Preaching Atheism
- Thread starter Ziggy Stardust
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Hey, I've just thought of something. Isn't it true that scientific progress relies on belief to a very great extent, too? Isn't it a case of dwarves on the shoulders of giants, much of the time?
If all you could do with science was doubt stuff, you wouldn't get very far, would you? You'd spend all your time going over and over the same elementary stuff and get nowhere. It's only by trusting, or having faith, in others' past achievements that we can make any progress.
Scientific knowledge now, and has been for a long time, is incapable of being grasped in its entirety by any one single person.
Am I wrong?
You're correct in saying that no single individual is capable of knowing the full current body of scientific knowledge.
But it's not faith that we use. It's trust, like you mentioned. And the reason we know that we can trust the stuff we're told is because we can, if we're so inclined, test the results and predictions of the person we're querying. That's how science works. Just look at the recent claim for faster-than-light neutrinos. Investigators from all over re-examined the experiment, and some even produced a parallel experiment.
Trust /= faith
Borachio
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yeah, Peter, good link, thanks.
So, if we accept Dirac equation, and it seems we must, then we can conclude that there can be no immaterial soul - given our present state of knowledge. Is this correct?
So now, then, what about the existence of a material soul. i.e. some part of the physical body that survives the extinction of the main part* i.e. what is usually meant by "body"? I realise of course that this poses more questions than it answers. But still deserves some small part of our attention, before we conclude that the "soul" categorically does not exist.
*interesting that the Inuit, I believe, say that it is the physical body which is immortal - and in a literal sense I think they have it right. The atoms of your body do not die, as a general rule, but disperse into the "greater" universe (spookily similar to what the Hindus et al, say about the atman). Consciousness, for the Inuit, is what is impermanent; ceasing at death.
Does this make any sense?
Weren't there some disreputable experiments involving weighing human bodies just before and just after death? Not especially popular with relatives.
Please note, I'm not pushing any line here. I'm merely trying to exhaust all the possibilities that occur to me.
To be honest, I have no view on the "soul" one way or another. To me it matters not a jot whether such a thing is or not**. I have no direct experience of it myself, so I tend to suppose, naturally enough on grounds of economy, that there is no such thing.
But, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
**indeed I can make a case for not believing in the soul: if you do not then none of your actions is based on belief in some "reward" after "death". A major advantage, given the apparent propensity for crazy self-sacrifice that has featured largely in the news for the last decade or two.
Another major difficulty for me in studying this matter in my amateurish way over some decades, has been the question of consciousness. I have found no convincing explanation or definition of this, anywhere. Have you?
Yeah, there's a lot of faith in science. But it's followed by a bunch of skepticism. We see a protocol and a result in a paper, and we rely on that paper to move the ball forward. When our experiment fails, we then move backwards a step and re-examine their results and (often) find them to be incorrect or only partially correct.
We can't move forwards on faith alone, because our experiments will fail if our faith was misplaced.
We can't move forwards on faith alone, because our experiments will fail if our faith was misplaced.
Borachio
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Ziggy Stardust
Absolutely Sane
I like the bannr
Yeah, its good message and genuinely true. This ought to be accepted by everybody around the globe who doesnt have peanut for the brain.
GhostWriter16
Deity
I like the bannr
Actually that's an inconsistent message. What if my "Diverse position" is that Jesus is the only way to Heaven. A moral relativist such as this would tell me that I am absolutely wrong, and that there is no absolute truth... but that's an absolute statement in itself.
Universalism is wishful thinking. Consider this today's sermon AGAINST atheism
Borachio
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Actually, I think this disqualifies itself as a "diverse position".Actually that's an inconsistent message. What if my "Diverse position" is that Jesus is the only way to Heaven. A moral relativist such as this would tell me that I am absolutely wrong, and that there is no absolute truth... but that's an absolute statement in itself.
Universalism is wishful thinking. Consider this today's sermon AGAINST atheism
It's a bit like not tolerating intolerance. Before I know where I am, I've tied myself up in contradictory knots.
Universalism is not wishful thinking. It's the obvious way to go. It is inclusive. Only those who wish to exclude themselves are excluded.
Global Skeptic
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Actually that's an inconsistent message. What if my "Diverse position" is that Jesus is the only way to Heaven. A moral relativist such as this would tell me that I am absolutely wrong, and that there is no absolute truth... but that's an absolute statement in itself.
