Lots of scientists were theist.

Well, it was the 17th century, when people were more ignorant - he also probably would have been burned at the stake if he said he didn't believe in god!

Remeber that Delicously_Saucy or whatever the user was who posted that scientific theist topic? LOL @ them. 

There is nothing wrong with defending your position. 

Newton may have been a christian, but he also did good things.

Sir Isaac Newton this man feared god in his latter years he feared many things including his own shadow, his experiments with alchemy involved many highly dangerous substances including Mercury which undoubtedly played a major part in driving him completely mad as it is a neurotoxin. the phrase mad as a hatter is derived from the use of mercury in hat making in the early 19th-century

 In his latter a years it would be wrong to perceive him as a dusty old professor continuing his earlier brilliant work as this be far from the truth

pm9347 if you wish to discover the truth then I suggest you research this man's fascinating and controversial history

Soctrates was a drunk and a pederast, should you be a drunk and a pederast because he was smarter than you?

BTW: I'm not comparing christianity to alchoholism or pederasty, but only for fear of insulting drunks and pederasts. ba dum bum 

This already has a couple posts on this forum.

Anywho, this smacks of narrisism to me. Courtious driving has been a concept that has been taught in drivers ed in highscools and private driving schools for ages. Why it requires a Catholic to teach is beyond me. As if a baptist or Hindu or Buddist couldnt figure it out.

1. Dont talegate. DUH

2. Let people in, keep your distance.

3. Dont engague angrey drivers.

You need steemy smoke from a mace and a wafer on the tounge to know how to drive?

Maybe Oedpus could have used a preist before he met daddy at the crossroads and killed him. 

Everything, including your quote in your sig fails to recognize human nature.

1. Being smart and contributing to schools of thought does not your deity or their deity, or even a exists by default.

2. Plato did not believe in the Abrahmic gods. He even railed like Jefferson did against the idea of blindly following without question.

3. Einstien's god was NOT a mythological magical creature like Isis Allah or Jesus. His |"god" was a purely spectulative statement that    IF he had to concieve of one, god would not be a preformer of parlor tricks, but the mere potential and kenetic energy that resides in the universe. Your sig only reflects his "passion" for absurving nature. At best you could call him a deist, but in no way could you call him a Jew or Christian.

4. The "roof" gets hit by one of these famous people and they dont know what is beyond that "roof". It is because of modern skeptisism that is now challenging these people to refrain from incerting a "who" which is what theism does.

5. Much of these "speculative statements by some, NOT ALL, of these people you mention are a result of cultural pressures. Some, if had been given the chance without fear of reprisal would do what we do here and call fiction fiction. But, just like human nature, people often revert to "softening the blow" as to not get a sever backlash.

Plato was a theist. Plato was smart. So why dont you believe in the mulitiple gods of his day? Obviously he knew something. 

Let me cut to the chase here. I love to be proven wrong. But highly susspect that there IS a spacific deity you ultimatly are trying to defend. So using other people's religions and motifs and cultures makes no sense to me, unless your goal is to defend a generic god, and not a specific one.

1. If it is a specific god, name it and defend it.

2. If it is a generic god, then dont claim a specific deity to defend. I susspect however, the old, "everyone believes" fallacy. Yea, they do. But at one point most people believed the earth to be flat and that the sun rotated around the earth. EVEN SMART PEOPLE!

Saying that most people have a god believe is a huge NO DUH, to me and not a suprise at all. Just like it is not a suprise to me at one time that most humans thought the heart did the thinking and not the brain.

You never want to consider theses smart people as being either tools of the church when they write what they do. You never want to consider that the "skeptics" still may have to face a majority oposition and have to write what they do in a politically correct way.

That is why I cant stand polliticall correctness. That is why junk science is still trying to enter our school system. That is why smart people who really see that a myth is a myth cant speak their minds and have to sugar coat it.

You try to equate the diversity of backgrounds of these famous people as to A god existing when it is not as compartmentalized or black and white as you'd like to make it.

If you read Newton's full quote, he is actually making fun and warning against predicting "the end". It seems to me it was written in sarcasm but unfortunatly even today people are too dumb to see, weither he was a theist or not, that HE DIDNT WANT THE END OF THE WORLD TO HAPPEN.

It came across to me as, "Well you might as well pick this date" because nobody knows.

I think Newton would be much fonder of skeptics and RRS than dogmatic a-holes like Aquinus and Ray Comfort and Newton would have been protesting outside the "Crapinism" musium along with Einstien.

My point is that I smell an agenda here. I am not foold by it. It smacks of a bait and switch. If you end up being a Jeffersonian deist without a spacific label, that would be tollerable. But I susspect there IS  a spacific label that you are hiding from us. I hope not, and I hope I am wrong.

It is an old argument, "Everyone else does it".

So? What reason do you have to "do it". 

