of a hijacked jet, on a kamikaze mission into an American city, but it was written nine months before 9/11.
Does that make 9/11 a myth? Or how about Debt of Honor by Tom Clancy. 1996 – a Japanese 747 crashes into the Capitol, killing most of the top functionaries in the U.S. government.
Or here’s a good one – The Lone Gunman TV series. The pilot episode was about an attempt to crash an airliner into the World Trade Center. It was a government conspiracy to increase defense spending by making it look like a terrorist attack. It aired in March 2001.
So the next time someone tells you that Jesus was a myth, ask them this question: “Name one other resurrection story that stuck. Just one.” I don’t know of any. I think there’s a reason for that.
3. “Science and faith are incompatible ways of thinking. They are separate realms that should be kept separate.”
I’ll tell you a little story. Back in the early 20th century there was a great deal of optimism in the mathematical profession that we were closing in on a theory of everything. What mathematicians were looking for was a set of constructions that made all of the propositions of mathematics form a nice, tidy, complete circle.
Let me explain what I mean by this. How many of you took high school geometry and it was stuff like, “This triangle has three equal sides; therefore, it is an Equilateral triangle.” And then you do all these proofs and you work all this logic from it.
Well, if you take that high school geometry book, there are always four or five things that the book starts with as premises that everybody knows are true but no mathematician has ever been able to prove are true.
For example, “We know this is true, no one has ever been able to prove it. We know it’s true because it works and it’s all consistent, but we can’t prove it.” And they were like, “Someday we’re gonna prove it!”
Well, in 1931 a guy named Kurt Gödel proved that it would never happen. And actually, I think that Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem is just as important as Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. Most people have never heard of it, but let me explain what his Incompleteness Theorem says.
This is the kindergarten version. It says, “Anything you can draw a circle around requires something on the outside to explain it, which you cannot prove.” This applies to everything. It applies to a bicycle; if you build a bicycle, the fact that it’s there relies on something outside of the bicycle.
It’s true of a geometry book, a software program, the English language, or the universe. Gödel’s Theorem was a crushing blow to mathematicians. It was as if they realized, “You mean, we’re never going to make everything flow into a perfect circle?” No. Can’t be done.
Actually, the universe is like an MC Escher painting where you climb up the steps and all of a sudden you’re at the bottom again. There’s a book called Gödel Escher Bach, which takes Gödel’s Theorem, Escher’s paintings, and Bach’s music and shows how they’re all basically the same.
For instance, in Bach’s music the notes escalate and they go up and up and somehow all of a sudden it starts with bass notes again and you didn’t even notice. What does this have to do with the question, “Science and faith are incompatible ways of thinking”?
Gödel’s Theorem says that you cannot do science without faith; it’s impossible. You start with a fact – “I know this because of this, and I know this because of this,” you always go back to some fact that you can’t prove.
Now, what does science do? Science says, “If I drop this cup from my hand onto the ground, it’s going to fall every time. Only past experience shows that to be true. I cannot prove that it’s going to fall again. I always have to rely on some assumption that I can’t prove in science.”
One little extra thing I want to throw in here; the statement that, “Science and faith are incompatible ways of thinking, separate ways of thinking that should be kept separate,” is that a scientific statement?
No, it’s a philosophical statement.
Even a statement about keeping science and philosophy separate requires philosophy. And the statement itself presumes that philosophy gets to say something about science.
That’s exactly what Gödel was talking about.
I’ve written a much more thorough treatment of Gödel’s Incompleteness theorem here: http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com/blog/incompleteness/
4. “The history of science is the story of one religious superstition after another being eradicated by reason and logic.”
I want you to think about something:
Where did science come from?
If you study the history of science, you’ll find out that it got started in Greece and didn’t go anywhere. It got started in Rome and it fizzled out and didn’t go anywhere. It got started in ancient Egypt and in China – didn’t really go anywhere there either. It got started in Islam, and every time in those places, it stalled.
Why did it succeed in Europe after failing everywhere else? We all know it launched there and took off like a rocket.
Here’s why I think it happened. In the Apocrypha, the part of the Bible that the Catholics read and the Protestants don’t, Wisdom of Solomon 11:21 says:
“Thou hast ordered all things in weight and number and measure.”
I submit to you that this verse is where science started. That all things are weigh-able, measurable and countable. That there’s a systematic explanation for what goes on in the universe. So far as I know, no one else in the ancient world made a more definite statement about science than Solomon did right here.
Western Christianity believed that the universe was governed by fixed, discoverable laws, and that’s what gave birth to science. The reason that science succeeded in the West and failed in all those other places was that in all those other places, there was no theological basis to believe this.
If you believe that it rained today because Zeus is in a snit with Apollo, how are you going to come up with a systematic explanation that doesn’t invoke some kind of arbitrary, whimsical source?
Christian theology believed that God could create the world and then on the seventh day that He could rest and the universe would continue to do what He told it to do. Therefore, the great scientists viewed the study of science as a way of studying the mind of God.
I would rewrite the question to say this: “The history of science is a story of faith in a harmonious universe being rewarded in weight, number, and measure.”
1,000 years ago you couldn’t take that for granted. Now we all take it for granted, because we figured it out.
5. “The Bible is a translation of a translation of tales cobbled together by Constantine in 300 AD.”
People make a lot out of this. Constantine got everybody together and they hammered out what they agreed was going to be the Bible. “You know, we just don’t buy these books, we’re going to keep them.” A lot of people have this idea that this is when the Bible that we have today came to exist.
I want to show you a book that will correct that notion. This is called Faith of the Early Fathers by Jurgens. I have to mention here that this is another Catholic book. I was raised Protestant. I was a preacher’s kid. We were uber-studious Protestants. We took ourselves real seriously. Some of you know what I’m talking about – “Oh, that kind…starchy!”
We thought that Catholics were bad people. You know, “Go tell them how bad they are!” Well, then I grew up and my brother-in-law, Alan, studies church history. He gets a Ph.D. in church history at Iowa State, not some conservative place.
He went to Iowa State because they had the biggest and best library he could find on church history.
It turned out that most of his professors were atheists. To get a dissertation pushed through these guys was a Herculean task. But he and I would talk about theological stuff, and it was kind of funny because every time I would raise some theological question, he would always say something like, “Well, yeah, the first people to probe that question in detail were the monks in Western Italy in 800 AD and what they said was…” and he’d go off on something.
Anything you could come up with, someone had already thought about it and written about 1,200 books on it. I thought Christianity started all over again with Martin Luther after this burned-out period…oh, come on! Heavens, no.
So this is a Catholic book. I have great respect for Catholics and Catholic theologians and all that. I know somebody will probably want to get in a fist fight about that with me at the end, but I’m telling you anyway.
This book is a collection of all of the earliest writings, and actually there’s three of them. I just brought the first one. It starts at about 80 AD and it’s letters from all these guys that ran churches. Letters from pastors to their congregations, and letters to disciples from their mentors, and it ends somewhere around St. Hilaire of Poitier and St. Cyril of Jerusalem. I don’t know what year this was, probably about 400-500 AD, and it starts at 80.
It goes in order, so you can read 80 AD and then you can read 110 AD and then you can read 125 AD and 300 AD and so forth. In every chapter there are footnotes of the Bible verses they’re quoting. It’s exactly the same.
Pastor Bill Hybels at Willow Creek could use this to preach a sermon out of any page in this book and it would be just fine. It would be scriptural and it would be original Christianity, no different than we have today. Most of these early letters sound an awful lot like the New Testament letters that Paul wrote.
Anyone that tells you that Christianity started in 300 AD is just as ridiculous as saying it started in 1517 when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door.
6. “St. Paul invented Christianity by making a rabbi named Jesus into God. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were just later fabrications.”
Obviously, the book that I just talked to you about does speak to that, because you can go all the way back to 80 AD and you have a whole body of literature that’s already telling a consistent story.
What’s usually said is that Paul wrote his letters in 40-50 AD and the Gospels were written in 60 – 90 AD and that’s too long. All of these myths would have accrued, so yes, Jesus was probably just this radical guy and he had these radical teachings and then they wanted him to be God and so they made the story about Him being God, and the people were so desperate and oppressed by the Romans that they found it believable – well, let’s do a comparison.
Paul Tibbetts was the pilot of the Enola Gay, which was the plane that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima in 1945. He wrote a book in 1998, shortly before he died, called Return of the Enola Gay. How many years after 1945 is that? Fifty-three years after the bomb was dropped.
I found this book at my father-in-law’s house because he’s into World War II. You go over there and he always has The History Channel on. I started thumbing through this book, and the reason Tibbetts wrote the book was to correct revisionist history.
Revisionist history said, “If we had just been a little nicer to the Japanese, we should have just gone over there and talked to them, and they would’ve…”
Tibbetts is saying, “No! Let’s get this straight.” He goes into extensive detail about the political situation and all this stuff that was going on behind the scenes. He tells what it was like to get in that plane, what it was like to let the bomb loose and go into a 135 degree angle and feel the shock wave from the bomb and the brilliant flash of light and think, “Oh my word, what did I just do?” and all that.
Now, does anybody doubt that his autobiography tells you more or less accurately what happened? Is anybody going to reasonably doubt that he doesn’t remember what happened, 53 years later? I don’t think so!
So if Jesus died in 33, what’s 53 years out from 33 – isn’t that 86? That’s like getting to the outside limit of when they said the Gospels were written.
Is there any reason to think that the Gospels were any less reliable?
Considering there are four of them and considering they don’t all perfectly line up or quote everybody verbatim the same way, they don’t all tell stories the same way – four independent accounts – can anyone reasonably think that the Gospels are any less reliable than his story? I don’t think so.
And if you compare it to other things in history, a lot of those things were written even further after the fact than that. I would like to point to the consistency of early teachings about Jesus and raise the question: Why do substantially different teachings about Jesus only appear after 150-200 years? Isn’t that kind of what you would expect?
I rest my case.
7. “Evolution disproves God.”
That’s a good one. I like that one. I have a question for you. Who knows what that is? DOS – how many of you have used DOS somewhere in your early childhood? This is a screenshot of DOS 3.0, 3.3, which is about 1985. You all remember DOS:
C:> dir
C:> dir /w
C:> format c:
When you tried to format the hard drive, did it say “Are you sure?” I don’t remember. Early versions did.
Now here we have Windows XP with Internet Explorer, which is about 2005. Let me ask you a question: let’s say that DOS never got modified by the guys in Redmond, Washington and it evolved into Windows XP all by itself.
Imagine that DOS adapted, that it had a capability built in to where it would sense that it needed an Internet connection and it needed a web browser and it needed Outlook, and that it needed a mouse and updates and antivirus software. And let’s say that it would rearrange its code and then test different versions with some version of natural selection until the pieces started to work.
Did that happen? No. If DOS had actually evolved all by itself, off without any exterior tampering, tinkering or code writing from any software engineers, and it had just done that, would you be more or less impressed with the person who wrote the first DOS program?
You would go, “How did you do that?” You could go to China and for $2 you can buy a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of Windows. All those versions, especially the ones in China, they don’t have the little 3D thing on them. It’s grey and it has Magic Marker on it ‘Windows XP’.
Now, the copies of copies of copies of copies, they all had mutations, didn’t they? And the marketplace had a chance to select them. Does anyone know of copies of Windows that were better because of the mutations?
No.
Now, I just tried to apply the usual theory of evolution to DOS and everybody got a chuckle out of it. First of all, everything that evolves that we have any experience with, evolves because of some ability to do so or some kind of design or something acting upon it.
At the very least, if we’re going to even imagine that DOS could have evolved into Windows XP, we have to imagine that it has some kind of special program inside that’s ready and willing to rearrange all the pieces.
You know what? I am totally open to the possibility that God planted a cell in the ocean and that cell had some kind of magnificent program that could eventually evolve into everything that’s on Planet Earth. I am open to that.
And if that happened, then God is even more impressive than the version of God that says, “Well, OK, now we need apes, so let’s put an ape there, and now we need people, so let’s put a person there..”
I’m not trying to get into some debate about Genesis 1; this is simply an engineering argument. If evolution is true, then God is even more impressive than they thought God was before anyone thought of evolution!
8. “In their arrogant superiority, Christians think everybody else is going to burn in hell for all eternity.”
Let’s get the most riling questions out on the table. I want to point some scriptures out to you. Little things are kind of tucked in there that are easy to miss.
John 15:22 – Jesus says, “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. Now, however, they have no excuse for their sin.” Hmm, that’s interesting.
Luke 11:30 – Jesus said, “The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them, for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon’s wisdom and now one greater than Solomon is here.”
Let’s look at this again. “The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them” – so what does this tell you about judgment? This isn’t like some cowering guy staring at God, getting pounded; this is anybody who has anything to say about what he knew, didn’t know, did and what he did not do, and what they did perhaps in a comparable situation.
Let’s look at this one. Matthew 11:21 – “Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.”
Well? That’s a statement about two people, now, isn’t it? “Tyre and Sidon would have believed if they had Me.” Do you think that gets taken into consideration? I think so.
Acts 17:29 – Paul refers to idol worship and he says, “In the past, God overlooked such ignorance, but now He commands all people everywhere to repent.”
Now, this always comes up, somebody always says, “Well, what about the guy in Africa that never heard about Jesus?” They’re like, “I have to get this guy figured out before I decide if I’m going to go for this Jesus thing. I’m not sure if this is fair. I think this is all a setup. What about all these people?”
Here’s my concern: If you’re that guy, I’m not real worried about him. Not that the missionaries shouldn’t go talk to him and all that. In the Great Commission – “Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature” – God told us to do that for a reason.
