Yumtums 4 finking about:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91DSNL1BEeY

Anglican, yes, thank you--You put it clearer than I did. Greater study, and a greater desire to learn, and greater dependence on God, all lead to greater understanding. Nigee, the early Christians were quite socialistic, but Christianity isn't associated with any particular economic system. As for the age of the world, I personally don't know if that age is literal or not, and it doesn't really matter, because people can come to Jesus if they believe that is literal or if they believe it is symbolic, if the world was created in seven 24-hour days or the days represent eras, if the streets of heaven are literally paved with gold, or if there's not really streets at all. But like Anglican asked, why the strong emotional reaction against believing in Jesus, God, Christianity?

It's amazing how glib Christians like Mutejus are about things like the age of earth, but how cynical they are about every naturalistic theory if it exhibits the slightest limitations in explanation (or similarly, how non-chalant they are about the absurd contradictions that permeate every aspect of the bible, but how they jump up and down about the slightest alleged 'contradiction' within naturalism). The Christians don't care to explain much of anything about anything, they just want people to follow their Jesus.

It really belies their claim that their religion leads to greater 'understanding', doesn't it?

I mean, it can't even provide a guideline for economic life. How is it going to provide a guideline for far more complex questions?

I'm not sure I've ever seen Mujus say a single thing about naturalism being self-contradictory, Putin. I don't want to presume, of course, but it doesn't sound much like him.

(Or limited, I should say. Or much of anything about naturalism).

"So what's the alternative to creation? "Sudden appearance from nothing," "Gradual appearance from nothing," or "It always existed"?? On an intellectual level, I find original creation to be more satisfying than any of the alternatives."

Mutejus from October, 2011:

Mujus scoffs at naturalistic explanations for the most complex questions, because they are not 'satisfying', but the endless contradictions and questions left unanswered in his bible are perfectly acceptable. There is no theistic account for questions far more basic than how the universe exists & the origin of life on earth, but that's just fine and dandy. It's more 'satisfying' that some mind being magicked the world out of nothing, and that as he admitted, can't even explain how creation really came about, but naturalistic explanations are intellectually unsatisfying.

It's really obnoxious that theists ridicule naturalism because it hasn't provided answers to every last mystery yet, but the fact that theism's claims about the physical world have been endlessly refuted doesn't bother them. And still they insist that despite their truly dismal record of explaining anything at all, they should be trusted with providing explanations for the most complex questions, which oh by the way they knew the answers to 6,000-2,000 years ago.

" But like Anglican asked, why the strong emotional reaction against believing in Jesus, God, Christianity?"

Because belief in it is a celebration of ignorance and immorality, misogyny, homophobia & slavery. You give no positive case for believing whatsoever. No rational case whatsoever. You just insist people should believe, just because, and claim that anybody who questions the wonderfulness of this belief must have some kind of personal problem of some sort.

"Mutejus from October, 2011:"

I like the way you change his name to Mutejus. That's really clever, and raises the intellectual tenor of the discussion substantially.

"It's really obnoxious that theists ridicule naturalism because it hasn't provided answers to every last mystery yet"

Well, I wouldn't say the Mujus quote you share constitutes "ridiculing naturalism." And of those who do ridicule it, I'm not sure this is the most common reason. Certainly not the only one. Lots of people just find it philosophically incoherent, for any number of reasons. I don't think you should lump everybody together like this.

Because many who called themselves Christians perpetrated many horrific acts in the name of God.. Of course people have also committed those same acts in the name of a nation, for greed,for power, revenge, jealousy and the list goes on. The question is can you lay at the feet of a religion the acts of those that did not in any way follow the spirit of that religion especially considering the fact that people are quite capable of performing these acts without the excuse of religion. The four gospels of the new testament are an extraordinary statement of love, compassion and selflessness. Sadly so many, that call themselves Christians, seem to miss the point and go on about their lives in much the same way they would without such a message. This further muddies the water for anyone who would believe. We also live in an age where the scientific paradigm, and its attendant materialism, are in ascendancy. Spiritual life is subjective, invisible and unmeasurable and thus is unreal in scientific terms....mere superstition. Also religion would ask us to turn away from the very things that compel us like sex or money or power which many are unwilling to do though many are capable of jedi mind tricking themselves into maintaining a belief in God while indulging in every vice and still feel holy. Many use religion as a reason to remain willfully ignorant rejecting anything that lays outside of the narrow confines of their belief. I believe that the world religions contain great wisdom but only if one uses them as a vehicle to transcend selfishness and ignorance. You can't just say this is what I believe, go to church on sunday and your work is done.....but this is what many people do. Check out the Christian mystics and their work. They have a much better sense of this...I feel