Brian,

 Go back and read my post carefully, and you'll notice that I nowhere argued from "so-and-so believes in God" to "therefore, God must exist". Moreover, I explicitly stated that these thinkers were theists "of some sort". I nowhere said that they all believed in the Christian God (although, many of them do).

Further, it's extremely ad hoc to speculate that these thinkers believe in (or argue for) God merely because of "cultural pressures". Have you conducted the relevant sociological and psychological studies to prove this, or do you know somebody who has?  Do you know any of these thinkers personally, Brian? Is there any basis, beyond mere speculation, to support your claim? I doubt it; good grief, you don't even know how to spell their names. It's not "Aquinus", it's Aquinas; it's not "Einstien", it's Einstein. One would think that if you knew so much about these men, you'd at least get their names right.

Especially frustrating is that the bulk of your post seems not even remotely aimed at anything I've said or done, and much of it is simply unintelligible or unclear. For example:

Where have I done this? Please quote me where I have.

Where have I done this? Please quote me where I have.

Where have I asserted otherwise? Provide the quotation.

Please quote me where I did this.

What are you talking about? Unclear.

Where did I make this argument? Please quote.

Unintelligible.

Unclear.

I never provided any quotations of Newton. What are you talking about? Unclear.

Basically, you've misunderstood my whole post, you've wrongly accused me of making arguments I never in fact made, and you've invented bizarre speculations with no basis. You can barely even form an intelligible sentence. And you use "we", as though you speak on behalf of RRS. Is this what being a "rational responder" is all about? Wow.

Rev,

It's difficult to tell what your point is. I don't think any of the people I listed believed in a "sun god". Please state whatever argument it is that you're trying to make, using numbered premises and conlcusions. And we'll go from there.

Cheers,

Gavagai

bof... You can backpedal if you like, it’s advisable at this point anyway, but you were clearly implying that since those people are not fools and they are theists that theism is not a foolish belief. And if not then what exactly was the purpose of dropping those names?

I was referring to your lack of a coherent argument for god’s existence. The personal beliefs of the people on your list are completely irrelevant.

Or perhaps, rather, that Theism is not the belief of fools.

I am aware that in statistical groups it's been shown that education levels run inverse to religious levels. But the same does not translate into an inverse relationship of remarkable intellect over theism, and people are presenting the fallacy that it does, here as argument.

Compartmentalisation is not an accurate description of the theism of history's great thinkers. They are certainly not people who weren't/aren't letting logic seep into their 'god box'. Newton's alchemical texts for example display a rigorous and balanced examination of theological text, and he is believed to have been taking deliberate steps to conciliate philosophy with theology, the only possible way to do such a thing is logically. And I don't need to stick with Newton here, either, Mendel, Cauchy, Faraday, Wallis, or even Nobel Laureate Charles Townes who published a paper on the conciliation of science and theology in the 20th century, All these people were demonstrably faithful and dedicated theists for which compartmentalisation cannot fairly be an issue.

However, my favourite Nobel Laureate Marie Curie was an atheist, had she not been, she may never have become a scientist, she was living in oppression of religion and broke out of it.

Roger Bacon (laws of nature fame) was imprisoned by his own church for teaching science, and Paracelcus 'the bombastic' was often seen as an angry heretic, but neither he nor Bacon were any less a Theist for their stand against organised religion.

These are a few examples of why I rather say that theism is not the belief of fools, but capitulation to contemporary dogma would have made fools of great people. A true moral and philosophical passion expressed at least in part as faith in a single loving God does not seem to me to have an adverse affect on the intellect.

Gauche,

You've read far too much into my post. I presented those names for the fellow who started this thread. He was amazed to discover that Newton was a theist, so he'd probably be delighted to find out that hundreds upon hundreds of the brightest minds throughout history and up to the present are actually theists. I noted at the end that it's amusing how radical atheological apologists like RRS and Dawkins think all these people have a "mental disorder" to the extent that they're theists. And it is amusing. Anybody can see that these thinkers reflected on their belief in God in a very serious, systematic, and intellectually rigorous way; they weren't suffering from a "mental disorder" or "virus".

I was never trying to argue for God's existence in the first place. Please re-read my post carefully, and you'll see this.

 Anybody can see that these thinkers reflected on their belief in God in a very serious, systematic, and intellectually rigorous way; they weren't suffering from a "mental disorder" or "virus".

 Nor were they compartmentalizing. At least, the vast majority weren't. Anybody familiar with their work knows this. God played a huge role in their intellectual lives. Same goes with the contemporary theistic philosophers I listed. Your suggestion that they all must be compartmentalizing is a mere superstition -- it's manifestly false, and you'll realize this if you keep up with a lot of their work. 