Universalism is wishful thinking. Consider this today's sermon AGAINST atheism
Well, since I am not a moral relativist, but a moral subjectivist who doesn't believe in right or wrong I would not claim that you are neither right nor wrong, but rather that you believe differently that other humans, who don't believe like you.
As to absolute, relative, everything and nothing:
Everything is relative leads to everything is relative being relative.
Everything is absolute leads to the answer no being absolute.
Nothing is absolute leads to the answer yes or no not being absolute.
Nothing is relative leads to the answers yes and no not being relative.
Borachio
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Actually, now I come to remember it, Jesus was a Universalist wasn't he? Prostitutes, innkeepers, tax collectors,...um....Actually that's an inconsistent message. What if my "Diverse position" is that Jesus is the only way to Heaven. A moral relativist such as this would tell me that I am absolutely wrong, and that there is no absolute truth... but that's an absolute statement in itself.
Universalism is wishful thinking. Consider this today's sermon AGAINST atheism
And, like the no true scotsman argument, you could say that anyone attaining heaven (whatever that is - and before or after death) does so only through Jesus, knowingly or not. By whatever name they know him. Or by whatever conception they have, or have not, of him.
Mind you, I'm no theologian. Nor do I want to be.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
Please stop using words you don't understand.
GhostWriter16
Deity
That's exactly the problem with "Tolerance" as it were.
Basically, the liberal position is "We'll tolerate you whatever else you believe, but if you dare be a conservative, we won't tolerate you."
The whole "Tolerating intolerance" thing shows exactly what's wrong with the whole idea in the first place.
How on earth does something being inclusive automatically mean its logical? I must confess that conclusion makes no sense to me.
What do innkeepers have to do with it?
More importantly, you are taking Jesus universal love (Which none of us can match, inevitably) and are assuming that he thus meant everyone would get to heaven. In fact, its absurd because you take statements that have nothing to do with the mode of salvation and apply them to salvation simply to defend your point. Let's look at one of Jesus' quotes (Sorry for preaching in a "Preaching Atheism" thread, but I absolutely can and must defend my Savior from liberal misconstructions of what he taught.)
http://bible.cc/luke/5-31.htm
From the ESV:
The reason that Jesus hung out with sinners is that they needed saving and they knew it. Jesus makes clear the "Righteous" need saving too, but since they want nothing to do with it, he contents himself with calling them hypocrites and letting them accept their own damnation. After all, he did say "Don't throw pearls before swine." Jesus was not going to give the gospel to the mockers and self-righteous, since they wouldn't accept it anyway, but to the "Sick" who knew their own sinful state.
Luke 18:14
The tax collector, humbled and repentant, went home saved ("Justified") but the Pharisee, who did not repent, was damned (At least as of that moment.)
Jesus not only says that not all will be saved, but in fact that it is very hard to get saved:
Matthew 7:14
Jesus makes clear the requirements:
John 3:18
Anyone who believes is not condemned but he who does not believe is condemned already.
"Belief" implies placing faith. Jesus says this is hard:
Luke 9:23
If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.
And lest anyone make any mistake that one can be saved without discipleship:
Acts 11:26 And the disciples were called Christians in Antioch.
The term "Christian" was never used by Jesus, but being his disciple was something he talked about often, and was the "Narrow way that leads to life." Jesus says not only that there is a Hell, but that most people will go there. That doesn't make me any happier than it makes you, but it is the truth. Or at least, as Jesus taught it it is the truth.
Unless they believe that Jesus is the Son of God and died on the cross for their sins, they are damned.
Borachio
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I quite accept this is your bottom (and top?) line. It's pretty standard Evangelical stuff.
I just don't happen to think it is true. And, without, recourse to the Bible, I cannot see how you can justify it.
You see, if you believe that all truth resides in one little book I truly think you are deluded. Or at the very least well out of touch with reality, which I suppose amounts to the same thing.
It comes down to this, in the end: are you more concerned with the Bible or the truth?
The truth, it may come as a surprise, cannot be written down. These words as I write them are not "the truth". No human being is capable of writing or speaking the truth. It must inevitably escape us. It always has done and always will.
It would be highly convenient if all truth could be contained within one finite book. Or even within all the books ever written or to be written. But, in truth(!), the truth is infinite.
Do you really think that your "sins", or mine for that matter, could possibly warrant eternal persecution in hell? Do you think that honest doubt is a bad, damnable thing?