This is just my opinion, but I suspect that guy in Africa, he has no missionary, Bible, or anything, I think if he looks up in the sky and goes, “Somebody made all this, whoever You are, I’d like to know you,” I think God can respect that prayer.
What I’m concerned about is that guy will rise up in the judgment and testify against the guy who used him as an excuse. If you look at all of these verses, the theme is, “Hey, guys, you knew an awful lot. What did you do with it?”
“If Tyre and Sidon had seen what you have seen, they would have repented in sackcloth and ashes.” The people he was talking to saw a lot. They saw the dead raised, they saw the blind see.
9. “The Bible is riddled with contradictions and therefore cannot be the perfect word of God.”
I’m going to take an interesting approach with this. I brought with me three different versions of the Bible. I’ve got a King James New Testament, a New Living Translation Bible and a New American Standard. I could have brought an NIV, but all you guys probably have one, because that’s kind of the popular Bible translation.
Do they all read the same? No.
I had to sign this thing before I came that I understood that Willow Creek has a doctrinal statement. One of the things in the thing that I had to sign was that I understand that Willow Creek says that the scriptures are inerrant in their original writings. That’s a very common thing that you’ll find in the Protestant church, that scriptures are inerrant in their original writings.
Do we have the originals? No. What we have are thousands of Greek manuscripts and there are slight differences with some of them. You could make a whole little tree of this copying error and that. You could put it all together and we could open all three of these Bibles up to John 5 or Ezekiel 34 or Revelation 12 or any book and we could read them side by side.
And rather than getting 12 decimal places of precision, I think what we get is more like there’s an outer edge on one side or the other on how you can interpret something, and then there’s something sort of in the middle.
Maybe the King James seems to be here and maybe the NIV seems to be here, and maybe the Catholic Bible seems to be here. But they’re all kind of within this range of variation. So there’s some wiggle room, not like 12 decimals of precision, but more like maybe two.
No matter what Bible you read, did Jesus rise from the dead in all of them? Is adultery a sin in all of them? Is it not all right to lie, cheat, and steal in all of them? Is there a debate between predestination and free will in all of them? Yes.
I had this realization one day; “Hey, wait a minute! I don’t have to sit here and nitpick every last verse that some skeptic wants to pick a fight with me about and make me explain everything that doesn’t quite seem to fit together, because you know what? This is like a puzzle that you’re trying to put together and some of the edges are fuzzy and I can’t put it perfectly together. And that’s all right.”
I was emailing back and forth with an atheist and he’s quibbling about the different tomb stories of the Resurrection. I don’t think they contradict each other, but in order to make them fit, you have to make a couple of assumptions before they fit.
He’s trying to duke it out and I said, “I don’t feel like defending the idea that the Bible is infallible. I’ll just say for today that I have four stories that were pretty close! So what do you think?”
He didn’t know what to do.
I said, “Well, Jesus died on the cross, you are a sinner, God created the world, 12 disciples went out and preached. The story’s pretty clear. How many of these little nit picky things from the New Testament that you brought up because you found them on some website do you have to get all straight before you get the big picture here?”
Try this on for size; the Bible is the word of God with a lower case w. But if we’re going to use a capital W, what is the Word of God? Jesus! Jesus is the Word of God. The Bible is the written testimony, inspired by the Holy Spirit, testifying to the Word of God. There’s a verse that says, “No one can confess Jesus Christ is Lord apart from the Holy Spirit.”
Let’s not put the Bible above the Holy Spirit.
You realize if you want to sort out all those puzzle pieces, you need the Holy Spirit to help you do it. And a person who does not have the Holy Spirit is not even going to be willing to do that. That’s why they’re arguing with you.
So when I get in these debates, I say, “Let’s just assume that this is like any other piece of history. Someone wrote it down as best they could, and here we have it. Let’s make a judgment from what’s in front of us. So what do you think?”
Did they just make all this up? Like perhaps, Jesus didn’t really die; they pried him off the cross and he was almost dead and then he was in the tomb, and people in the Middle East had these clever ways of reviving almost dead people and then he popped out. He looked so good, he looked like Superman, and everybody said, “Wow! You’re the Son of God!” Yeah, that’s what happened! Sure, that’s what happened!
Guys that are pulled off crosses when they’re almost dead always inspire people three days later to like change the world! That’s what happened!
Sorry, I’m getting a little sidetracked… here’s a fun one:
10. “More people have been killed in the name of religion than any other cause in the history of the world.”
Let me show you a book, called The Black Book of Communism. How many of you think this is cheery? Oh, yeah, if you’re feeling a little too good today, just read this one. This book documents the genocide of 160 million people in the 20th century alone – mostly by atheist governments.
Remember the Cultural Revolution under Chairman Mao? Well, that was a great period in China’s history, wasn’t it? How about Stalin? Oh boy, Stalin loved children. Yep, that guy just loved puppy dogs and children. He was such a nice man. 160 million people! Do you realize that’s more people than all the religious wars of the whole history of the world put together?
Some people say, “Well, it was just a coincidence that they were atheists.” All right, well, you can believe whatever you want to believe, but there does seem to be a correlation. Let’s recognize the question behind the question.
First of all, I don’t think you can overstate just how dangerous a worldview atheism actually is. I’m sure there are atheists here, and I’m glad that you’re here and you’re welcome.
When my brother slid into his faith crisis, I wanted to argue with him and he wouldn’t; and I’m not sure that would have been the healthiest thing if we had argued. I think it was probably a good idea that he declined, but I was ready to go. In truth, he was dragging me with him. I was scared because he was raising all kinds of questions.
I started going to Willow Creek 15 years ago and I started leading Seeker Small Groups. Those groups are where people who do not necessarily believe the Bible or Christianity get together at a table, and so every other Sunday for a couple of years I got seekers in there pummeling me with questions, and I thought I’d heard everything. Well, when Bryan and the Internet came along, I had no longer seen everything!
It was intense. Bryan was asking all kinds of penetrating questions and I was going to all these websites and it was like walking into machine gun fire. One of the things that I did was decide that I had to duke this out. So I started this website, www.CoffeehouseTheology.com, and it has emails that you can sign up for and see what it’s all about, if you like. If people replied to the emails, the emails came back to me.
The reason I did that was that I wanted to know if enough people came through the website and sent me emails, if Christianity cannot stand up to the test, I was going to find out! I decided that I was going to take everyone on and I was going to see if someone can punch a hole in this thing. And there were some scary moments. I was like, “Oh my goodness, these are big questions!”
I probably answered 10,000 emails during the last 6 years. There have been a LOT of people and a lot of conversations. The first thing I’ll tell you is that nobody’s punched a hole in Christianity. I think it stands up very well. If you have a question, there’s a book or website or something that has a good answer to it.
Here’s the other thing; nobody comes out swinging like the new breed of atheist like followers of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and all of those guys. These guys are furious! People talk about Muslims being extreme? Well, I get emails from a lot of Muslims and none of them come out swinging like the atheists do. They’re angry. And Richard Dawkins says things like, “Teaching your children that there is a God who would reward or punish you, people that do that are worse than child molesters.” That’s what he says.
It’s a war. What’s the track record? 160 million dead people. Now, this is not a battle of guns, because the pen is mightier than the sword. This is a battle of the pen. This is a battle of truth and belief systems. I think Christians have a moral obligation to know what’s going on, because if you don’t know what’s going on, you’ll get picked off by a skeptic.
The reason we have science today is because Christianity said there is a logical rational universe that was designed by an intelligent Creator. And the reason we have democracy is because Paul said, “There is neither male nor female, Jew nor Greek, slave nor free; all are equal in Christ Jesus.”
The most cherished Western values come from Christianity. Don’t surrender them to someone who has an axe to grind.
Reply to Carlos comments on October 7, 2010
Hello Carlos, thank you for your comments. I hope our discussions were useful to the viewers.
I tried to demonstrate a consistent world view. We could continue that, but it seems you are tired, so let’s end that topic and start to discuss based on your beliefs.
Now, based on an atheistic thinking, would you please tell me how a researcher can DEMONSTRATE the presence of the Creator of the world (Whom is not sensed physically and has no limits; Who do not desire as we like or expect; Who does what He desires in our world through physical and metaphysical means)? Just assume He MAY exit.
Regards, Kooros
P.S.: Carlos, please respond more rational than saying: “The ONLY possibility to absolutely solve this issue is god appearing and saying: “Hey guys. Here I am. Do you like the DNA I designed?” So, try to convince him to appear.”
Hello, Kooros Hamze:
“Reply to Carlos comments on October 7, 2010
“Hello Carlos, thank you for your comments. I hope our discussions were useful to the viewers.
“I tried to demonstrate a consistent world view. We could continue that, but it seems you are tired, so let’s end that topic and start to discuss based on your beliefs.
“Now, based on an atheistic thinking, would you please tell me how a researcher can DEMONSTRATE the presence of the Creator of the world (Whom is not sensed physically and has no limits;
((Neither a researcher, nor a scientific investigator can demonstrate god existence because it is undetectable. Because, AS YOU SAY, IT IS NOT PHISICALLY SENSED. That’s all. End of question. Put aside your idea of your god for a while. How would you demonstrate the existence of the immaterial, undetectable and always smiling Flying Hippopotamus? It is the same.))
“Who do not desire as we like or expect; Who does what He desires in our world through physical and metaphysical means)?” ((Sorry, I can’t understand what are you meaning here))
“Just assume He MAY exist. ((But assuming he MAY exists doesn’t imply a truth at all. It is nothing more than a mere conjecture. And I want truth as other truths I base on every day: life, death, love, gravity, existence, creativity, crime, beauty, birds, flowers, evolution, friendship, absurdities, chaos, wars, inexistence, electromagnetism, poetry, etc.))
“Regards, Kooros
“P.S.: Carlos, please respond more rational than saying: “The ONLY possibility to absolutely solve this issue is god appearing and saying: “Hey guys. Here I am. Do you like the DNA I designed?” So, try to convince him to appear.”
((OK!!! Then, solve this please:
Let’s say there is certain kind of machine or apparatus that, as usual, has its “ON” “OFF” button. The button is in “OFF” and machine has never run before. There are two groups of people. One of them argues the machine is unable to run. The other group argues the machine is able to run. Let’s suppose every group has EQUALLY good and reasonable arguments and because of that there is not a “winner” and discussion goes on and on and on.
CAN YOU GUESS WHAT CAN BE DONE THAT FOR EVER ENDS THIS DISCUSSION?))
Greetings
Carlos
Hello, Kooros Hamze:
One more comment:
Let’s suppose the universe is X².
There are two groups of people with different and MUTUALLY EXCLUDING EXPLANATIONS for existence of universe.
A group says the origin of universe is (X)
The other group says it is (-X)
So, one group explains it as (X).(X) = X², and the other as (-X). (-X) = X²
That means ((X).(X)) = ((-X).(-X)) = X²
Now, how do YOU know (not by faith, please) the unique and true solution?
Greetings
Carlos
Re: Carlos comment on October 17, 2010 at 4:45 pm
“Let’s suppose the universe is X².”
I do not follow you! Is it just playing with letters or a logical term?
“There are two groups of people with different and MUTUALLY EXCLUDING EXPLANATIONS for existence of universe.
A group says the origin of universe is (X)
The other group says it is (-X) ”
OK!
“So, one group explains it as (X).(X) = X², and the other as (-X). (-X) = X² ”
Sorry, I do not follow your logic! Are you multiplying a logical expression (X) by itself?
“That means ((X).(X)) = ((-X).(-X)) = X² ”
This is meaningful only for numbers!
“Now, how do YOU know (not by faith, please) the unique and true solution?”
Do you mean that there is no way to conceive the presence of the Creator?
Regards,
Kooros
Re: Carlos comment on October 17, 2010 at 4:06 pm
Hello Carlos, Thank you for your detailed replay.
Well, I feel you do not like to enter a methodological argument.
We usually make a hypothesis (false or true) and then prove or reject it.
Our hypothesis is “we are at the presence of our Creator”.
OK. I understand that you mean there is no way to find God, so you cannot suggest any test to know Him.
You asked: ” CAN YOU GUESS WHAT CAN BE DONE THAT FOR EVER ENDS THIS DISCUSSION?”
Let me help.
How can we evaluate the truth of the NOT PHYSICALLY SENSED statement: “I love you!”?
Also,
Suppose you find an unexpected gift on your desk with a note “for dear Carlos”.
How to detect that the cause is either “evolution, nature, accident, . . ” or ” a kind friend whom you have completely forgotten”?
I think the answer to these types of routine simple questions will end your discussion.
Wish you the best.
Regards,
Kooros
Hello Kooros Hamze:
Author: Kooros Hamze
Comment:
Re: Carlos comment on October 17, 2010 at 4:06 pm
Hello Carlos, Thank you for your detailed replay.
Well, I feel you do not like to enter a methodological argument.
((You are right))
We usually make a hypothesis (false or true) and then prove or reject it.
((Why instead don’t you ask a question first at all: “Is there any god”? Or, “Can I know if there is a god?))
Our hypothesis is “we are at the presence of our Creator”.
((OK. Prove it. And why not this hypothesis: “We are not at the presence of a Creator”??))
OK. I understand that you mean there is no way to find God, so you cannot suggest any test to know Him.
((That’s what I mean!))
You asked: “CAN YOU GUESS WHAT CAN BE DONE THAT FOR EVER ENDS THIS DISCUSSION?”
Let me help.
How can we evaluate the truth of the NOT PHYSICALLY SENSED statement: “I love you!”?
((That statement IS PHYSICALLY SENSED: It is heard, read, looked, felt as hug, a kiss or a caress, etc. If not physically sensed by me, I can’t be aware of it. Its truth or falsehood is given by actions of producer of the message))
Also,
Suppose you find an unexpected gift on your desk with a note “for dear Carlos”.