Are you are suggesting that those that attended say witch burnings weren't infected with a socially corrupting mental disorder 

BTW, care to do a count and tell me how many of the people you mentioned were born in the last, say 100 years? Or better yet in the last 50 years? After such principles as quantum mechanics, big bang cosmology and evolution has been scientifically established? Think perhaps some of these great thinkers you mentioned might have been influenced by such things?

Perhaps I have read too much into your post. But why would you think that the op could know who thomas aquinas was and not know that he was a theist? And if he doesn't know who thomas aquinas is then why would he be delighted to know that he was a theist?

It seemed more like you were trying to make a point but if you want to maintain that you weren't then I'm not going to try to brow-beat you. 

Yellow,

First, nowhere have I argued from "here's a list of many brilliant theists" to "God exists" or even to "theism has a one-up on atheism". I've made my intentions perfectly clear already. I was providing those names for the person who started this thread, merely because I thought he'd be delighted to know about it. I hope he does some research on these brilliant people and learns that they seriously supported theism.

My claim towards the end -- that it's amusing how RRS and Dawkins think all of those figures suffer from a mental disorder to the extent that they're theists-- is utterly uncontroversial. I know of not a single, well-respected philosopher or historian of philosophy (naturalist or theist) who would disagree with me.

Second, you say:

As it turns out, every analytic philosopher in the links I provided was born in the last 50 or 100 years. The fact that you even questioned whether any of the people I listed were born within this period makes me suspect that you aren't the least bit familiar with their work, contrary to certain claims you've made. A great deal of them are still alive and publishing.

Third, the devil is in the details. If you want your claim about "compartmentalization" to be taken seriously, you'll simply have to do some heavy-lifting here and provide the actual evidence that each philosopher does this. Otherwise, it's difficult to see how your claim amounts to anything more than a piece of superstition. If you don't have textual evidence, that's fine. Perhaps you know some of them personally, and you can provide a personal (and, I hope, reliable) testimony about their tendency to keep God totally separate from their philosophical work. Let's start with the contemporary philosophers and work our way back. We can begin with Kvanvig. Do you know him personally? Can you point me to anything he has written that would suggest he likes to keep his theism separate from his academic work? I look forward to seeing your evidence.

Cheers,

Gavagai

Fair enough. I also hope he takes my comments about Newton into account. While a brilliant man, how such a genius could make such an asinine proclamation about the end of the world can only be attributed to the irrational side of an otherwise careful observationist.

I can think of several. And, again, I fail to see why any of that matters.

Care to comment on the fact that every such philosopher you mentioned was admittedly theist? I was more so speaking toward those in the scientific fields you mentioned. I think you missed my point. 

The theistic philospophers you mentioned? No, not so much. I'm a scientist, not a philosopher, though I'm not ignorant on the subject. While I may not be familiar with the people you mention by name, I assure you I am familiar with their arguments, I deal with them daily. 

Duh. Admitted THEISTIC philosophers need not compartmentalize. They LIVE the lie and their lievelyhoods depend on such.

People who acutally understand how the universe works are a different story in my experience.

How, exactly, is it superstition? 

Yeah, not getting my points at all, are you?

Please. Newton effectively put the date at "no later" that 2060. He said so himself. He gave no exact date, but he DID give a date - just a date that at the time seems SOOOOO far off as to quell all the other twits chattering around him. He effectively did the EXACT same thing everyone else was doing, he simply made it seem more reasonable for the time.

He STILL made an asinine, untennable, and completely ridiculous claim about the end of the world - the exact same thing he was complaining about.

i.e compartmentalization 

Thank you Mr. Harpur. 

I have no doubt they did. This is beside the point of what we are discussing though.

No that's inaccurate. He said "No sooner" not "No later".

Specifically: 

"It may end later, but I see no reason for its ending sooner."

followed by 

"it is not for us to know the times & seasons"

 He was effectively trying to trump the twits with his status and cast doubt on any nigh end prohecy that anyone could come up with for more than a thousand years. I'm sure he felt it was an adequate and logical effort, you can hardly have expected him to believe 21st century people would be squabbling over the twit status of historical rationalists, why do expect him to have defended his position perfectly to you some thousand years before you were born? 

LOL, you don't know who Harpur is do you?

http://www.popmatters.com/books/reviews/p/pagan-christ.shtml

Yeah I mentioned it was peripheral.  

I fail to see how this is any better. It's still a completley irrational claim, made at a time when 2060 seemed like forever away.

Hey, I never thought of it that way. Perhaps he simply pulled a ridiculously far off date out of his ass just to shut people up and calm them down, never believing it himself. That is a very possible scenario.

So what do we have: 1) Newton made up a number, because he thought it would quiet the zealots (reasonable and perhaps evidence he didn't believe this garbage at all) 2) Newton actually believed what he said (Newton was clearly a brilliant man, but off his nut in such an instance).

Either one is fine with me.

Nope. I fail to see why it matters.

Yeah I mentioned it was peripheral.