The New Atheist Crusaders and their quest for the Unholy Grail
Offline Hey all. It's been a while since I've been on. I appologise, I've been busy.
The title of this forum is the title of a book I just finished reading. It's a catchy title, so I figured it'd be a good way to grab someone's attention on here. The book is written by Becky Garrison.
If her name doesn't sound familiar, that's fine, it shouldn't. So why am I wasting your time telling you about this book? Well, I'm glad you asked. This is a book written by a True Christian. HUH? For all of you who have discussed with me in the past, you understand what I'm talking about and for those of you who haven't you can research my blogs. Caposkia is my name.
Anyway, It's written from the viewpoint of how a true Christian feels about of course the atheists in the world today, but more importantly for you, how she feels about Christians in the world.
This is for all of you arguing with me about how Christians have to be black and white. How you have to follow a religion and there's nothing outside of religion etc. She touches on all of this. I truly think you'll enjoy reading this book and I would like to hear from those of you who have read it if anyone. If not, I"ll wait till someone finishes it. It's not a very long book.
When I first came onto this site, I wanted to discuss directly with those who were involved in the infamous television debate that RRS was involved in about the existence of God with Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron. They didn't have time and the other non-believers I came across were too opinionated to involve themselves in a conversation that made any progress. Instead I got into other debates which for the most part were a lot of fun, but I digress.
Becky mentions this debate as well in her book at the end. This is for all of you on here I've talked to who would not believe me or had other personal issues with the fact that my opinion didn't flow with their idea of a Christian. I will breifly say that I hold her viewpoint when she says that if she was at that debate, she would have "crawled out of that church in shame. "
Simply put, we both agree that both sides put forth deplorable excuses for their side and did not defend their side succesfully. I know I know, many of you will disagree and say that RRS did disprove the existance of God in that debate, but enough with the opinions, I'm saying the other side did just as good of a job proving God. This debate is a poor excuse to not follow Christ and this book talks about those types of Christians.
This book should clarify many misunderstandings of how True Christians are and I hope bring light to a new understanding of our following.
It is written differently than most books, but is an informational peice and uses a lot of researched information. It does focus on the "New Atheists" and is not a book preaching to the masses. As said, it is from the point of view of a True Christian.
enjoy, let me know your thoughts. I would also request, please be respectful in your responses. I'm here to have mature discussions with people.
- Login to post comments
Offline Cap, you have been a very gracious punching bag, as far as your claims, and I am quite sure outside this issue you are a nice guy.
AND if you want to waste your time here banging your head against the wall, we wont stop you.
BUT, the reality is that if you truly believe what you have is valid, this is not a lab, this is a message board. Go work on making a working model that can be tested and falsified, and take it to a neutral setting where ANYONE outside your pet claim can replicate and falsify and verify your findings.
All you are doing here is trying to convince us. So what? We've had Muslims and Jews and even pantheists try to do the same thing you are doing now.
I will hand you the Nobel Prize myself if you can prove what you claim. You wont do that because you know damned well you cant. You cant anymore than a Muslim or Jew or pantheist.
"This is the shit" is what all claimants of all labels of a non material entity OF ALL labels claim.
SO WHAT!
My purple snarfwidget created the universe and metaphysics justifies it. THERE I just made an equally valid claim to yours. So you should blindly accept it if I refuse to use scientific method to demonstrate that my purple snarfwidget is proven by metaphysics.
You have swallowed a naked assertion and you sell your naked assertion because it sounds good to you. Having the ability to make up elaborate crap and sell elaborate crap does not make the crap valid. Otherwise I could use "metaphysics" to justify my purple snarfwidget.
All you have proven to us is that humans are capable of believing absurd things.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
- Login to post comments
Offline The Catholic Church when it "confirms" miracles, is not using the method of testing and falsification and independent verification. Nor does it employ double blind testing. It is merely a club who uses the false logic that if tons of people like the idea and we all shout it from the rooftops, it must be true.