"I like the way you change his name to Mutejus. That's really clever, and raises the intellectual tenor of the discussion substantially."

Stop acting like Mujus's press secretary. I'm called Useful Idiot 33 on a daily basis. Get thicker skin. Or does he just get to mute everybody who doesn't want to listen to without anyone daring to mock him for it? How has Mujus raised the level of conversation, exactly?

"Lots of people just find it philosophically incoherent, for any number of reasons. "

Thanks for making my point for me. You Christians glibly pass over the multitude of contradictions, immoral dogmas, and nonsensical points in your religion and tell us it doesn't matter, so long as people come to Jesus. But naturalism is "philosophically incoherent" - this from the people who brought us the Trinity, and the gospels, and Jesus overthrowing Mosaic law.

" I don't think you should lump everybody together like this."

Really, I can't find a single Christian who doesn't point to the questions regarding the "origin" of the universe and origin of life on earth as their reasons for skepticism about naturalism. You people sit on the margins of science, at the most difficult of questions, and because the answer is complex, you have to claim it is too incredible to believe. But god magicking everything out of nothing is perfectly reasonable.

"The four gospels of the new testament are an extraordinary statement of love, compassion and selflessness."

No they are not. Why do people keep repeating this? The gospels are full of hate. John especially. The whole bible is full of hate.

Here's more enlightenment, compassion & love from your religion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTiBv99MYDk

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/01/texas-ag-planned-parenthood-terrorist_n_1468838.html

"Because many who called themselves Christians perpetrated many horrific acts in the name of God.. "

Maybe just maybe Christianity is intrinsically evil, compelling people to commit wicked acts? I mean people can't pretend this conduct is an outlier of the population, it's a huge portion of it. Christianity tells women to shut up and be baby factories. How can this be anything but evil?

Excuse me, I have a /genuine/ question.

How was Jericho founded three to four thousand years before God began creating the heavens and the earth?

This is easily remedied if you accept a non-literal Genesis creation account, but then when in Genesis are we suddenly factual? And why in the gospels does it trace Jesus lineage back through mythical characters, if Genesis is in fact non-literal in its account?

While I'm on the subject of Jericho, though, how about the complete lack of archeological evidence for there being a wall, much less a city, at the supposed time of Joshua's campaign?

I don't see why people keep trying to lay mankind's problems at the feet of Christianity, Capitalism, Communism, Islam, nationalism et all. The same crimes are committed in the name of all these things. Isn't it obvious that the problem is ourselves? We clearly don't need anything to commit horrific acts we seem only to seek justification for them, for our own selfishness. In these forums, as in life, we cling to convenient facts and run from, ignore, delegitimize, through name calling, bullying, making fun of et all, those that our inconvenient to us. History and our own experience shows this again and again, ad nauseum, and yet we still blame things that are external to us. This ubiquitous phenomena would be absurd and laughable if it didn't have such tragic consequences.

Putin: "You people sit on the margins of science"

Christians, alas! You see, this is the Nemesis befalling us all now.
The multitude is crying for "proofs" of Gods "existence" etc. All these "questions" that are no real questions at all. It was Christianity (et al) that invented that God needs to be "proved".
What do we care about the "origin of the universe" really, Putin? It is not a real question.

When Christianity adopted Aristotelian metaphysics, the priesthood thought they'd made a bargain. "We bought a scroll of 'truths' to motivate our political power."

It's been hitting back on the Christian monologue for a few hundred years now.

Christianity opened up the gateways for atheism.