How to detect that the cause is either “evolution, nature, accident. . . ” or ” a kind friend whom you have completely forgotten”?
((It must be searched. I may reach an answer or not. But THERE IS NO MYSTERIES ABOUT. If somebody says that’s the case he is wrong: I have an objective EVIDENCE that something happened: the gift and the note. But THERE IS NOT SUCH A SIMPLE EVIDENCE OF GOD))
I think the answer to these types of routine simple questions will end your discussion.
((The answer to this type of discussion is easy: push the button to “ON” and look what happens))
Wish you the best.
Comment:
Re: Carlos comment on October 17, 2010 at 4:45 pm
“Let’s suppose the universe is X².”
I do not follow you! Is it just playing with letters or a logical term?
“There are two groups of people with different and MUTUALLY EXCLUDING EXPLANATIONS for existence of universe.
A group says the origin of universe is (X)
The other group says it is (-X)”
OK!
“So, one group explains it as (X).(X) = X², and the other as (-X). (-X) = X²”
Sorry, I do not follow your logic! Are you multiplying a logical expression (X) by itself?
((No. “X²” is “certain” number. Its value doesn’t matter here))
“That means ((X).(X)) = ((-X).(-X)) = X² ”
This is meaningful only for numbers!
(( And for “God” and “No God” too))
“Now, how do YOU know (not by faith, please) the unique and true solution?”
Do you mean that there is no way to conceive the presence of the Creator?
(You can CONCEIVE that creator. What you can’t do is to PROVE IT or choosing between “God” or “No God”. Or else, prove it))
((This comment is an example of an elemental second degree equation. You can find it in any book of elemental math. Such type of equations has TWO solutions. No matter what objections were raised, both solutions (one and its contrary) solve the problem and BOTH SOLUTIONS ARE EQUALLY GOOD SOLUTIONS. What I mean is: From an “existential” point of view, facing the universe and how reality works, and logically talking, “GOD” and “NO GOD” are equally good, licit and useful answers. From logic, the problem hasn’t only one solution. My personal solution is: Nothing in surrounding reality suggest of any god. So, for me, no god))
((One more thing: I asked you before you showed a failure in my atheistic way of thinking. You didn’t it. Later, I asked you guessed how the problem of discussions about machine could be solved for ever, and you didn’t it. Instead of that, you come with the hypothesis of “we are at the presence of our Creator”, but you didn’t prove it. Now, you came with the “NOT PHYSICALLY SENSED” and I answer you in similar way as before regarding certain “not materialistic agent (or so)” in the Universe. To me, you aren’t being serious or you are very, very afraid of realizing certain facts: God doesn’t exist, or Gods existence is not logically provable and your claims and your religion are empty, nothing, and the only thing you have is “faith” (but no truth) wishes, feelings and hope, no more. If not, then PROVE ANYTHING, PLEASE and stop revolving and revolving around the same point once and again.
Greetings
Carlos
Dear Carlos,
Thank you for your explanations.
I enjoy our discussion and I believe each of us who find new things and change his view, gains more and in fact he is the real winner!
I suggest ending the tricky logical multiplication of
“NO God” times “NO God” = YES God² !
Let’s concentrate on searching for the truth through realistic arguments.
Regarding the detection of non- materialistic causes, please compare and judge about the following statements, quoted from your previous comments.
Carlos says: October 1, 2010 at 11:41 am:
“A non materialistic (not physical) cause must be proved as existing. And, how could a non-materialistic “thing” cause or have any effect on a materialistic one (the same for spirits, “entities”, geniuses, ghosts, etc.)?”
Carlos says: October 23, 2010 at 12:57 am
“That statement (I love you) IS PHYSICALLY SENSED: It is heard, read, looked, felt as hug, a kiss or a caress, etc. If not physically sensed by me, I can’t be aware of it. Its truth or falsehood is given by actions of producer of the message”
Regarding the following example:
Kooros Hamze says: October 20, 2010 at 10:38 am
“Suppose you find an unexpected gift on your desk with a note “for dear Carlos”.
How to detect that the cause is either “evolution, nature, accident. . . ” or ” a kind friend whom you have completely forgotten”?”
Carlos says: October 23, 2010 at 12:57 am
“It must be searched. I may reach an answer or not. But THERE IS NO MYSTERIES ABOUT.”
Please think over your answer. Do you really mean “It must be searched (to find out the cause is a person or evolution)?!
Based on repeated experiences (not faith), the gift is from some one (not evolution, etc.) There are no mysteries in this conclusion.
There are countless number of cases of thoughtful intelligent designs all around us (you know many of them) which by no means can happen by evolution.
You insist: “PROVE ANYTHING, PLEASE”. Well, I cannot force anyone to accept the true physical reasons, because man is created free (of course not through evolution)! It is up to you to accept or not.
I wish you change your view,
Kooros
Hello, Kooros Hamze:
Author: Kooros Hamze 25 -10-10
Comment:
Dear Carlos,
Thank you for your explanations.
I enjoy our discussion and I believe each of us who find new things and change his view, gains more and in fact he is the real winner!
((I don’t think about “winners”))
I suggest ending the tricky logical multiplication of
“NO God” times “NO God” = YES God² !
((What you do implies (+God) x (+God) = – (God²) = NO God².
It is not a tricky multiplication. It is about points of view contrary and equally logic or licit. It means: from logic, both arguments are equal, licit, defendable, consistent, etc. And, none of them demonstrate existence or inexistence of a god.))
Let’s concentrate on searching for the truth through realistic arguments.
((The “X²” is a realistic and non dogmatic argument. Obviously you didn’t catch it))
Regarding the detection of non- materialistic causes, please compare and judge about the following statements, quoted from your previous comments.
Carlos says: October 1, 2010 at 11:41 am:
“A non materialistic (not physical) cause must be proved as existent. And, how could a non-materialistic “thing” cause or have any effect on a materialistic one (the same for spirits, “entities”, geniuses, ghosts, etc.)?”
((Yes. A non materialistic (non physical) cause, besides of being merely postulated or guessed, must be proved, sensed, measured, etc. By definition a non materialistic agent-cause doesn’t affect any apparatus or instruments; it will be never detected, so it will be always inexistent, no matter you name it god, ghost, gin, spirit, etc.))
Carlos says: October 23, 2010 at 12:57 am
“That statement (I love you) IS PHYSICALLY SENSED: It is heard, read, looked, felt as hug, a kiss or a caress, etc. If not physically sensed by me, I can’t be aware of it. Its truth or falsehood is given by actions of producer of the message”
Regarding the following example:
Kooros Hamze says: October 20, 2010 at 10:38 am
“Suppose you find an unexpected gift on your desk with a note “for dear Carlos”.
How to detect that the cause is either “evolution, nature, accident. . . ” or ” a kind friend whom you have completely forgotten”?”
((1) “Accident”. Facts that involve masses heavier than 1gr, lets say, happen not by accident but by causes. So a gift plus a note is not an accident, their cause can be found.
2) (Evolution= Nature) produces living systems. Some of that evolved living systems are named “friends”. Then the problem is find which one of those living systems left the gift. That’s all. Not impossible))
Carlos says: October 23, 2010 at 12:57 am
“It must be searched. I may reach an answer or not. But THERE IS NO MYSTERIES ABOUT.” ((Already explained))
Please think over your answer. Do you really mean “It must be searched (to find out the cause is a person or evolution)?! ((Yes. I really mean that. Gift and note could be for other Carlos, not me. It could be a joke of “Surprise Camera”, I must check if I really know the “sender”, I must investigate if it is really a gift and not a commercial promotion or publicity, etc. ))
Based on repeated experiences (not faith), the gift is from some one (not evolution, etc.) There are no mysteries in this conclusion. ((Yours is not a “conclusion” of any process because you give yourself an answer or “explanation” based only in your first sight, without further investigation. There are no mysteries when after a search an answer is found))
There are countless number of cases of thoughtful intelligent designs all around us (you know many of them) which by no means can happen by evolution.(( Sorry, I don’t know those))
((Let’s talk about “intelligent design”. Examining certain things -DNA molecule, bacterial flagellum, structure and functions of living systems, etc- you conclude: “This is complex in excess to have emerged from natural processes. Then it must be designed, so a designer exists. For doing those, the designer must be highly intelligent, powerful, etc. A very, very special being.
Now, where do you find a very special being like that? Do you pick up him in the field, or take one from a tree, or buy one in a shop? Does he usually appear as a result of natural processes? Obviously no, that was never verified. So, the only logic conclusion is the designer must have been designed by somebody even more intelligent, powerful etc, than him! And so on.
Can you see where this conjecture of intelligent design drives you?))
You insist: “PROVE ANYTHING, PLEASE”. Well, I cannot force anyone to accept the true physical reasons, because man is created free (of course not through evolution)! It is up to you to accept or not.
((CONCLUSION: you proved nothing, never, from starting to now. You say you cannot force people. I guess it is because you really can’t prove only one of your claims because you don’t know how to do that or because they are plainly improvable by themselves, then fairy tales, fables, mere noise.
Many times I proposed you something like a logic problem in order you devised (or tried to) a solution or realized there was not a solution or more than one solution. And you didn’t solve them nor tried. Or even you didn’t understood what I was talking about, as for “the X² problem”, which you didn’t even recognize as an elemental equation. So, instead of having an interesting dialog with developing ideas going to any kind of conclusion, what you did is every time show a new (and no proved) proposition or claim. So at last I become deadly bored. I don’t have any interest in continuing this and I will cut my notes. I put an end to this. By the way, I suggest you read some atheistic sites in order to realize “the atheistic way of thinking”))
I wish you change your view ((You better don’t hope that))
Good luck
Carlos
Hello Carlos,
You finished your reply saying I better do not hope that you change your view.
There were people who were at the presence of Jesus and witnessed many of his miracles, yet did not accept and follow his guidance. Even they tried to kill him! In fact I should thank you for your tolerance.
When we die and enter the next stage of our life, our spirits exist without materialistic body, we lose our deep connections and relations with the present life, we start new experiences and, we like it or not, our views will be changed.
Regards,
Kooros
Hello, Kooros Hamze:
Comment:
Hello Carlos,
You finished your reply saying I better do not hope that you change your view.
There were people who were at the presence of Jesus ((The whole existence of Jesus as a historical character is theme of discussion. One of the most suggestive facts is the absence of written testimonies contemporary with Jesus, in a people that was used to write almost anything)) and witnessed many of his miracles (( May it be that supposed miracles weren’t so?)), yet did not accept and follow (( Should they?)) his guidance. Even they tried to kill him! ((And didn’t Jesus do a self critic regarding his relation with that people?)) In fact I should thank you for your tolerance. ((Please, don’t mention it))
When we die and enter the next stage of our life, our spirits exist without materialistic body, we lose our deep connections and relations with the present life, we start new experiences and, we like it or not, our views will be changed. ((THEN, not before, if that happens and if you still remember mi, the earthly atheistic, I’ll say you: “Kooros, you was right and I was wrong. I invite you a drink”))
Greetings
Carlos
Thank you for your offer,Carlos! I am sure we will remember everything.
I wish all of us live so righteous in this world that we have very nice and pleasant situation in the next stage of our lives. I wish to be only with such people then.
Dear Perry,Greetings.I have specifically enjoyed reading all that you have to offer(some of which I still have to read).I am a Christian psychiatrist and am well aware of some of the debates going on:Creation/Evolution/Organised religion being the mischievous element of true spirituality/Problem with healing compaigns even though God has been healing in his wisdom as He decides/Problems with the Faith Movement/Legalism and so on and on.I do have a few questions and also afew personal things to share,perhaps even prayers to request.But right now I am in the process of moving to Botswana for a 2 year sabbatical from Christian Medical College,Ludhiana(up in Punjab,India) in the next 2-3 weeks and so I am not feeling free to write about anything in detail.Once settled in Botswana and having the internet connection there,I will resume contact and even have some good discussions.Till then please pray that we may have a smooth shift over.Many many thanks for that and the brilliant write ups.
Lol, who would want to to go on a intensive diet ,haha?. Eat however much you like, just dun forget to keep fit
The earth nurtures us and feeds us like a mother. It is our mother and we should love it like our mother. It gives us its beauty without condition and its beauty uplifts us. Yet we abuse it. The earth is yielding and long suffering yet how do we reward such patience?
“I have been a foolish, greedy and ignorant man;
yet I have had my time beneath the sun and stars; I have known the returning strength and sweetness of the seasons;
Blossom on the branch and the ripening of fruit,
The deep rest of the grass, the salt of the sea,
The frozen ecstacy of the mountains.
The Earth is nobler than the world we have built upon it;
The Earth is long suffering, solid, fruitful;
The World still shifting, dark, half evil.
But what have I done that I should have a better world,
Even though there is in me something that will not rest until it sees Paradise.” J.B. Priestley – Johnson Over Jordan.
Reply to Carlos.
Hi
Lets get this straight. My major objection to what you are saying is not that I disagree with you, it is the *way you misunderstand* the science and Logic with which you claim to make your point. Let me explain further:
For the record, I am not a “Bible Student” as such. I am a qualified engineer and a scientist. As such I understand advanced physics, metaphysics and many things you do not seem to. I really strongly suggest you review what you think you know about science. Things like the “laws” of thermodynamics are, for example, *only* assumptions. Very good assumptions, but only assumptions based on the fact that we have never seen them violated. They may well require adjustment in the future, but it is hard to conceive that happening. A good scientist will probably question these *last* of all, but it does not change what they are.
You wrote:
“Are you saying HOW should I read the “inerrant” word of your “god”?”
My Answer: No. I am telling you how to apply logic and science. If you do not wish to do so, this is an emotional and irrational position. You’re welcome to defend it, but good luck. Go ahead, consult a physicist as I suggested, or be silent. After all, it is *you* who is “saying HOW I should read the “inerrant” word of [my] “god”?” And assuming I make that claim as you understand it..
You also wrote:
“I selected only few themes to talk about, basic to me: free will, faith and existence of god. Lacking the religious creed of strong and undeniable proofs of god existence, the rest is to me mere babble, rite and noise. ”
It is all interlinked and in any case you still have not coherently answered my point on the above; if your assumptions exclude God, God can not be proven *to you*. It is a logical circle.
You then wrote:
“So if you can demonstrate the existence of a god, or if you can show me that god, do it. But if you can’t do any of two, please be silent.”
Of course I can. But *only* to someone who is not *already* prejudiced against what I am saying. I can only show you God if you can leave your assumptions behind. And you do not seem to be capable of this, which unfortunately makes for both bad science and bad philosophy. What would you have me do then?
Carlos, I admit I have lost patience with you. You start by claiming science(which you don’t understand) and show little respect for what people believe calling it “babble, rite and noise.”
Good bye Carlos. Maybe one day you will learn how to do the science you seem to love so much properly. I really hope so.
Hello, Andrew Lobb:
Andrew Lobb says:
Reply to Carlos.
Hi
Lets get this straight. My major objection to what you are saying is not that I disagree with you, it is the *way you misunderstand* the science and Logic with which you claim to make your point. Let me explain further:
For the record, I am not a “Bible Student” as such. I am a qualified engineer and a scientist. ((Oh, surprise!! I can’t believe it. You don’t sound as it. I could swear you was completely lacking of the scientific way of thinking and argumenting)) As such I understand advanced physics, metaphysics and many things you do not seem to. I really strongly suggest you review what you think you know about science. Things like the “laws” of thermodynamics are, for example, *only* assumptions. Very good assumptions, but only assumptions based on the fact that we have never seen them violated. ((OK, scientist: If not “assumptions” then, what?)). They may well require adjustment in the future, but it is hard to conceive that happening. A good scientist will probably question these *last* of all, but it does not change what they are.
You wrote:
“Are you saying HOW should I read the “inerrant” word of your “god”?”
My Answer: No. I am telling you how to apply logic and science. ((You mean “your” religious “logic” and “science”?)) If you do not wish to do so, this is an emotional and irrational position. ((It is a rationally choose one. It is the lesser set of materialistic ideas. If this set “needs” any change, it has to be by really good reasons, not because the bible asks for. Long life to my good friend Occam and his razor!)) You’re welcome to defend it, but good luck. Go ahead, consult a physicist as I suggested, or be silent. After all, it is *you* who is “saying HOW I should read the “inerrant” word of [my] “god”?” And assuming I make that claim as you understand it. ((Yes. I’ll say how you must read it, at least at a first reading. If it says that “the devil takes Jesus to a high mountain and showed him all the reigns of the world”, you must recognize that at first reading it is a geographical impossibility and that I am not hallucinating it. Instead of that, you, in a very clumsy way, deny what I am seeing and force your interpretation of facts. If you were most respective of others thoughts and a bit more subtle, you had developed a reasoning from my interpretation, showing I was wrong (lets say) and lay the foundations for other –yours- way of interpretation (if such thing had a chance of being possible). But, as a classic example of a fundamentalist, authoritarian and narrow minded religious person, you didn’t. Perhaps this happen because when you accepted all those contorted and faith based religious concepts, you needed to shut your mind and become unable to conceive other ways of thinking, particularly ways of thinking that don’t need the concept “god”. I guess if you conceive as possible a godless way of thinking that completely describes all reality, you would feel the floor opening under your feet)).
You also wrote:
“I selected only few themes to talk about, basic to me: free will, faith and existence of god. Lacking the religious creed of strong and undeniable proofs of god existence, the rest is to me mere babble, rite and noise. ”
It is all interlinked and in any case you still have not coherently answered my point on the above; if your assumptions exclude God, God can not be proven *to you*. It is a logical circle. ((If this is logical, it shows that, for you can reason and make “your” conclusions, you need a mind previously favorable, without “uncomfortable” neither previous “assumptions” as you call them. Your sayings recall those “parapsychology” experiments, where the person under examination failed in perform his “powers” “because of the incredulity of researchers”. The starting conditions –or “frame”- you need to demonstrate your claims show what you try to demonstrate lacks of entity and is strongly conditioned by your counterpart subjectivity. Tell me, please, engineer, if I say “pi” = 8, are you unable to device a logic algorithm that unavoidably drives me to “pi” = 3.1416…? What you are saying is you are unable to logically “force” your god as a logical, unavoidable and only answer in a materialistic description of reality. Or else, it is straightly impossible and then that “lacking” of ability makes more credible that materialistic discourse. Your god is an “attitude-dependent” one, in such a degree it very likely doesn’t exist by “himself”. The “maneuvers” you need to perform for show me your god is a serious indicator it doesn’t exist. Besides, if you are a scientist as you say, you must know how many facts, theories, concepts, etc. in history of science appeared and became accepted after “fighting” against others, not precisely favorable or “neutral” (Galileo, quantum physics). Thus, look at yourself: when I reject entering in your “biblical” way of thinking, you became “mute”))
You then wrote: “So if you can demonstrate the existence of a god, or if you can show me that god, do it. But if you can’t do any of two, please be silent.”
Of course I can. But *only* to someone who is not *already* prejudiced against what I am saying. I can only show you God if you can leave your assumptions behind ((In the final instance, what this really means is you can’t)). And you do not seem to be capable of this, which unfortunately makes for both bad science and bad philosophy. What would you have me do then?
Carlos, I admit I have lost patience with you. ((Oh, take it easy, man!)) You start by claiming science (which you don’t understand) ((I will not discuss this)) and show little respect for what people believe calling it “babble, rite and noise.”((Correction: you are plainly wrong. I don’t feel any little respect because I feel NO respect for their believing because I can’t find any respectable thing in it. You are confusing “respect” and “tolerance”. “Respect” has to do with a really better, “superior” and virtuosi person, with valuable things, achievements and ideas, with wisdom, with “mind openers”, with mental “stature” and intellectual” aristocracy”, with enlightening points of view and intelligent insights, with marvelous synthesis and with unexpected extrapolations, with experiences that makes me see more, far and in a new way, that makes me grow and get me better, happy and “more”, with things that turn “on” a new light in my head. “Respect” has nothing to do with doctrines “respectable” only because they are very old neither with a set of creeds, superstitions, ignorance and boldness oriented to a past thousands years old. I tolerate religious people, I don’t impede them of doing what they do, but, sincerely, I don’t find a respectable thing on them.))
Good bye Carlos. Maybe one day you will learn how to do the science you seem to love so much properly. I really hope so. ((Good bye Andrew. May be one day you will learn to put yourself in other’s shoes, and learn to use the Socratic maieutic when you try to get your “god” in scene))
Have fun
Carlos
But, my dear fellow, I know exactly what is in your shoes…
How about this, since you have no respect for me (and thus can’t seem to accept what I am saying). How would you take it from another atheist? I have an old friend who is an atheist with a degree in physics. He is quite a lot more intelligent than you, and I’ve asked him to stop by and correct you. He may or may not, he has little patience with fundamentalists like you. But perhaps hearing how science and logic should be applied from a genuine scientist who shares your conclusion will help you understand.
Perhaps not though…
I’ll quote something from above that illustrates my point very nicely..
” I admit I have lost patience with you. ((Oh, take it easy, man!)) You start by claiming science (which you don’t understand) ((I will not discuss this)) and show little respect for what people believe calling it “babble, rite and noise.”((Correction: you are plainly wrong.”
I rest my case.
Hello, Perry Marshall:
perrymarshall says:
October 10, 2010 at 3:56 am
In my vocabulary, religious faith, scientific hypothesis and even something like taking a risk and starting a business are all much more alike than different. I’ve done all three.
All three are the testing of hypothesis. This is what faith means in my vocabulary.
Science accepts all of its foundational assumptions by faith ((Those are foundational principles, not faith)) It is inherently impossible ((prove that, please)) to prove that the laws of physics are the same everywhere and for all time ((So, what? Perhaps it is enough to know the laws of the reality in touch with you. You don’t need to prove it. It is most “economical” to wait them reveal being different))
((Can you show me in the following quotation where is the scientific “faith”?
“The scientific method is defined (by the American Heritage Dictionary) as “The principles and empirical processes of discovery ….. generally involving the observation of phenomena, the formulation of a hypothesis concerning the phenomena, experimentation to demonstrate the truth or falseness of the hypothesis, and a conclusion that validates or modifies the hypothesis”. Scientists don’t study phenomena with the “faith” that they will find order, rationality or logical programming underlying in every phenomenon. Indeed, one of the first things scientists do when they encounter a new phenomenon is to determine (based on observation, for instance) whether there is any reason to hypothesize that there may be any order or program underlying that phenomenon. I don’t know about physicists but I can certainly add this from a biologist’s perspective—randomness and haphazardness are not rare in biology, and there is no reason to approach any new phenomenon with a faith that one will find an underlying rational order or program. Anyway, the significant point here is that all science does not proceed on the assumption that nature is ordered in a rational and intelligible way; as a matter of fact, by its defining principles, none of science proceeds on that assumption or faith. Science is based on objective, evidence-based, reasoning; there is no room in science for biased thinking, preconceived notions and prejudice.” Yackety yak: “Scientific faith is an oxymoron- Nov-28-2007))
I have a hypothesis that a percentage of people I lay hands on and pray for get healed. That hypothesis has been confirmed a number of times. See http://www.coffeehousetheology.com/miracles/
((Marvelous!! Being so, we don’t need hospitals or doctors anymore!! I am curious, does that work grow amputated limbs, heal Down syndrome, anencephaly and so?))
The Christian life is lived by both faith AND experience. Just like science. ((I don’t believe that. Methodologically, science rests on concepts and hypothesis modifiable by experiments. A relation exists between hypothesis and observation-experiments. Each one modifies the other. But religion doesn’t put its basic concepts on trial))
You are greatly overstating the oppression of science by the church. Yes, there has been SOME of this ((Oh yes! SOME HOMICIDES are much less than thousand millions homicides, so the Church is a model of kindness, love and virtue. Being the Church the “perfect” and “divinely permeated by God” organization it purports to be, only ONE person killed by it is inadmissible)). It is not the major theme ((Oh, yes, sure! Who hadn’t SOME homicides in their closet? “It is not the major theme”, so please, lets talk about really important themes. I can see you are generously prone to forgive and to be tolerant with “some” facts. May it be because it never happened to you to be in a burning stake? Giordano Bruno, Francis Bacon, Galileo Galilei , among others, are not major themes: they are unforgettable nails in Church coffin))
Christian theology gave birth to science. See http://www.coffeehousetheology.com/equality-technology/
((So, I suppose today mainstream science is surely the most fervent and enlightened supporter of religion, creationism and ID, isn’t?))
Mathematicians have faith ((aka “conjectures”, “hypothesis”, “guessing”, “expectations”, etc)) in axioms they cannot prove.((Show me in any scientific or mathematical book, an appeal to believe something by “faith” (using this word), please. You are forcing the religious faith into science))
The definition of “faith” I showed time ago is: “b (1): FIRM BELIEF in something for which there is no proof”. As much as I know, science doesn’t have such firm belief but suppositions, guessing, conjectures, hypothesis and so on, which are put under examination as soon as it became possible. These conjectures and others are maintained while experiment, observations, reasoning, implications and more are not contradictory with the model. So, they are not, in any way, “faith” as the religious one is. By the contrary: if the scientific faith is –as you maintain- as your religious faith, are you prone to dismiss your “god” as soon a contradictory or dubious fact appears?))
Judges have faith ((confidence, expectations and wishes)) that their decisions, made with incomplete information, are correct.
Every day literally thousands of doctors have faith ((wishes, expectation)) that the lump is swelling and not a tumor. Or vise versa. ((And which results? Being faith in the middle, surely, no patient dies)).
You are grossly misrepresenting the meaning of the word faith. If I defined faith the way you do, I would hate it too ((I see you select the most “soft” and domestic meanings, instead to face the most hard and extreme of them and go to the end of line))
In your other question, you expressed FAITH that science would find an answer to specific questions about evolution and the origin of life. ((Yes: conviction + desire + etc, but I know and admit I CAN BE WRONG and things may be different. This “faith” mine is conditioned by facts, yours not. Do you accept the same regarding your faith in your “god”?))
Sports teams never have absolute faith that they will win ((Then, they only have wishes + estimations + uncertainties + etc.= ? What for is it worth? Does that faith secure the victory? As ever, it has nothing to do with TRUTH)). Once again you grossly misrepresent how people actually behave. ((I am not focused on people behavior, but what faith is and is not))
Faith Hypothesis. Same thing. Do a find-and-replace if you want. ((Any way, by their characteritics, they remain without the lesser relation with TRUTH))
“In my vocabulary the word “Faith” means: I like, I guess, I am sure, but I can be wrong. In yours, what?” ((In my vocabulary, “I like” means “I like”, “I guess” means “ I guess”, “I am sure but I can be wrong” means exactly that, and “faith” never means “TRUTH”. In my vocabulary, “faith” means MAINLY AND FIRSTLY “strong believing in something not proved”. In my vocabulary, I have ALSO two words: “TRUE” and “FALSE”))
((You said before:”I have had intimate personal experiences with God. I have personally witnessed healings. I have been provided knowledge when I needed it. I have had renewal in my emotional life and I have been blessed in many ways. I am thankful for the things God ((your hypothesized god?)) has done for me”. ((Then, by your previous definitions, last claim can be roundly false, isn’t it?))