So your "evidence" that metaphysics proves the Christian god is to use an unscientific club?
Ok, so then since Islam is the biggest religion in the world and we can, in reality, travel to Mecca, that must mean that Allah is the one true god.
And while we are at it, you are taking the word of people who actually value the concept of human cannibalism, even if merely symbolic. You take the word of an asshole who tells the poor in Africa not to use condoms when he is not a medical doctor nor cares about the spread of aids as a result of his bad advice.
Mecca is not a science university nor is the Vatican. They are monuments to comic book fans who falsely believe their comic book heros are real. This is what you back up your "metaphysics with" "The pope says".
I'd like it better if you just stick to "metaphysics". You are dragging an already bad claim even further into the gutter by trying to invoke that clown.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
- Login to post comments
Offline cap,
here is a link http://www.brainsciencepodcast.com/ to a website where you can read, listen to, or download and listen to, one of my favorite podcasts/discussions on our current understanding of how our brains/minds 'work', where the host does her best to clarify the science, for those outside the disciplines involved.
There are others, of course, but I have found this series extremely informative, even after having followed this field quite a bit over the years.
If this is not quite what you had in mind, I can point to others, but I would appreciate your reaction to this one. It would help me decide what other sources might work better for you.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
- Login to post comments
Offline Yes there was indeed the idea of studying something in a lab, such as 'God DNA'. But that does not require a microscope, although very fancy electron microscopes have been used in some studies of the structure of the DNA molecule, and the processes of cellular replication can use more ordinary microscopes.
But DNA sequencing does not use microscopes.
And I didn't say you claimed we "could study God under a microscope", of course you did explicitly deny it. But you are the one who implied we were making such a claim, and tried to make it sound even more ridiculous by suggesting that we had the idea of using a microscope to study God.
Assuming that a being that lives outside the physical existence would have DNA which is the basis of physical existence is ridiculous. So of course I'm going to make it sound as ridiculous as possible. A lot of times when people are trying to prove something, they don't hear the simple strait forward answer. I've learned that being on this site.
Which does have some relevance to 'virgin birth' claims.
To claim a physical means of a spiritual occurance is not rational understanding how the spiritual interacts. It has no relevance in 'virgin birth' claims as far as the Bible story is concerned. We'd again have to assume God was just another physical person if you're looking for God sperm.
No, not so much 'not possible', but totally unnecessary, or even a meaningless idea in itself. It IS a giant presumption that we have to subdivide reality into what is accessible to science and some other realm where magical, transcendental, ideas like 'infinite, all-powerful, conscious beings might plausibly exist yet be not detectable by science, even though science can detect and measure all kinds of things we never even dreamed about before, from quarks to dark matter, from viruses to the subconscious workings of our own mind.
the claim of a metaphysical existence not being necessary is only based on the idea that we can explain claimed metaphysical happenings by other means. Just because one might have another explanation of how something happened doesn't mean it happened by that other means, but likely through the use of the other means. Science is dependent on physical results. There are scientific studies of metaphysical or spiritual happenings. Whether the masses accept the results are a different story. The problem with metaphysical results is they're not always consistently repeatable, though they are repeatable. Consistency depends on the choice of the spiritual.
But of course, your distinction between the 'physical' and the 'non-physical' is a category error.
Science already addresses the 'non-physical', such as the more abstract principles which govern the way complex systems behave, such as the related areas of complexity theory, chaos theory, non-linear systems, and the evolutionary paradigm as a generalization of Darwin's ideas. These are not tied to any specific physical manifestation.
it's a distinction between what people on here are expecting for study and what is being studied. I agree there are non-physical sciences. Thanks again for clarifying it. I have offered every avenue of discussion, including those. I may not have mentioned them by name, but by opening the floor to anyone to choose any means of discussion is to open the floor to any angle you want to take on the subject. ,... actually, i do remember mentioning some non-physical sciences at one time... quickly they were ignored and the excuse was that I was using them to distract... funny how that works.
