Posted on 09/04/2010 7:57:38 AM PDT by mattstat
Everybody knows the following story: At one time, long ago, most or all people believed that when a tree branch fell and caused damage that a god or other spiritual entity caused the branch to fall. This belief was animate, in the sense that the god himself was pictured as pulling the branch or otherwise knocking it off the tree.
Reasons for the gods behavior were ascribed, usually to sin, and perhaps a ceremony of propitiation was performed to forestall future baleful consequence. But over anything else, it was the fact of the branch falling that was used as evidence for the gods existence. The branch fell, something caused it to, we can think of no cause, therefore it must be the god.
As time went on and fewer people imagined actually witnessing the god yanking on the tree, but they did not discard the idea that, somehow, that branch fell because the god willed it. Branches falling were still evidence of the gods existence, but now weaker evidence. Some branches might have fallen on their own, who cares why.
Of course, magical thinking of this kind applied to physical events of all kinds; disasters were called, and not that long ago, Acts of God. Once more, these acts were a proof of Gods existence, but recently only in a vague sense. The causation really went one way: God to act, and not so much act to God.
Mans existence, crucially his uniqueness and superiority over all other animals was, and still is, used by few, but a diminishing few, to infer the existence of God. The reasoning goes: because the universe is, God is...
(Excerpt) Read more at wmbriggs.com ...
Another Internet genius trying to prove a negative through worthless and inaccurate anecdotes...
Derp, derp, derp.
We need more of this. The Internet isn’t noisy enough.
APf
After he takes his last breath he’ll know the truth.
Excellent article. Very well written.
Liberals are godless people.
They are atheists or agnostics.
They are also in the minority.
Most people have a belief in God or at least in some kind of superior intelligent being.
God or religion play an important role in many peoples lives. It often acts as an anchor in their lives and the lives of their families.
They do not necessarily cling to these things or cling to anything like guns per se, but rather it is a matter of personal choice, freedom to choose; but quite often it is the bigoted godless bully agnostic or atheist that wants only their voice heard and no other...to force their views on the rest of us at the expense of our own feelings and beliefs.
Hawking radiation has never been seen. Take away that and this article may have well have been written by a cybernetic penguin. Or is it turtles?
The height of arrogance is the belief in self creation.
Stephen Hawking vs. God
I’ve got GOD way in front....Hawking will lose so badly he’ll need a wheel chair...OOPS... Lord I appologize...and be with the starving pygmies...
I have a great deal of respect for science but even science was created by God.
Hawking is a scientist first and foremost. He only lives by facts and figures. The presence of God is something I hope and sometimes pray for but all I have to go on is faith I have been brought up with, the faith my family has and what I’ve read in scriptures. We have had unexplained miracles, stigmata, the virgin mary visitations, padre pio, terminal illnesses going into remission, images, shrouds etc and one thing for sure is that the wisdom shown in the bible is unparallelled. Things make so much sense and come true in the end that is scary but is relative to the human experience, scribed by humans. But you have to read it to understand that. It is for man. So if you live as a man you will understand. It is slanted against women so far as equality, but look how jesus showed mercy to prostitutes and how his mother was the most holy of humanity ever created. The inequality factor was more of a sing of the times when mankind was fairly primitive relatively speaking again ala 2,000 years ago. We have all this and more. But as it says in the bible blessed are those who do not see but believe ala the doubting Thomas parable. I don’t know. I want to believe. In my heart I believe but I have much doubt and angst every minute about God, probably because I more or less stopped practicing my faith and got away from people who were doing so. I know when I had strong faith I was never happier and always felt someone was there for me, someone I could fall back on in my mind and soul I guess. For people that have no belief in anything but the science we know and the science we don’t yet know, like hawking, I am sure there is some kind of void that can never be filled. I’d like to think humans did not evolve from aminals which in turned evolved from amoebas but two things about life are constant. The only thing definitive about it is birth and death, excluding miscarriages and abortions, and the birth of plants and other living things through nature processes. Pass the joint and whisky.
GOD always wins.
There is a basic fallacy at the heart of Darwinian theory and that is if man is descended from the apes, how come there are still apes and not all men?
Your first two sentences make you sound like a fool. Hawking has never been proven right. Pick up a book, read ‘beyond’ the porn, whatever. How do you sit there and make this garbage up?
One day a group of scientists got together and decided that man had come a long way and no longer needed God. So they picked one scientist to go and tell Him that they were done with Him.
The scientist walked up to God and said, “God, we’ve decided that we no longer need you. We’re to the point that we can clone people and do many miraculous things, so why don’t you just go on and get lost.”
God listened very patiently and kindly to the man and after the scientist was done talking, God said, “Very well, how about this, let’s say we have a man making contest.” To which the scientist replied, “OK, great!”
But God added, “Now, we’re going to do this just like I did back in the old days with Adam.”
The scientist said, “Sure, no problem” and bent down and grabbed himself a handful of dirt.
God just looked at him and said, “No, no, no. You go get your own dirt!”
I don’t agree with darwin at all, but I could counter your argument that man descended only from particular species of ape that was prone to evolve to humans while all the other specie did not. Again, I don’t believe in Darwins theories.
Okay, I must have missed a discovery or two in the last 40 years regarding gravity. I thought gravity came from something within a mass. Does gravity now exist apart from mass? Is gravity floating around space gathering up little particles to fit together? What am I missing. Plain English please. :)
I guess I was speaking over your head like hawking does. Yes hawking is a scientist first and foremost. How is that foolish? My second sentence should have said “hawking believes in scientific facts and figures first and foremost, real data he can see and analyze, and like all scientists he theorizes and hypothesizes, like he is doing with his latest comment”. At the end of the day his latest comment is speculation.
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