((You said before:”What I personally know ((You “know” or “like”, “guess”, “are sure”, etc?) beyond a shadow of a doubt is that ((“I like”, “I guess”, “Am sure”, etc) God ((your hypothesized god)) ((“I like”, “I guess”, “Am sure”, etc)) intensely, personally loves and ((“I like”, “I guess”, “Am sure”, etc)) cherishes YOU and ((“I like”, “I guess”, “Am sure”, etc)) that He ((your hypothesized god)) wants to be your loving Father and for you to be His son””. ((Information obtained: about you = some; about god = 0))
((If faith is that you listed above (your convictions, feelings, wishes, hypothesis, etc without any objective value of truth) the only thing it says is about you, not about the “object” you believe in, so, very few useful, to me)).
((You even pervert the mean of Gödel’s theorem in order to “use” it for you concept of faith. The Gödel theorem is about the improvability of certain (verified) TRUE facts:
“The implication is that all logical system of any complexity is, by definition, incomplete; each of them contains, at any given time, more TRUE statements than it can possibly prove according to its own defining set of rules.” (Jones and Wilson – An Incomplete Education)
“…there are TRUE mathematical statements that cannot be derived from the set…” (Nagel and Newman)
“Gödel showed that provability is a weaker notion than TRUTH, no matter what axiom system is involved … “(Hofstadter, “Gödel, Escher, Bach”)
…while religious faith is STRONG BELIEVE in uncertain (unverified: virginal birth, resurrection, “miracles” in general, etc.) and unproved facts))
((Then, when moved by his faith the priest addresses the people with these affirmative sentences (with value of truth or falsehood): “God loves you!”, “The kingdom is near!”, “The Judgment is coming!” , etc, he is talking about his own desires an convictions as if they were objective facts, so he is LYING.
What he really must say is “I LIKE a god loves you”, “I BELIEVE the kingdom is near”, “I HIPOTHETIZE the judgment is coming”.
And finally, regarding faith, I have in mind the parable of grain of mustard: “If your faith was as this grain of mustard, you say that mountain to move…” Yes, but Jesus didn’t move a sole mountain at all, isn’t?))
Greetings
Carlos
The following is an act of faith:
“the formulation of a hypothesis concerning the phenomena, experimentation to demonstrate the truth or falseness of the hypothesis, and a conclusion that validates or modifies the hypothesis”
Regarding miracles: Read Casdorph’s book before continuing to make your inaccurate accusations.
Faith in mathematics: Belief that Euclid’s 5 postulates are in fact true.
Once again, you tell me what you personally know, like and believe, and you literally mock me for saying similar things.
Jesus said, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” You alone can decide if you wish to engage in the pursuit of truth.
Show me that you’re serious and willing to have a respectful conversation and we’ll continue. Otherwise, please take your insults and prejudices against people of faith elsewhere.
Perry,
What is it (rhetorical question) about human nature that allows two (or more) intelligent people to debate about God, or anything for that matter, and after weeks be further from agreement than when we began. I’m following these debates and it seems that tit for tat, debating point by point is not the way to meet minds. At our age (older than ten years) people seldom change. I feel that loyalty to our ideas about science, or (ideas about) God become more entrenched over time. I think we could look at why we believe/know something rather than how we believe/know it.
I share most of Carlos’ beliefs and relate scientifically to the world. (If he is aggressive sometimes it makes him easy to dismiss but the validity of his points is a separate issue.) If God did kick start evolution which is possible, he(She) certainly doesn’t seem to be active now. But biological evolution is a threat to evolution because it challenges core beliefs such as literal Adam and Eve, literal sin, need for salvation, spiritual world and probably even God.
Now I’ve just said that I relate scientifically to the world but that’s not really quite true. If you analyze my world view more closely you would find some contradictions, or at least some superstitions or emotionally based views. I think we are all share these dual aspects of our personality.
For example, after some ‘bad luck’ in my life I asked myself, “do I think there is a being (God) waiting to bring me into heaven?” I realized that I don’t really believe that. Rapidly many questions such as ‘why does God rarely answer prayers?’ “who made God?’ dissolved. Easy answer! Absent God means a random world!
A religious person trying to reconvert me now has a rather difficult challenge. I lost faith because it didn’t provide answers so to rediscover faith would not likely provide better answers now when they couldn’t before.
Now when you assert “codes can only be designed” it is a very loaded proposition. If the designer is a distant deist god there is probably only one major question (who made God?) But if you propose (as you do) a personal Christian God, there’s many resolved questions that immediately become unresolved. Even my earlier question about why is Jesus not still dead is not answered and not even understood by the religious mind.
Many Christians reject evolution for good reason – they don’t wish to have their literal core beliefs challenged. Others such as many mainstream groups such as Catholics, and yourself, recognize evolution and old earth and that sits okay as long as theology like the fall of man and salvation can be accommodated.
Actually you may disagree. Maybe you think that evolution theory is a product of Christianity since you think that Christianity sparked scientific inquiry. I read your section but this conclusion baffles me.
Martin,
Great questions.
I think most of the time people harden their positions. Some of the time they change. After all, you changed your beliefs didn’t you? I know my beliefs have, well, evolved considerably. In more ways than one.
There is a lot of evidence and reasons to believe that God is active in the world now. But you only find that evidence if you seek it. My specific journey of that kind of evidence is described at http://www.coffeehousetheology.com/miracles/
I believe that the biggest thought that the human mind can attempt to contain is: “What does it mean for God to become man?” It will burst your mind at the seams because it contains every extreme simultaneously. I propose to you that no other question has challenged or benefited mankind more than this one.
See http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com/blog/genesis1 – I think an evolutionary view is quite reasonably compatible with Christianity. The Catholics have known this for 150 years. “God breathed the breath of life into the man and he became a living being” – I see that as God giving man a soul. The garden of eden was real, everything from that point forward can be understood as you read it in Genesis.
Martin
I would like to share with you my long experience of understanding and feeling to be at the presence of The God. Today, as many times before, I asked something from God and He kindly answered me. I can write for you about it, if needed.
It is a simple mistake that “if God is active, everyone should be able to experiment the same response”, like a test for a chemical reaction. The experience with God is like what happens when a father responds to the need of his child. The (time, content, quality, . . of) response depends on many parameters which are not repeatable for others and at other times.
Given as much time as is nessessary I feel confident (have faith that) humanity will come to know all that is knowable from big bang “forward”. In our imagination this would appear to be feasable and I would expect most of us would agree.Yes,I do not know If the nessessary amount of time will be forthcoming,granted or otherwise available but it does seem to me that knowledge is increasing,something else we most probably agree on. I am new here,I am not a scientist or a theologian but I do,to a degree, hold a measure of the ability to recognise when something makes sense.I am certain that all of us want to know the “truth”. I have only recently joined this computer medium so forgive me if I,m slow or unaware of its uses and intricasies, also forgive my spelling if I err there.I have roamed around (surfed) and with great interest read many comments from people on this topic of discussion, great this medium is, especially if we can “shelve” our emotions as we put forward our views and be willing to let go of “that which we currently hold to be true” when a better, more refined rationale (leading to a modified or totally diferent conclusion) comes along.I love all of you because you “are”……..THEREFORE, correct me If I am wrong….Does the focus of our endevours here take place prior the big bang? ie. Since we,I presume, can agree that knowledge will continue to increase and we will eventually know all (post big bang)and therefore recognise that we are in the “PROCESS of getting to know all” Does our sphere of enquiry reside in what trigered,or before the big bang? (for creationists God,for science Wait)???
It is well documented and traceable that:
1399 years ago the supreme intelligence started the last revelation to a selected ILLITERATE very honest person. This process lasted for 23 years, to end of the messenger’s life.
The revelations were written and memorized, word by word, making a book (Quran) in 114 sections and 6236 verses,.
In the revelations, the supreme intelligence (He called himself Allah, the compassionate, the merciful) introduced himself as the only god who has created and designed everything and has sent all of the messengers (for the same mission) to guide the people. Allah called this religion Islam (meaning peace, submission, . . .)
Quran is an exceptional miracle. It is preserved exactly in its original form forever; It is intellectual; Everyone can evaluate it.
Not only the above phenomena are scientifically explainable, but also it has been the main cause for development of natural science for centuries. Allah in Quran asks and urges the reader to think and study about His designs, all around.
Meanwhile, this week, about 3 million of more than a billion believers gather in Mecca according to the ritual for the annual ceremony planned by the supreme intelligence according to Quran.
I believe the process of sending messengers is the main stream of the spiritual evolution of mankind during the present period of its existence.
I would be glad to study and search into the scientific parts of the above subject together with other visitors of this valuable site, just to get closer to the supreme intelligence.
Best regards.
Kooros, It all sounds very noble but how half of civilization believes a book written 1400 years ago is the word of God is beyond me. What tangible evidence, apart from the book itself is there to support that fantastic claim? Before you sentence me to a beheading, what is it that defines the book as a divine work?
Our naive politicians are often concerned at the level of Islamaphobia in the west. I have a list of the attrocities carried out by Islamists throughout the world during a two month period. Everything from a suicide bomb in Pakistan to the slaughter of a bus load of school children. It’s far too long to copy here. These unspeakable attrocities are taking place every day all over the globe. It is an orgy of mass murder unprecedented, and in the name of your religion! The allied forces in Iraq are accused of much ‘colateral’ damage but far more victims have lost their lives at the hands of sectarian muslims. Iraqis killing their brother Iraqis just because they are from a different tradition. A church full of Christians were slaughtered at the hands of a suicide bomber recently. Is being a Christian so reprehensible? The rest of the civilized world looks at all this with incredulity.
(I understand that these kind of issues may not be allowed in this scientific and theological cite. Please feel free to inform me and omit this post and send it directly to the subscribed visitors.)
Martin
Thank you for your reply to my post. I will reply about Quran in a separate post.
It is difficult but not impossible for anyone to find acceptable hints about the reality behind the following “naive” western politics:
– Occupy a country far away without any justifications (a very big project that destroys millions families by military force and a very big business for arms producing companies), it worth to kill a few thousands innocent people in your own county and make a fake attack to the defense ministry building!
– Support (by all military and technological means) Saddam in the longest war against its neighbor country to destroy all infrastructures of both countries (and kill and injure more than a million people) and after this project, occupy Iraq in fear of Saddam armaments without any resistance!
– Train Taliban sect and Bin Laden in Pakistan by CIA against past USSR occupation of Afghanistan, and justify the occupation of this country in chase of this man forever!
– Make close (military, economic, political) ties with the kingdom of the largest oil reservoirs in the world and introduce and develop a new so-called Islamic cult and brainwash and train innocent youth to kill others by suicide bombing in this cult and condemn Muslims for atrocity.
I just remind that killing anyone who is not already sentenced by law to death, in Islamic law is unacceptable and in Islamic faith this act will send such a criminal to the hell. (Please notice that suicide bombing is mostly spread in the areas under the US occupation to justify the extension of occupation. To find out the realities behind these political issues, we should consider the results not just the appearance of the events.)
An interesting relevant conclusion is: we cannot find the intelligent services behind these atrocities, yet we are trying to find the supreme intelligence whose acts are not materialistic!
Hello, Kooros:
I agree this is not the right place for this issues, but I want to say only this:
Regarding the 11-Set I was always surprised about the reason for almost nobody in the USA asked: “Why?” or “Why to us?”
The only person I heard asking something like that was Susan Sontag.
Carlos
Martin, Thank you for your reply (on November 17, 2010 ) to my post.
You asked “What is it that defines the book as a divine work?”
There are two main approaches to evaluate the origin of Quran.
1) Quran by itself must be self-explanatory and as a divine revelation must have specific features which prove that the content is originated from an intelligent source outside of our physically sensed world.
2) The documented history of Quran from the instant the revelation to a selected man (Mohammad) was started and all along its collection during 23 years life of the messenger and a few years later when it was registered officially in its present form.
We read in the history that sometimes when the prophet ordered his disciples to do something, they questioned if the decision is by him, or it is a divine revelation. Also the prophet received other informative revelations which were not part of Quran. The prophet explicitly recited the verses of Quran to the people.
The people at that time clearly knew a divine revelation is taking place and there were groups who wrote and memorized the book and check the verses with the messenger.
From this divine source of information, which is well preserved, we learn about previous messengers, too. Also, from other recorded revelations to the messenger, we get valuable information about metaphysics and future in this stage of our life and the next stages.
The information in the divine book and the practice of the messenger led to the development of sciences. New sciences in turn helped to better understand the information in the book.
The God in Quran introduces Himself as the creator of everything and frequently asks the people to think over the design of His creatures (e.g. human life cycle from sperm to his maturity, plants life cycle from seeds, pure water supply by rain ) to believe Him.
OK I have been reading your comments and most are intelligently based (well, I did say most). First I would like to say that my faith before any other has faith in facts, facts I can substantiate and in are proven scientific studies. I cannot believe in a book that was written before and after the fact and by people that did not experience first hand what they were writing about. Also the parallels with other Gods is more than coincidental. Though, I would like to throw out another hypothesis (the bible being one of course). Our universe is about 13 billion years old and if the big bang occurred one second later we wouldn’t exist as we are today on planet Earth. To have a bang there must be space, the space that was there at the time of the big bang became empty because of the massive reduction of matter and anti matter. Therefore, there have been uncountable numbers of big bangs and each creating its own universe. Now come the interesting part: because of evolution we are what we are today which has only taken less than a million years which is a blink to fast to see; so, let’s apply that evolutionary process to the energy our minds create which is neither matter or anti-matter, now multiply that process of creating energy (call it what you wish, soul, etc)a trillion, trillion, trillion, times and think, just think, and contemplate this as a possible result, that there is a dynamic force in the universe that is totally at war with itself because of the ying and yang theory and positive and negative, etc. So, when we die what may exist is the energy we leave behind which becomes part of the Universal collective. We have no idea whatsoever of the force, that through the universal evolutionary process, has harnessed and has become an intelligence we can’t even begin to imagine. Another interesting thought is that there may be parallel Universes that were formed because of the splitting during the big bang of other universes that didn’t coalesce. Or, during the contraction process of the Universe it split into two or more contraction entities and they each create their own universe – just a thought.