There is also the study of intelligence, consciousness, self-awareness, which include efforts to study the fundamentals of what they are, as processes divorced from particular 'physical' examples.
I've mentioned that as well. all excuses apparently...
That still doesn't even begin to clarify what you mean by 'the constant'.
something that is guaranteed to never change in the study, as a basis for reasoning and conclusion.
Lesser versions of this have already been attempted, especially focussing around the effects of prayer, which have come up negative, within the bounds of experimental error.
I question those studied mainly be it that prayer is not a constant (in other words, it's not always going to have a result) mainly due to the fact that the prayer in those studies is more literally a request to God to choose to make a result. The choice factor to me deems that experiment irrational because you cannot conclude either way, a result once will not prove God and lack of result due to choice on God's part cannot disprove God.
It would really just have to look for departures from statistical pure chance in all kinds of contexts, in some way that could not be explained by as yet undiscovered non-sentient forces.
The only way I can see confirming prayer is to compile historical claims of prayer answers and look at the consistency. it seems the results are very similar in the way of how they come about and how quickly the results occur depending on the prayer and situation.
Problem is that even if the influence of some consciousness on worldly events could be detected, there is no easy way to prove it was due to anything like 'God'. Intelligent aliens are always going to be more plausible than 'God' as described in scripture. How could we possibly prove this influence was of an 'infinite' being, of infinite power, or even begin to determine the motives of such a being? This dilemma is faced by believers, quite independent of 'science', if they would be honest.
thats the question I've been asking for a very long time on this thread. No one can answer it. they're looking for something they know I can't provide them, then concluding that because I can't provide it for them that i must be in the wrong.
I do question how intelligent aliens would be more plausible than God be it that many of the miracles in question are even beyond our imagination as far as intelligence goes.
It seems then that it's an obvious conclusion to say that because it's difficult to prove anything was due to a being like God that this God possibility is no longer a possibility. That is irrational due to the factors that are obvious. It's like me saying I'm capable of running a 5 minute mile. You can question that and i can claim it all I want, but unless I choose to do it, you can't prove that I can't do it. The same with God. People set up experiments assuming God's going to go along with them without even asking and when he doesn't, they assume automatically that God really isn't there. That's a delema even believers have been going through when prayers aren't answered. When God says no, suddenly he doesn't exist.
sounds like a teens relationship with their parents.
t applies to the traditional theological arguments for God - demonstration of a 'First Cause' says nothing about the nature of that First Cause, now that we know that complexity does not require an even more complex 'cause'.
The problem with the scientific mind is that they see that God only can exist if necessary.. in other words, there's no other way for something to happen unless there's this intelligence. What they fail to take into consideration is that its possible and rational to think that an intelligent being would design a system with the laws in place in such a way that interactions this intelligence wants to make in that creation would be cooperative with the laws created within the environment. Thus from an inside perspective, the intelligence behind the creation is not needed and therefore doesn't exist, but an outside perspective would say that it's logical that if this God really is intelligent, the easiest way to affect something in the creation is to cooperate with the laws and restrictions within the creation. why make the job harder by breaking the rules? What more catastrophic results could come of breaking such laws?
Sure, if you want to back up your original claim. It doesn't have to be detailed, but the less detail is available for each case, the more examples are needed to find some consistent trend.
I'll see what I can do.
Christians claim to know God's capabilities, but there is no way they can know that with any confidence.
any more than any parent can no their childs capabilities or any child can know their parents capabilities. We know what He's capable of, therefore we do not question Biblical claims. there are other miracle claims that we do question all the time and also just because it's deemed a miracle and understood to be beyond scientific and physical understanding doesn't mean it was from this God. One question asked when determining miracles is whether it was consistent with the work of God.
Everything I have read on these, and comments by serious, qualified investigators, like Robert Winston, who is NOT an atheist, seem to show little justification for claiming them as miracles.
What problems do you have with the process itself?
Understanding doesn't "negates the possibility", it reduces the need to posit a 'God' to explain anything, and raises the need to explain how God would fit in to our expanded comprehension of reality.