What, by the way, are your conceptions of heaven and hell? Do you have anything beyond a very vague idea?
GhostWriter16
Deity
I answered those particular questions in "Ask an Evangelical" shortly before you arrived, so go back a couple of pages and you'll find out why I do, in fact,believe eternal punishment in Hell is just for offending an eternal God.
That all truth could be contained in "One little book" would indeed be ridiculous.
John 21:25
However, everything in the Book is true.
That that is absurd to you is not surprising. You are used to thinking that truth is all relative, that all paths lead the same place. Why do you think this? Because it seems right to you? How on Earth does that make something true?
The fact of the reality is, you don't want to believe in a God that would send people to Hell. That's what it comes down to. Some take that and so don't believe in any God at all. Others make one up that fits their image. Why? What good will it do them?
Nothing, because it is their own invention, and so cannot possibly be true, since God is timeless.
Now, as for how my God could possibly be real, because he has changed lives. Read the New Testament, and then read the testimonies of those who came after them. The early Christians were completely transformed, inside and out, by Jesus Christ, because he IS REAL and he is still alive today.
Universalism has brought forward no fruit, because it is not true. Its wishful thinking, an attempt to box God into man's own image. It is, thus, blasphemy and idolatry. Do not think that believing such a God will save you in the end, it is a false God, and believing it will save no one from their sins.
Read The Iliad and The Odyssey.
Borachio
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And how do you know this without recourse to the Book itself. Justify the Bible using the Bible is simply saying this is true because it is true.
I don't think truth is relative at all. I think the truth is infinite. I think our understanding must inevitably be relative, or more accurately, partial. Why would this surprise you?
How on Earth does you believing something make it true?
Actually, if that is the way it is, that's the way it is.
But if it isn't, would you accept that?
Others seize on one, old thrice-poorly translated book outdated by 2000 years, pore over it for years on end, decide after arguments and schisms that this or that particular interpretation is the one that fits them. Why? How can they possibly trust their own judgement in such weighty matters? Maybe they are really divinely inspired. But how can they tell?
What good does it do?
All I see is it leads to divisions, and hatred amongst people.
and infinite, and true, let's not forget that.
read it.
Then he knows where I am.
This, I'm willing to guess, you do not know.
You make it sound like an easy option. It is not. It involves looking at things from another person's point of view. It involves compassion and empathy.
How much easier it must be to rely on only one book and one creed, when the world is full of books and beliefs.
I have no expectation of salvation. Nor fear of damnation.
If I do anything, I do so, ideally, not for hope of reward or fear of punishment but because I think it the right thing to do.
GhostWriter16
Deity
Here's the thing about the Bible, its not really "One book" like the Qu'ran is, its actually 66 different books. Some were written by the same authors (Heck, Paul wrote 13, seven of which almost nobody disputes) but not all, and even when they were, they were still multiple different letters (Calling them one book is like calling Tolkien's "Hobbit" and "Lord of the Rings" the same book, they aren't). The fact that the entire New Testament teaches the same spiritual message is a testament to its truth. The fact that there are so few alleged contradictions in it is further proof. Keep in mind the number of different authors at work here as well. Granted, it may take "Tortured logic" to get a few texts to fit, but it barely matters when compared to the whole. Skeptic's Annotated Bible, if I recall, brags of like 400. Its likely most of those are fairly simple to explain, but even if not, that's Psalm 119 two and a half times, usually over trivial details. That's a pretty high level of consistency, enough so that explaining the contradictions shouldn't be overly problamatic.
Secondly, the way the Old Testament foreshadows the New, and prophecies the Messiah before he ever lived is additional proof that the whole thing is true.
To use "Compassion" and "Empathy" to defend a God you have absolutely no evidence for is a poor argument. Firstly, you assume God even has to appeal to our consciences. He does not. We have to appeal to him, for we are but poor, wretched creatures who deserve his damnation, but by the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ, we can be saved. Not by universalism, which is an idol leading to damnation.
Secondly, the way the Old Testament foreshadows the New, and prophecies the Messiah before he ever lived is additional proof that the whole thing is true.
To use "Compassion" and "Empathy" to defend a God you have absolutely no evidence for is a poor argument. Firstly, you assume God even has to appeal to our consciences. He does not. We have to appeal to him, for we are but poor, wretched creatures who deserve his damnation, but by the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ, we can be saved. Not by universalism, which is an idol leading to damnation.
Do you realize the Bible and Qu'ran overlap to a large extent?