"You people sit on the margins of science"

Here is how Francis Collins, with more science in his little finger than all of our efforts combined, sees it:

Collins: Why this scientist believes in God

I am a scientist and a believer, and I find no conflict between those world views.
As the director of the Human Genome Project, I have led a consortium of scientists to read out the 3.1 billion letters of the human genome, our own DNA instruction book. As a believer, I see DNA, the information molecule of all living things, as God's language, and the elegance and complexity of our own bodies and the rest of nature as a reflection of God's plan.
I did not always embrace these perspectives. As a graduate student in physical chemistry in the 1970s, I was an atheist, finding no reason to postulate the existence of any truths outside of mathematics, physics and chemistry. But then I went to medical school, and encountered life and death issues at the bedsides of my patients. Challenged by one of those patients, who asked "What do you believe, doctor?", I began searching for answers.

I had to admit that the science I loved so much was powerless to answer questions such as "What is the meaning of life?" "Why am I here?" "Why does mathematics work, anyway?" "If the universe had a beginning, who created it?" "Why are the physical constants in the universe so finely tuned to allow the possibility of complex life forms?" "Why do humans have a moral sense?" "What happens after we die?"

I had always assumed that faith was based on purely emotional and irrational arguments, and was astounded to discover, initially in the writings of the Oxford scholar C.S. Lewis and subsequently from many other sources, that one could build a very strong case for the plausibility of the existence of God on purely rational grounds. My earlier atheist's assertion that "I know there is no God" emerged as the least defensible. As the British writer G.K. Chesterton famously remarked, "Atheism is the most daring of all dogmas, for it is the assertion of a universal negative."

But reason alone cannot prove the existence of God. Faith is reason plus revelation, and the revelation part requires one to think with the spirit as well as with the mind. You have to hear the music, not just read the notes on the page. Ultimately, a leap of faith is required

http://articles.cnn.com/2007-04-03/us/collins.commentary_1_god-dna-revelation?_s=PM:US

Excellent Fulhamish!

But I'd remark that "God's language" cannot be counted in numbers, no matter if we reach it to billions of billions.
Human mind shapes transient models of aspects of reality - numbers, objects, "information".
But created reality is infinite, unutterable.
It is pure reason to understand this (ask Kant for example)

Oh... and...

FUCK SCIENCE!

Yeah, who needs science. God himself came down and gifted you this computer and the electricity it runs on to you Sylence.

Also, Francis Collins not only is using the 'God of the Gaps' idea, to paraphrase Dawkins (in his recent debate with George Pell), is 'Why are we here?' (in the sense do we have a purpose being on this planet) even a question worth asking?

"Atheism is the most daring of all dogmas, for it is the assertion of a universal negative."

This bullshit. Science is humble and open, we don't have the answers, but we can probably figure them out. Religion is arrogant, God did it. Why? Because he said so, and we are too stupid/weak/etc to understand his will (despite being made in God's image, and surely being omnipotent he could create beings able to understand, but whatever).

On God of the Gaps, I couldn't disagree more. These are real and serious issues not something far removed to the periphery of our understanding. Rather I see an evolutionism of the gaps with the paradigm of natural selection by inheritance and pertaining environment, being martialled as an explanatory tool into all kinds of disperate and unrelated disciplins.

Gentlemen, I see no intrinsic conflict between religion and science. I cite as evidence the testamony of Francis Collins.
Atheists come from all walks of life, including scientists. In my view the same can be said of theists. I am sure that we can agree on this, particularly with the specific example of Collins. He is surely much more of a scientist of palpable achievement than some of the atheist polemicists which you quote.

I knew I'd have to regret my trolly outburst.
That's why I did it!
How does this connect in my psyche? It probably takes a Francis Collins to disentangle the logic involved here. I'm not going to try to do it myself.

I beg pardon anyway. I shall not do it again, if God will be good to me.

And "Science" can be understood in two ways that are absolutely opposite.
True questioning, open, "humble" if you like
or a list of answers handed out before a question was even put or answers not relevant to any inquiry related to reality.
In this sense if we put Science in opposition to Religion. I'm with Science against Religion.

But most often people claim that "Science [with a capital-S] says that [this and that]" - thus it is the Religion of our time.
It is not arrogant on the part of us if we say "God did it and we are too stupid etc to claim any higher wisdom than this. " That's a humble beginning and why not stay humbly there, unless we are fronting a question we really crave an answer to? But those answers usually just come for free as soon as the question is matured.

"who needs science...[?] [God]gifted you this computer and the electricity it runs on..[?]"

1) *I* was not in *need* of this. *I* didn't ask for it. Rather than being a "gift", it invades the world I exist in, not the other way round.
2) Technology does not need a "scientific story". It is a function of division of labour and trade.
3) I suppose typically Christians would say something like it, that it is a gift from God, by way of people responding to a calling from God to invent computers etc... This historicism is not my style, though... I'm not Christian

I'm impressed by the quality of many of the points being made.

Btw I'll post today's reading a bit late today.

As one who follows the religion of science, I'd argue that the belief system perpetuates more efficient behaviors than most theistic religions. By efficient here I mean behaviors that are more likely to lead to materialistic gain in the form of superior technologies and such things. And I suppose the natural counterargument there would be that there are things other than the materialistic, which is a valid point. Lack of a definite moral prescription will always be the greatest weakness (and strength?) of the religion of science.

But, here's something I have been wondering, at the risk of derailing the discussion: If I take as plausible that a super-powerful being did create the universe and continues to operate it, why should I place any value in this Bible I hear so much about? It is a book written by men who claim to be divinely inspired, but really it seems silly (to me) that the creator of the universe should deign to give us any knowledge of itself or its purposes. And really, how can we even claim to have any *real* knowledge of the creator? That in itself is arrogance.

"It is not arrogant on the part of us if we say "God did it and we are too stupid etc to claim any higher wisdom than this." "

I disagree! It's rather arrogant of us to think that we can have any certainty of the actions of a being capable of creating the universe, whose existence is not even clear to us. It implies a delusion of understanding of the universe that is supremely arrogant.

"It's rather arrogant of us to think that we can have any certainty of the actions of a being capable of creating the universe, whose existence is not even clear to us. It implies a delusion of understanding of the universe that is supremely arrogant."
Excellent point which is reflected in a lot of christian mystical texts. The Cloud of Unknowing states that must pierce the "cloud of unknowing" with love or St. John of the Cross who states that the intellect can only take you so far, that you must pass through the dark night of the soul where your senses (and by this he means or mind) are darkened where even what you thought you knew is taken away from you. In Zen Buddhism the use of koans is used to exhaust conceptualization. Buddhism does not have a God but there are remarkable similarities in the "effect" that it is trying to produce in the mind. Or Plato's dialogues for that matter.

@ Cloister what troubles me somewhat is what does 'science' choose to investigate and why? Anyone familiar with the process knows that, as with all human activity, there are subtle, sometimes almost unconscious, agendas.
I give as an example the virtual blind eye turned to the radioactivity leak at Church Rock New Mexico (http://newmexicoindependent.com/31989/31989) with the extensive work done on the still serious but smaller, Three Mile Island accident of the same year. What agenda might be at work here?
The assumption that ''science'' is nothing but a pure dispassionate search for the truth is a little too comfortable for my liking.

What I had meant by "religion of science" was more of a system of thinking, a frame of mind, and most importantly, a place to put faith. In my conception of this, faith is placed in the idea that there are explanations for all phenomena that are rational and able to be understood by humans. But in the matter of faith it's really no less arbitrary than faith in a deity.

As for the idea of agendas, I think that ties in with Sylence's comment about "a list of answers handed out before a question was even put or answers not relevant to any inquiry related to reality." Certainly, this can form a part of the religion of science, the tendency of people to prove their own pre-conceived ideas using data or whatnot. In fact, I think that as you said it happens very often. But my argument was more for the more positive effects of faith in science rather than a deity, not the superior "rationality" or "intelligence" of such a faith.

Indeed, the idea of a belief in the power of rationality itself being irrational is possible. It sounds entertainingly tragic, doesn't it?

Science is THE tool for studying the measurable universe it just loses it's way when it reaches beyond that.