Hello, Robert Edwards.
Because your letter hasn’t a destination, I don’t know who you are speaking to.
If you were talking to me, I would answer some parts more or less like this.
I agree with your about the bible, and “coincidences” with other religions. I am more confident on facts.
Regarding the Big Bang, some people hipothetize there was only one Big Bang that started only one universe, (ours) that will expand until its matter completely evaporates, as an only and unique event in the “history”.
Some others say there are many universes simultaneous. Some time two of them collide or touch each other, and a Big Bang is produced. Each universe has his particular set of physical laws.
To me, when we die, the only energy we release is that of the degradation of our molecules, and our matter is recycled. No thing more. No memories, no self, no-thing, as when “you” was not born.
But don’t you feel low! Your life is now, not tomorrow. You have yourself, your freedom, your present time and your life: do it and enjoy it to the top!!
You can look for confirmation to your views and new information in Wikipedia: cosmology, history and fate of the universe, M-brane theory, etc. Good luck!
Greetings
Carlos
Hello, Robert Edwards:
On Nov. 14, you say “I cannot believe in a book that was written before and after the fact and by people that did not experience first hand what they were writing about. Also the parallels with other Gods is more than coincidental”.
Well, many people have that same idea, that Christianity seems to be not very original in its teachings.
“Christianity’s Founding Fathers Admit Similarities
We have it on no higher authority than that of Christianity’s founding fathers themselves that the Christian religion was very much like other older religions currently extant.
Other religions had their savior character, born of a miraculous nature, who performed miracles, cured sick people, and eventually died an untimely death, often by crucifixion.
So close did Christianity resemble these other religions that the Christian fathers resorted to the ludicrous explanation that the Devil himself had created these other near identical religions prior to the alleged time of Jesus to deceive the masses so they would reject the true religion of Christianity as being just a copycat of these already existing religions. Religious scholar Charles François Dupuis (1798) returns us to our sanity by eloquently stating the obvious: “There is not the slightest difficulty, without the intervention of the Devil, to perceive, that whenever two religions resemble each other so completely, the oldest must be the mother and the youngest the daughter.”
Justin Martyr
Justin Martyr (A.D. 100-165) was the first and most distinguished apologist for the Christian religion. His first apology, The First Apology Of Justin, argues that Christianity should be accepted as any other religion because it is so similar to other preexisting religions. By arguing thus Justin inadvertently admits:
1. Other religions and beliefs already existed which were quite similar to Christianity.
2. Christianity was hated to such an extent that he had to write an apology for it demanding that it be accepted.
Here are the words of Justin Martyr, from his First Apology. Note how he repeatedly claims the reason other preexisting religions are so similar to Christianity is because demons made the previous religions:
CHAPTER XX — HEATHEN ANALOGIES TO CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.
And the Sibyl and Hystaspes said that there should be a dissolution by God of things corruptible. And the philosophers called Stoics teach that even God Himself shall be resolved into fire, and they say that the world is to be formed anew by this revolution; but we understand that God, the Creator of all things, is superior to the things that are to be changed. If, therefore, ON SOME POINTS WE TEACH THE SAME THINGS AS THE POETS AND PHILOSOPHERS whom you honour, and on other points are fuller and more divine in our teaching, and if we alone afford proof of what we assert, why are we unjustly hated more than all others? For while we say that all things have been produced and arranged into a world by God, WE SHALL SEEM TO UTTER THE DOCTRINE OF PLATO; and while we say that there will be a burning up of all, WE SHALL SEEM TO UTTER THE DOCTRINE OF THE STOICS: and while we affirm that the souls of the wicked, being endowed with sensation even after death, are punished, and that those of the good being delivered from punishment spend a blessed existence, WE SHALL SEEM TO SAY THE SAME THINGS AS THE POETS AND PHILOSOPHERS; and while we maintain that men ought not to worship the works of their hands, WE SAY THE VERY THINGS WHICH HAVE BEEN SAID BY THE COMIC POET MENANDER, AND OTHER SIMILAR WRITERS, for they have declared that the workman is greater than the work.
CHAPTER XXI — ANALOGIES TO THE HISTORY OF CHRIST.
And when we say also that the Word, who is the first-birth of God, was produced without sexual union, and that He, Jesus Christ, our Teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, WE PROPOUND NOTHING DIFFERENT FROM WHAT YOU BELIEVE REGARDING THOSE WHOM YOU ESTEEM SONS OF JUPITER. For you know how many sons your esteemed writers ascribed to Jupiter: Mercury, the interpreting word and teacher of all; AEsculapius, who, though he was a great physician, was struck by a thunderbolt, and so ascended to heaven; and Bacchus too, after he had been torn limb from limb; and Hercules, when he had committed himself to the flames to escape his toils; and the sons of Leda, and Dioscuri; and Perseus, son of Danae; and Bellerophon, who, though sprung from mortals, rose to heaven on the horse Pegasus. For what shall I say of Ariadne, and those who, like her, have been declared to be set among the stars? And what of the emperors who die among yourselves, whom you deem worthy of deification, and in whose behalf you produce some one who swears he has seen the burning Caesar rise to heaven from the funeral pyre? And what kind of deeds are recorded of each of these reputed sons of Jupiter, it is needless to tell to those who already know. This only shall be said, that they are written for the advantage and encouragement of youthful scholars; for all reckon it an honourable thing to imitate the gods. But far be such a thought concerning the gods from every well-conditioned soul, as to believe that Jupiter himself, the governor and creator of all things, was both a parricide and the son of a parricide, and that being overcome by the love of base and shameful pleasures, he came in to Ganymede and those many women whom he had violated and that his sons did like actions. But, as we said above, WICKED DEVILS PERPETRATED THESE THINGS. And we have learned that those only are deified who have lived near to God in holiness and virtue; and we believe that those who live wickedly and do not repent are punished in everlasting fire.
CHAPTER XXII — ANALOGIES TO THE SONSHIP OF CHRIST.
Moreover, the Son of God called Jesus, even if only a man by ordinary generation, yet, on account of His wisdom, is worthy to be called the Son of God; for all writers call God the Father of men and gods. AND IF WE ASSERT THAT THE WORD OF GOD WAS BORN OF GOD IN A PECULIAR MANNER, DIFFERENT FROM ORDINARY GENERATION, LET THIS, AS SAID ABOVE, BE NO EXTRAORDINARY THING TO YOU, WHO SAY THAT MERCURY IS THE ANGELIC WORD OF GOD. BUT IF ANY ONE OBJECTS THAT HE WAS CRUCIFIED, IN THIS ALSO HE IS ON A PAR WITH THOSE REPUTED SONS OF JUPITER OF YOURS, WHO SUFFERED AS WE HAVE NOW ENUMERATED. For their sufferings at death are recorded to have been not all alike, but diverse; so that not even by the peculiarity of His sufferings does He seem to be inferior to them; but, on the contrary, as we promised in the preceding part of this discourse, we will now prove Him superior–or rather have already proved Him to be so–for the superior is revealed by His actions. AND IF WE EVEN AFFIRM THAT HE WAS BORN OF A VIRGIN, ACCEPT THIS IN COMMON WITH WHAT YOU ACCEPT OF PERSEUS. AND IN THAT WE SAY THAT HE MADE WHOLE THE LAME, THE PARALYTIC, AND THOSE BORN BLIND, WE SEEM TO SAY WHAT IS VERY SIMILAR TO THE DEEDS SAID TO HAVE BEEN DONE BY AESCULAPIUS.
CHAPTER LIV — ORIGIN OF HEATHEN MYTHOLOGY.
But those who hand down the myths which the poets have made, adduce no proof to the youths who learn them; and we proceed to demonstrate that they have been uttered by the influence of the wicked demons, to deceive and lead astray the human race. For having heard it proclaimed through the prophets that the Christ was to come, and that the ungodly among men were to be punished by fire, they put forward many to be called sons of Jupiter, under the impression that they would be able to produce in men the idea that the things which were said with regard to Christ were mere marvellous tales, like the things which were said by the poets. And these things were said both among the Greeks and among all nations where they [THE DEMONS] heard the prophets foretelling that Christ would specially be believed in; but that in hearing what was said by the prophets they did not accurately understand it, but imitated what was said of our Christ, like men who are in error, we will make plain. The prophet Moses, then, was, as we have already said, older than all writers; and by him, as we have also said before, it was thus predicted: “There shall not fail a prince from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until He come for whom it is reserved; and He shall be the desire of the Gentiles, binding His foal to the vine, washing His robe in the blood of the grape.” The devils, accordingly, when they heard these prophetic words, said that Bacchus was the son of Jupiter, and gave out that he was the discoverer of the vine, and they number wine [or, the ass] among his mysteries; and they taught that, having been torn in pieces, he ascended into heaven. And because in the prophecy of Moses it had not been expressly intimated whether He who was to come was the Son of God, and whether He would, riding on the foal, remain on earth or ascend into heaven, and because the name of “foal” could mean either the foal of an ass or the foal of a horse, they, not knowing whether He who was foretold would bring the foal of an ass or of a horse as the sign of His coming, nor whether He was the Son of God, as we said above, or of man, gave out that Bellerophon, a man born of man, himself ascended to heaven on his horse Pegasus. And when they heard it said by the other prophet Isaiah, that He should be born of a virgin, and by His own means ascend into heaven, they pretended that Perseus was spoken of. And when they knew what was said, as has been cited above, in the prophecies written aforetime, “Strong as a giant to run his course,” they said that Hercules was strong, and had journeyed over the whole earth. And when, again, they learned that it had been foretold that He should heal every sickness, and raise the dead, they produced Aesculapius.
CHAPTER LXVI — OF THE EUCHARIST.
And this food is called among us Eukaristia [the Eucharist], of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh. For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them; that Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks, said, “This do ye in remembrance of Me, this is My body;” and that, after the same manner, having taken the cup and given thanks, He said, “This is My blood;” and gave it to them alone. WHICH THE WICKED DEVILS HAVE IMITATED IN THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRAS, COMMANDING THE SAME THING TO BE DONE. For, that bread and a cup of water are placed with certain incantations in the mystic rites of one who is being initiated, you either know or can learn.
—The above is from http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0126.htm
Notice the comparisons Justin has just made:
1. Christianity teaches the same things as the poets and philosophers. He cites Plato, Menander, Sibyl, Hystaspes, and Stoics.
2. Jesus is similar to: the sons of Jupiter: Mercury; Æsculapius; Bacchus; Hercules; the sons of Leda, and Dioscuri; and Perseus, son of Danae; and Bellerophon. They were all produced without sexual union. They all suffered an untimely death. They all ascended into heaven.
3. The Logos, or Word of God, an epithet of Jesus Christ, was also an epithet of Mercury. (John 1:1-4)
Note that Justin Martyr can offer no better explanation why Christianity is so similar to other preexisting religions other than declaring it to be the work of “wicked devils”.”
Taken from: Solar Mythology and the Jesus Story
Greetings
Carlos
Carlos, please help me with this one.
You say you don’t believe in a G-d because you can’t prove it’s existence (nor it can be proved by others). Valid argument.
How can you prove he does not exist either?
Arguments like “look at evolution and the plethora of science” do not count, because they describe something that exists, our science is descriptive of a process or something that already is there and obeys rules, therefore, the question would be, what or how did those rules appear?
To say all this incredible order was created by chance, sounds to me like a great book was written by throwing random letters to blank pages, there is a % of chance of it happening, of course.
Thanks in advance, buenas tardes!
Hello, JM:
JM says:
Carlos, please help me with this one.
You say you don’t believe in a G-d because you can’t prove its existence (nor it can be proved by others). Valid argument.
((I am curious: Why do you write G-d instead of “God”or “god”?))
How can you prove he does not exist either?
((I can’t. To do that, I need to prove “god” is inexistent in all parts of Universe, and I personally can’t even reach the Moon. Regarding for strict logic, I can reason, infer, deduce, etc. but I can’t assure it absolutely because it enters in a “experimental” realm. To me, nobody can do something like that. Einstein, who thougt about the whole universe and created a dared theory, was sure of it but admitted that only one simple experimental counterexample could destroy it. I can deduce “god” doesnt exists but if a day a loud voice sound in the whole Earth asking “Who says I don’t exist?” I could guess I was wrong. The issue is that even when I can’t absolutely demonstrate “god” inexistence, I live in a universe completely lacking of clear evidence of his existence and full of (natural) processes that happen without an operating god. So, “if a bird swims as a duck, flies as a duck, sounds “cuack”-“cuack” as a duck, and so on, I say it is a duck”. Because I am in the world, and I have to live, I have to decide how to live. I choose to live in terms of evident and verifiedly true things and those I am sure about. I choose option “No god”. Why choose that option? Look at this: I have a 3 meter metal tube and a ball that can run inside the tube. I hold the tube by one of its extremes and the other extreme rests in the floor. Now, I drop the ball into the extreme of the tube I hold, so I can’t see it. One second later, a ball goes out the other extreme of the tube. I ask you: the ball going out the tube is absolutely the same I dropped into the tube or it is another ball that LOOKS exactly equal to the first one?))
Arguments like “look at evolution and the plethora of science” do not count, because they describe something that exists, our science is descriptive of a process or something that already is there and obeys rules, therefore, the question would be, what or how did those rules appear?
((As much as I remember some notions of it, in the event of Big Bang certain “superforce” suffered a process of “differentiation” and elemental forces appeared: gravity, electricity, magnetism, strong force and leak force (more or less). And also while the Big Bang, our “physical laws” appeared. I invite you read in Wikipedia or others, some of cosmology, evolution of cosmos, teories of unification, quantum tunneling, etc. That will help you a lot.))
To say all this incredible order was created by chance, sounds to me like a great book was written by throwing random letters to blank pages, there is a % of chance of it happening, of course.
((Sure. Throwing random letters hopping get a book when they fall is in excess optimist. This incredible order cames from (chance + time + selection) + (chance + time + selection) + …. Evolution works by many, many, many little steps along very much, much, much time. Read about evolution of whatever you like: biology, history, maths, biology, cosmology, evolution of our Solar System, evolution of matter, evolutionary psychology, abiogenesis, etc, and it always is the same: many little steps, and much time. Being so, evolution is almost unavoidable. That is the reason we are here, 12 500 000 000 years AFTER!! Big Bang. I suggest you to see “How evolution really works” (and other issues too) by cdk007, en Youtube.))
((Well, JM, I hope have been useful to you))
Thanks in advance, buenas tardes!
((You’re welcome, and buenas tardes you too))
Carlos
((I am curious: Why do you write G-d instead of “God”or “god”?))
Personal preference, why do you write “god” instead of G-d?
Ok you can’t prove G-d doesn’t exist, therefore I think it is foolish of you to preach against it’s existence with so much energy, because you can’t know for sure…just as we can’t prove his existence and you say believers are foolish (ok, you never said we are, but your tone depicts believers as such)
I’ll quote you and comment on this:
“I live in a universe completely lacking of clear evidence of his existence and full of (natural) processes that happen without an operating god”
No, wrong, you can’t know for sure. The fact that the machinery seems to run without a driver, doesn’t mean there isn’t a mechanic that put the car together in the first place and before that, a supplier casting iron and others to mold an engine and parts, today, you see the universe running, if G-d doesn’t operate it as you state, and the Big bang the sole mechanic that put it all together…can’t the big bang be just that…a mechanic putting the parts together? where’s the supplier of it all? what fed the big bang in the first place?
You say “elemental forces appeared” but..isn’t there like a scientific law (insert a bit of sarcasm here) that states matter cannot be created nor destructed, only transformed?..so by “magic or a mega explosion” it all appeared?..
Evolution is a subprocess of what we’re discussing here, evolution only proves how we ended up where we are today it means nothing but proving that change derives change, it sounds very logic. Still, that doesn’t explain the “why we (everything) were created” or “who declared those rules” that magnificent order.
Those theories you state are definitely worth some time, in the end, until nothing is proven, are they worth reading? because sounds to me it’s like reading about G-d and all, he sounds more like a theory that can’t be proved, so why bother right?
12.5 billion years is nothing if you think the universe could very well last for trillions of years or more, if so, 12.5 billion years is negligible in that perspective, maybe this evolutionary process is very quick after all.
Now saying that this order is because of a system doing self-iterations, sounds as optimistic as the chance of throwing letters at blank pages and the hoping they’s reorder themselves out. For a process to iterate and reorder itself, would necessarily need specific rules to avoid looping or going back to an earlier state after many iterations.
I see the evolution of galaxies and they are sure not going back to what they were billions of years ago. The code is perfect.
You have indeed proved to be useful to me, that wikipedia site looks entertaining. And well, reading the conversations here is very educational, understanding what drives all people is fascinating to me, if you’re honestly happy with your life as it is, hey, who am I to change that or judge it.
Buenas noches y gracias (is that correct spanish? I’ve been practicing)
Carlos,
As someone with 2 degrees and a major in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science (as well as including a minor Physics and pure Maths) I feel somewhat compelled to call you out on your views on mathematical axioms as posted in a recent post by Perry.
You challenged Perry’s claim that “Mathematicians have faith ((aka “conjectures”, “hypothesis”, “guessing”, “expectations”, etc)) in axioms they cannot prove.” This statement as originally written by Perry is correct, but your additions/understanding appears not to be and raises questions in my mind whether you understand what a mathematical axiom is.
An axiom is not the same as a conjecture, hypothesis, guessing or expectation. To be precise, the greek word “Axioma” (ἀξίωμα) is derived from the verb “Axiono” that means “I claim, without being able to prove”. Therefore an axiom is a truth that is taken for granted because it seems “logical”, depicts reality well and suits some needs but cannot be proven.
For instance all Euclidian Geometry is based upon the *axiom* that “from a point outside a straight line there is only one other straight line passing through it being parallel to the first line”. This statement, referred to as “Euclides’ claim” cannot be proven but there are alternative geometries based upon negations of this claim, like “There are infinite parallel lines passing from the point” (finite space geometry) or “There are no parallel lines, all lines intersect” (geometry on closed surfaces) that are as useful as the Eucledian one.
So axioms are non-trivial truths accepted “by faith” e.g. without proof, and as one of my professors once told me, if some of the fundamental axioms of generally accepted mathematics that we were doing would be found to be false one day, then in principle the proofs we’ve constructed on top of them would be undermined.
Mathematics then (pure theoretical mathematics) is the study of axiomatic systems. Which axiomatic system you’re studying depends upon your field of mathematics (geometry, topology, group theory, etc.) And Mathematics is an “exact science” since any such mathematical system relies upon a foundation of axioms (given truths), it is possible to call it “exact” because you can rely entirely upon deductive logic and your axioms, and (generally) declare a theorem to be true; that is to say, at the end of a proof, you can declare Q.E.D. There is no ambiguity, **if** our axioms are true then the theorem must be true. This is as opposed to “inexact sciences” like chemistry and physics where truth claims are in some sense always approximate, uncertain, contingent, ambiguous, preliminary and subject to correction.
Some more examples of mathematical truths without proofs (empirical or otherwise): Mathematicians have faith the digits of pi are endless and will never repeat, but they cannot prove it. Mathematicians have faith in the existence of infinity, even though infinity cannot be measured or counted (or shown to exist under a microscope.)
Taking a step back, it’s interesting how you seem to argue as though empirical science is the only science in existence or that produces incontrovertible truth, and yet, mathematics as a science is not itself empirical, it is a *rational* science, it’s based on logic and reason, and you largely apeal to it to support your views.
Now, empirical science is about the external world: measurement, controlled experiment, data collection, empiricism. It tests hypotheses against the hard reality of repeatable experiments with objectively measurable results. Those who practice it are called scientists or empiricists.
Reason, by contrast, is internally generated. It’s building mental models of the world, starting with your internal sense for what is right and pure, from which further truths can be deduced. Those who practice reason are called rationalists.
It is therefore inconsistent to to use reason to attempt to prove that that *only* empirical science is valid epistemologically, since it can be argued that the argument itself is not within the realm of empirical science!
So for example, mathematical entities like infinity cannot be empirically proven to exist. You can’t put infinity under a microscope, can you? Or see it, touch it, feel it. You can of course see the ink on paper for a symbol we say represent it, but that’s not infinity itself. And yet, there it is, infinity the concept, in your head, or wherever it exists.
This discussion is of course now veering to another philosophical/metaphysical level, namely the philosophy of mathematics (and of science) itself. If you start digging into this you’ll find that not all scientists and philosphers agree on what science is, and what is and is not science. And you’ll find that there’s various philosophical views regarding the existence of mathematical entities.
“Mathematical realists” for example hold that mathematical entities exist independently of the human mind. Thus, humans do not invent mathematics, but rather discover it, and any other intelligent beings in the universe would presumably do the same. Many working mathematicians have been mathematical realists, including Kurt Godel, who believed in an objective mathematical reality that could be perceived in a manner analogous to sense perception. As an aside, Godel’s Incompleteness theorem actually proves that for any consistent mathematical system there are true statements in it that are not provable, or else the system must be inconsistent… To the extent that this generalises it has some interesting implications for your apparent view that you’ll only believe what’s provable.
Anyway, moving on, “Empiricism” is however a form of realism that denies that mathematics can be known a priori at all. It says that we discover mathematical facts by empirical research, just like facts in any other sciences. The problem with this view is that it makes statements like “2+2=4” come out as uncertain, contingent truths, which we can only learn by observing instances of 2 pairs coming somehow together and forming a quartet…
It is further interesting to note that contemporary mathematical empiricism is primarily supported by the “indispensability argument”: It argues that because mathematics is indispensible to all empirical sciences, and if we want to believe in the reality of the phenomena described by these sciences, we ought to also believe in the reality of those entities required for this description. That is, since physics needs to talk about electrons to say why light bulbs behave as they do, then electrons must be presumed exist. And since physics needs to talk about numbers in offering any of its explanations, then number must exist. And since physics needs to, for example, talk about Higgs Bosons in order to explain how the universe operates at a sub-atomic level (as in the standard model of particle physics) then Higgs Bosons must exist. I might be tempted to point out that this such a line of reasoning supports Perry’s contention on this site, namely that at some point you need to believe that an Intelligence exists, in order to explain why the things are the way they are.
As another aside, for most mathematicians the empiricist principle that all knowledge comes from the senses contradicts a more basic principle: that mathematical propositions are true independent of the physical world. Everything about a mathematical proposition is independent of what appears to be the physical world. It all takes place in the mind. And the mind operates on infallible principles of deductive logic. It is not influenced by exterior inputs from the physical world, distorted by having to pass through the tentative, contingent universe of the senses.
Anyway, I’ve rambled on long enough. 3 things I want to put to you:
1.) Empirical science is not only science there is.
2.) You’re contradicting yourself if you say that you only believe in what empirical science tells you but then immediately appeal to rational or other branches of sciences to support your position.
3.) As demonstrated, there are truths that are true but that can’t be proven (or in some cases just have not yet been proven) whether logical, mathematical or empirical. Nevertheless these truths remain true regardless. It is therefore not reasonable to have the position that the only truths that can be considered or discussed are those that are have been “proved” by empirical science.
Walter
Walter, I want to commend you for an excellent post. This is a keeper.
I join Perry here in congratulating you, I love when people that are very involved into science (as an observer or contributor) put down conclusions like these.
If we all looked at G-d this way, we wouldn’t be fighting to prove whether going to mass on sundays or celebrating shabbat on fridays is the right way to reach him. Just accepting he/she/it exists and look around in awe at the creation would be enough to satisfy us.
Can’t wait to hear a reply from Carlos (I mean this in a good way, not to challenge anybody).
But most of all, I wish one day he acknowledges a supreme force-creator-deity (or whatever you’d call it) or at least a possibility, a doubt of it existing and doing all this.
Hello Walter
What a piece of crystal clear thinking!
you make the following suggestion;
(I might be tempted to point out that this such a line of reasoning supports Perry’s contention on this site, namely that at some point you need to believe that an Intelligence exists, )
I would love to tempt you to elaborate on how intelligence is implied.
Science postulates electrons, Higgs Bosons and numbers and it seems that they exist either empirically or theoretically. Modern biologists usually do not propose intelligence to explain life. Is this where you imply intelligence?
Would you agree that rationalism or philosophy may be logical but a line of reasoning cannot be known to be correct unless it is testable? This does imply that some things cannot be known.
Kind regards
Martin
Hello, Walter:
There are in your post some things I don’t completely understand, so I ask your help.
You say:
“Taking a step back, it’s interesting how you seem to argue as though empirical science is the only science in existence or that produces incontrovertible truth, and yet, mathematics as a science is not itself empirical, it is a *rational* science, it’s based on logic and reason, and you largely apeal to it to support your views” Can you please quote when do I say that?
And you say:
“2.) You’re contradicting yourself if you say that you only believe in what empirical science tells you but then immediately appeal to rational or other branches of sciences to support your position”. Can you please quote when do I say that?
Thanks you, in advance.
Carlos
Carlos, I very much enjoyed your comments and would like to discuss them further. I am not a believer in ant faith based religion and if I was it would be Buddhism as it is more to do with the NOW. Mt email address is robken16@gmail.com. To Perry, Walter, June and others, I would very much like to include some of your comments in a play I am writing and will of course use either pseudonyms or your coffeehouse names. If you have seen “The Battle of Shrivings” (1970) by Peter Shaffer it will give you some idea of the play I am writing.
Hello, Robert
I share your point of view about Buddhism. Even if not historycal, the character of Buda encouraging his discipules when he was calmly dying raises my admiration. I would say he represents the kind of atheistic I would like to be.
Greetings
Carlos
There is no scientific evidence that feelings, emotions, qualities, defects, morality, selfishness, generosity, etc exist. No device can record nor measure ell these and many more. Therefore all these things are lies and myths invented by people like Buddha and Christ.
How can these emotions not exist? As human beings we are the greatest evidence on earth that these emotions do exist. They affect our lives to he extent that we kill as a result of some emotions, and are moved to self sacrifice by others.
Is it possible that what Francisco may mean is that the words describing those emotions are words created by us to qualify our behavior and that as such, such words, like TRUTH,JUSTICE, OBJECTIVITY, etc cannot be proved to exist. Unfortunately that simply means there is no scientific proof; but as some may contend (especially the religious) not everything needs to be confirmed by scientific proof to be acceptable.
One must admit, however, that there have been many gods before Constantine decided to create just one God for purely political reasons, and that if this equally mythical god is what Christians purport Him, She or It to be then such a being would have to be particularly cynical to be responsible for the state of our current world. I totally reject the argument of our being imbibed with free will, or being free agents which allows us to oppress, kill and murder – all in the name of this same God. After all it seems that religion has been responsible for more wars than anything else and that this is not about to change soon. So, where is God?
Hello, Francisco:
Your point is nicely “explosive”. Good for you!
Now, tell me, please: when you have in your arms a really delicious and nice girl, do you say “nothing” is happening in nowhere?
Greetings.
Carlos
Paco, what a biased and unsubstantiated post. Did you even care to read Walter’s one?
Feelings and emotions cannot be measured? Neuroimaging can detect levels of impulses created by the brain, say, when someone is hungry (a feeling) in love (or infatuated) etc…
also..
Your eyes can do the trick, just measure the change on a person’s pupils, sweat levels, heartbeat and respiration intensity and occurrence once you subject someone to places/situations(people they really fear…and then compare to the data when he’s not subject to that.
Generosity cannot be measured? If you measure that by saying the amount of time a person has spent during their life helping other people (for generous or selfish ends) to a person who has done absolutely nothing but consume energy sitting on a couch for years, then you can have a measure of generosity, say: time, resources, etc (a could be a banal way of measuring, but a measure nonetheless)
I assumed he was being sarcastic and I thought it was hilarious.
Hello, Perry Marshall, Walter, JM and Robert Edwuards.
All of you have been very friendly to write letters to me.
I have a lot of them to answer. I want to do but I am short of time these days. So, wait for them some time.
Greetings
Carlos
PD. Perry, many post directed to me are not e-mailed to me. I find them only by mere chance. Please, fix it. Thanks.
Carlos, I think the Buddha was the greatest human geing who walked on the face of the earth. He totally controlled his emotions. What an enviable state. To be totally detached from all desires and to exist in complete serenity. That’s something we can all envy. His teaching on compassion, kindness and morality didn’t invoke God, but Buddhism doesn’t preach atheism. That’s what appeals to me about it, a unique psycho/philosophical teaching which addresses human suffering. You can be interested in Buddhism and a theist at the same time. Ancient religious Buddhism might not agree with that but modern Buddhist are often at least agnostic.
Hello, Martin:
Thank you very much for your comment. Very inspiring.
I havent investigated very much on Buddhism. I have only elemental information. But what impressed to me in the highest degree is his enormous courage, AS A MAN, to face suffering, search its roots and discover-“invent” a way to overcome it. Budha represents to me the HUMAN way to fight the suffering in the world with weapons taken-reasoned from the world itself.
Carlos
Carlos and Martin, Wow! good to see so much interest in Buddha and his teachings. I turned to the ways of Buddha a number of years ago; I am not as dedicated to the disciplines that provide a path to his teachings as I would like to be, but slowly but surely I am gradually inching towards the enlightenment that is the Buddha way.
As a child I was brought up as in the Church of England and remained a believer until I was about 45 when there was an epiphany – It wasn’t so much a loss of faith, as more an adoption of a different way. Also, it didn’t happen in a flash, it was a much slower process, but it was still an epiphany because from that moment on I started to question my belief, I started to question the way things were at that point in my life, at that time. The amazing part about it all was that I didn’t go searching for an alternative belief – it was as though it was looking for me, we were looking for each other, and then one day our paths crossed and I became a lover of Buddha and his ways.
All those that I met, who were also leaning towards Buddha, were of the same thinking as myself, they had a much greater feeling towards compassion and empathy. Christianity, though not to be judgmental or critical, was more to do with cause and effect without the realization of the root cause and the resulting effect. There is much in religions that bring enormous sadness to my heart, so much so that its questioning was an obvious result. Taking the history of religions aside, I was also perturbed by the rhetoric of those who are religious, how they criticize others who are not of the same belief, how intolerance was heavy in their words and their actions. Fear was always apart of their doctrine and their pain and suffering – this condition was expected and embraced because they believe it to be the flagellation and punishment for their salvation – oh dear, oh dear, how sadly the road takes them.
So, I started to look for a life I could embrace, a life that was to be happy with a lessoning of pain and suffering. I didn’t physically go out and search, it was amore a coming together of our paths that enlightened me towards Buddha. Buddha to me, knowing his history and how he achieved freedom from pain and suffering, was my clarion call – clarion is a good word because it’s Latin root means CLEAR. His three components; a moral life, enlightenment through mediation, and wisdom through enlightenment, is the path that brings freedom from pain and suffering.
Along this road towards enlightenment there are other factors to be considered, other factors to practiced; first and foremost is discipline, training yourself to become committed in your actions; detachment, probably the most import consideration as this was the first action to bring Buddha towards his path – he threw away the physical world of his environment, his trappings, his luxuries, his beautiful wife, his father and kingdom, everything discarded. I am not foolish enough to believe that we must all go to this extreme to find freedom, peace, and happiness in the world. What I am saying, is that through detachment of the material world the path becomes clear of obstacles. The other primary result of discipline is the letting go of Ego, this above all else is the cause of greed, pain, and suffering, the cause of wars, strife and misery. Raising our consciousness in our day to day lives is a priority for all human beings; we are rooted in the physical world of materialism; this road can only take you to greed and selfishness.
Many followers of religions have a need other than a spiritual and that is a sense and a need to belong, a habit, and to meet others on a regular basis.
So, the large question is where do you go from here? A world in perpetual war, anger, pain and suffering, economic strife, materialism, unsatisfied needs, greed, and a world of indifference. What can people do to make a difference? Before we start to think of mending our planet and its people we must first think what would Buddha do if asked the same question? I’m sure he would just say ‘what is, is”(even though that is true). He would be proactive like he was when he decided to find another path a path that would help humanity. He wouldn’t say what Plato would say “what would you do”. OK, this is what we need to do; we must become more active within our homes and communities and start there; start in your home by letting go of your ego, saying to yourself ‘I don’t need this stuff’. Start to be self-disciplined like, ‘I don’t need more food, I don’t need to watch television, etc. etc.’ As Peter Finch said in “Network” ‘…enough, is enough.’
You see, the reason I say we must start at home is because that is where life starts, in your home, in your relationships, in the way you treat and speak to each other; we must first have the discipline to recognize WHAT WE ARE DOING! How are we to effect change unless we look into the mirror, into ourselves? All that we need is within us, there is no outside force that has supremacy over our SELF. We need this early realization before we can start to meditate, we need that discipline – though Buddha used meditation as a vehicle to a higher plain consciousness he realized that once it has become second nature it was no longer the leading force in which his final goal could be achieved. Needless to say, we are all a long way from achieving this plain of enlightenment. Hundreds of books have been written about meditation and how this can be achieved so I will leave that for your reading though it sounds as if you have already been down that path.
Collectively what are we to do to help repair the wounds of humanity, what little can we do to start the healing process; the quest is out there and I look forward to your replies. Lastly, what we don’t want to do is just preach or gesticulate over what you shouldn’t being doing; we must be positive and provide tangible help that even the most ardent skeptic can feel as though, Wow! I may try this. If there is one simple group of things you can do that is so easy, that will help you to this early plain of enlightenment, it is do nothing, be silent, and clear you mind of thoughts, and avoid vexatious people.
And remember the devil inside you is called EGO.
Hello, Robert Edwards:
WOW! I need to think about this. Thanks, again.
Carlos
PD: I already sent to you mi e-mail.
Carlos, I’m away until Friday and will reply then. Hope all is well. Take care, Robert
Buddha gave away his lifestyle to become a teacher and a meditator, to find truth and freedom of this world. That’s the correct way to go. Dis-attach, from wealth, family (when they die) excesses, yourself (especially yourself)
I’d like to comment on your paragraph.
“Fear was always apart of their doctrine and their pain and suffering – this condition was expected and embraced because they believe it to be the flagellation and punishment for their salvation – oh dear, oh dear, how sadly the road takes them.”
Isn’t it a self-inflicted punishment to leave all your lifestyle behind, wealth, family, friends and all to find the light and take on a new lifestyle away from that? Didn’t Buddha have to bear difficulties in his life after he chose his path? It sounds to me like Jesus a lot. The difference is how it’s portrayed. Extremes is why Christian religions sound just like what you described above. Christians are meant to be “perfect or be doomed”, nobody will ever be perfect, not even Buddha, and that quest for perfection, instead of bringing you joy because it changes the way you live, frees you from your own self (ego)…ends up being so strict that it kills you, any stain in your white-clean moral (sin) will eat you, for it will feel that you’re away from salvation because of that…I mean, come on, that’s waaaaaaay to harsh, sadly, this is what we’re taught.
Allow me to explain a bit more on the way Christianity should be regarded and taught (unlike what it is today). It’s should never be about extremes (another check mark on Buddha) but christians are taught to go to the extremes sometimes, it’s not about giving up all the wealth to the poor (for socialism was not Jesus’ teachings) but dis-attachment from your ego, means to “give the other cheek”, but don’t be a fool and be abused all the way. Means forgive, but be just and fair, not just forgive it all for forgiveness’ sake. That’s why vices are morally wrong. Is drinking wrong? if you do it everyday and that ends up affecting your life (and others’) and can’t control it, it is. If you do it once a month or a week, in moderation it is not. Well, Middle way is what our two characters say is the right path, to me sounds very logical.
I reckon, honestly, that Buddha and Jesus are very much alike, that’s what we should look at, not if we get eternal salvation or not, just make a change with your life, see honestly what is wrong (honestly as in give up that what is a burden, but looks like it is not) and share the joy with the people around, that’s it. Those changes will benefit you in this life, the reward is here too.
That probably sounds like your epiphany and I’m very happy that you’re on the right path to freedom, I wish you happiness and a fruitful life.
Hello Robert:
I was brought up as an Anglican and I believed for the earlier part of my life, I may have been considered to be religious. I must have changed once I finished high school and although I began to question the writings in the Bible, I could not discuss my feelings or misgivings with my parents or friends. Later when I became a teacher and taught Biblical History I evidently had to not just read the Bible but actually study it – both Old and New Testament.
Even to this day, I admit that there are many things about the world – which is supposedly over 4.5 billion years old – that I don’t understand. However try as I may, I can,t really believe in the Christian Godhead concept. It has been said that a little education can be a bad thing and I suspect that this may very well be my problem.
Some years ago I came across a speech given by the Dalai Lama in France in which he pointed out that he did not believe in any form of religion. He was interested in making people’s life happy and meaningful. His message was to help in bringing about a compassionate humanity and a compassionate human society. There was no talk of a coming god,of adoration, of pilgrimage, of repentance or of reward and punishment. Tenzin Gyatso, the XIVth dalai Lama pointed out that Buddhism was not really a religion but rather a kind of model for living. I liked that. I still do, but of course I am not a Buddhist.
Attn: Mr. Edwards:
Yesterday, November 28th, at Marble Collegiate College in Manhattan an inter-dominational service was held (which was really a forum on theology) featuring Dr. Michael B. Brown, Imam Muhammad Shamsi Ali (Deputy Imam of the Islamic Cultural Center of New York and Director of Jamaica Muslim Center in Queens), and Rabbi David Posner (Senior Rabbi of Temple Emanu-El).
Together, these three men have more than a century of religious study under their belts. They restricted the discussion to three questions:
1. What is the most-important text in each’s particular “Bible”?
2. What is Religion?
3. What is the cause of suffering and happiness?
It generally takes a week or so for the stream to be placed on the Church’s website or Vimeo.
Anyone interested in more than merely lay-intellectual sparring should consider this must viewing.
The issue of “the wounds of humanity” as you called them were addressed, tangentially, in a way that I think you would find compelling to say the least.
John, can you please forward me the link to this service or/and is there a transcript? I’m away until Friday.
Thanks, Robert
Why do people who so certainly claim to have personal knowledge of god and the truth find others afraid of the truth because they don’t share their conviction?
Which truth is being contemplated here, anyway?
isn’t it a far reach to understand or explain away the evil being done in the name of religion be it Christianity, Islam or any of the others on a daily basis?
No one has yet even attempted to explain “why” this one “God” that came out of the many gods of the Greeks and Romans made the world and everything in it?
Until there is more, the Bible will remain – and rightly so – a compilation of stories, many of which have a valid lesson to teach, and Jesus if he existed would remain in the minds of intelligent people a good teacher who met an unfortunate and untimely death. But Divine and born of Immaculate Conception? Please!
There is certainly nothing wrong with Faith, especially if it helps to assuage the trials and tribulations of daily living for the faithful.
Bert,
What a clear and rhetorical bit of questioning!
I would suggest that we easily mistake certainty (or strong feelings or conviction or loyalty or faith) with Truth. This is intuitive but too often untrue. Faith therefore may be useful to help us cope with life but is not really a virtue at all because it comes with a high risk of self delusion. It encourages strong belief in the absence of evidence. Nor has anyone of faith attempted to explain “how” this God made the world, only attacking the attempts of others. I would suggest that faith mixed with scripture is a rather risky combination.
@Bert: Untimely death? What makes it untimely? How can you assure this wasn’t destined to be part of his life and the actual teaching of all teachings (to give your life humbly without being aggressive and cursing on everybody for it, isn’t that less human and more divine? it’s certainly less animal) In the end, we’ll al die, does it matter if it is today or in a hundred years? Is a longer life better than a shorter..or..more fortunate?
If his teachings are complete by the time he’s 33…then he has no other purpose to live, other than to consume resources, and his death and the way it happened was actually the major teaching (as written above)
I agree on what you say, “There is certainly nothing wrong with Faith, especially if it helps to assuage the trials and tribulations of daily living for the faithful”
Take care pal
There isn’t a proper place for this post (and I don’t know if someone posted this here already), but there is a site called “Atheism analyzed” that posted this article:
Intercessory prayer on nonhumans primates:
http://atheism-analyzed.blogspot.com/search/label/Prayer
this is hte link for the study registered on Pubmed:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17131981
I think it’s something “weird” at first, but for us christians, sounds like very good news.
Very interesting! Thanks for the link.