I've always wondered why scientifically it is understood that God is needed to explain anything? I don't need to be here to explain anything to you, but I still exist.
So the fact that, over historical time, 50 billion children have died at an early age, even before birth, from natural causes, ie because of the hostile nature of the world that God supposedly created, before they could begin to comprehend belief, is possibly defensible? Or that there is some ultimate good that might follow from children rendered blind by parasites that God created?
Of course there is always the possibility, however remote, that there is some hypothetical 'higher purpose' served by such apparently pointless deaths, but on what basis would you conclude that an infinitely powerful and 'loving' entity could not find some other way of achieving that, and why would he need to cause such suffering in a mortal race to achieve his purpose? And why would his purpose necessarily be morally compelling to us? Why do presume we are more than a tool or a plaything to this hypothetical being? Concocting a story to fool us into doing what he wanted for whatever ulterior motives he might have would be trivial for such a being.
There could be many reasons and many results. Yes, the higher purpose idea is holding onto the perspective that death is not the end. In other words, the children who died are doing so much more in death than in life. Either that or the other Christian mythology approach to this is that before birth they were told what would come of their suffering and they chose to allow this path. There's no way we can prove or disprove this perspective. Either way, we can always look at it as, would you have noticed these children now if they didn't die of such a drastic cause but lived a normal life and died of old age? I'm not sure why, but people take notice more of severe situations rather than insignificant situations. My take is there's a reason why they were supposed to be noticed. I dont' know the results from noticing them, but they are remembered.
Why would you even entertain such an idea, when there are far simpler, more likely explanations for why everything happens the way we observe?
I know God. I know it's not that simple. This should further negate the idea that God is needed to explain, if anything, knowing God makes you aware of how much we still don't know.
You think that facts like that some houses escaped a fire in unusual but not impossible circumstances, among a vast number that suffered the more common and expected fate, given the reality that unusual events will happen naturally at least some of the time, given enough time, justifies such claims in the face of what evidence we do have??
it's based on more than that they just happened. it's timing and circumstance. Sure, I could win the lottery tomorrow and I likely would thank God but not necesarily say that God made me win it. Likely that won't happen, but it happens somewhere all the time. Those circumstances are rare, but happen and the timing isn't unique, there's a set drawing and a set number range that is drawn, there are X number of tickets sold which makes the possibility of one ticket having the exact numbers a likely possibility. Nothing significant about the timing or circumstance in this situation assumes there's more to it than natural chance.
Even if you feel you need a God to explain some mysteries, the idea of a God who is not omni-benevolent, doesn't ultimately care how much suffering he causes, is prepared to put on the occasional stunt like the resurrection, and so on, is a far more plausible and comprehensible interpretation of the Bible and history than yours.
your'e sure he doesn't care. Are you saying every parent that has allowed their child to hurt themselves in a minor way to learn not to do what they've done in the future is "not caring"?
Completely solves the classic "Problem of Evil" for a start. And doesn't violate logic any more than the conventional interpretation does, arguably less so.
EDIT: Of course. It is blindingly obvious to me that tossing the illogical God concept out makes things even simpler.
simpler sure... but simple doesn't always result in Truth. It's simple to look out at the horizon on the shore and say "the earth is flat" It's not true, but that's the simple solution.
You've presented it and I've disputed it. Is all you have "Of course they did everything right."?
You used this miracle as a proof - the burden is still on you.
You'd think they'd give something more substantial than this - I thought miracles were big deals.
Shouldn't there be a little more than:
1. Person claims he had disease by self diagnosis.
2. Person claims to be cured of disease after praying to a saint (or a potential saint) again by self diagnosis.
3. Churchmen claim saint or potential saint performed miracle.?
Do the not have a Devil's Advocate for guys they want to fast track to sainthood? Shouldn't they confirm a miracle was performed before ascribing it to Escriva? For all I know, the claimant never actually had the condition.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin