Posted on 04/26/2012 7:47:20 PM PDT by lbryce
Scientists have revealed one of the reasons why some folks are less religious than others: They think more analytically, rather than going with their gut. And thinking analytically can cause religious belief to wane — for skeptics and true believers alike.
The study, published in Friday's edition of the journal Science, indicates that belief may be a more malleable feature of the human psyche than those of strong faith may think.
The cognitive origins of belief — and disbelief — traditionally haven't been explored with academic rigor, said lead author Will Gervais, a social psychologist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
I don’t know and never will.
Don’t confuse the idea of God with God. We tend to confuse the creation with our ideas of it, because we are immersed in creation. Yet we do transcend nature, or at least our minds do. God does not exist as we exist. To speak of him as Creator means we cannot get behind creation. We can say Where was God before? But does such a statement have any possible meaning? Only in reference to Christianity theology, where we speak of Christ existing before all ages, with the Father and the Spirit . If God created time-space, then neither when nor where means anything. Even to say, NOW in reference to God is to say only admit that unlike us, that Now is not in motion.
I will say that after struggling to regain my lost faith years ago, it was very apparent to me after digging and reading and driving myself mad for ‘answers’, it is no more complex than understanding what is at the heart of faith:
believing that which you cannot see.
I hear people say ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’ kinda of attitude - the truth is: ‘You’ll see it when you believe it’
That’s right. Apparently Plato and Aristotle don’t fall under the bane of this article. Their thinking led toward an intellectual understanding of God, not away. No doubt they it was their lack of academic rigor.
Aiii! He’s too verbose.
You're taking the term "mind of God" much too literal. 'Mind of God' is a metaphor used quite often by Einstein, others to describe the inner workings of the Universe, laws of physics.
Einstein use of the word "God" in many of his quotes doesn't necessarily mean he believed in God. One of Einstein's oft-repeated quotes is "that there is no science without God, no God without Science", "God does not play dice with the Universe", others.
Religious views of Albert Einstein
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Albert Einstein's religious views have been studied due to his sometimes apparently ambiguous statements and writings on the subject. He believed in the god of Baruch Spinoza, but not in a personal god, a belief he criticized. He also called himself an agnostic, and criticized atheism, preferring he said "an attitude of humility."
Religious_views_of_Albert_Einstein
Albert Einstein Quotes on Spirituality
http://www.simpletoremember.com/articles/a/einstein/
Einstein did not believe in God.
Complete bull! The most mature, honest, and faithfully Christians I know have questioned their faith and have come to know the truth.
Well, from an egg! I always thought this was a no brainer. There were eggs for many millions of years before there were chickens.
we’ll have to agree to disagree about einstein (for one thing, he was a documented and devout practitioner of judaism as a youth) and by many accounts he was at least a theist in later life but perhaps one who didn’t have or believe in a “personal” relationship with God.
my “extensive” reading of einstein (including many of his scientific papers) makes me confident that you are mistaken. but i’ll give you one citation out of many possible you could consult just to balance your interpretation of his quotes and assure you that many people and scholars have good evidence that einstein indeed believed in the literal mind of God.
Sure thing. Hence the great thinkers such as Newton and Da Vinci. Or even closer to us C.S Lewis or G.K. Chesterton.
This is some yokels effort to justify their own lack of faith
“I’ve never come across any religious discussion dealing with God in which ‘I don’t know’ seems a viable response.”
You’re in one now because I don’t know. I believe to the strongest extent based on my personal analysis on these matters, but I don’t ‘know’. And that’s the problem with this whole thing. A lot of arrogant people claiming wisdom and knowledge beyond their actual inventory.
Kind of a random way to get to the point, but trust me, I’ll get there...
The holodeck/Matrix comparisons have been brought up so I’ll add another. Some years ago I caught a (British?) TV show that had an earthling ripped out of our reality and brought before God. Turn’s out that God was a college kid doing a science experiment in his higher plane of existance and our reality was that experiment. “God” knew no more about his “God” than we new about him.
With that in mind, consider this....
Less than 1000 years ago many still believed the earth was flat and the heliocentric theory was blasphemous. They knew nothing of atoms, quantum physics or genetically modified crops. Most still survived wearing animal skins and gathering food from the surrounding area.
There can be no doubt that we have evolved by orders of magnitude. But when one takes a hard look at what ‘science’ “knows” today, it’s surprisingly little. In a universe so vast that the entire planet is less than an atom in an ocean by comparison, a planet that only recently discovered that other planets exist outside our solar system, a planet that collectively does not yet ‘know’ that life exists anywhere but here....
How can anyone definitively assert something as bold as “There is no God”, much less what he can/did/didn’t do, when that same person cannot with any scientific accuracy show that there are “no” bacteria on Mars?
My point is this. We as a species are not capable of even formulating rational questions pertaining to “God”, much less give definitive answers about him. We cannot predict our own weather but we are purport to to “know” whether or not the entity that is responsible for it even exists? The sheer arrogance boggles the mind.
For the scientifically atheistic minded out there I would ask this...
If it’s perfectly logical to believe that a universe sprang into being from nothingness, poof! there it was!, can you explain how/why an ultimately powerful being is not equally logical?
Galileo is a good candidate for it. He professed loyalty to the church, but his arguments reveal a certain cynicism. For example, he accepts that the Bible is infallible, but then says that this means that it can't possibly contradict any scientific finding, and that if it appears to, that just means that it has been misinterpreted, not that he knows anything about it.
A question like this cannot be answered in 25 words or less in a forum such as this.
A couple of observations: The term "religion" is vague and embraces a multitude of beliefs. The Christian faith is predicated on certain principles 1) man is not the measure of all things, also intellectually. 2) There is a God who has spoken in a form which man can know with certainty and understand 3) That knowledge embodied in his revealed word can be studied and known systematically. Theology is a science.
The short Biblical answer to your question is God's revealed name is "I AM" Exodus 3:14. It is a declaration of His eternal self existence, the doctrinal term is His "aseitas." Moreover He declares I AM THAT I AM, that is, He is eternally unchangeable in His self existence. Therefore in the context of His word to Moses in Exodus, He has not changed respecting His promise, though 400 years have passed. As God says I AM, so we say HE IS, that name is the name rendered LORD in the Old Testament or Yaweh in Hebrew or Jehovah in English. It is also the Root of Jesus' name Je-sus literally Jehovah-salvation.
Christian theologians have dealt with the kinds of questions you are asking at length. Get a copy of John Calvin's "Institutes of the Christian Religion." After an introduction to the king of France, Calvin addresses exactly the questions you raise in the opening chapters of the Institutes. The books and similar works have been available for centuries.
They are not light reading
Well, I guess it is, as long as we restrict our inquiry to that time and place, as it were. This was the issue of Deism, which found a focus in the dedicatory "Ode to Newton" composed by Edmond Halley for Newton's Principia Mathematica. It contained a brief line, in Latin of course, seeming to imply that God's creative action was restricted to the founding of the Universe and its Laws. This was seen as a denial of "Providence", the ongoing intervention of God in the events of the world. Due to the zealous actions of an interested clergyman, whose name escapes me, the Ode was henceforth edited to make it less objectionable. Fortunately, from my point of view, the original was at length restored.
Quite the understatement. Regardless of language you tackle them in.
My grandfather, a preacher who thought I was ignorant because I couldn't read greek, would toss a tome like that to me when I asked questions.
It's a hard slog. But well worthwhile.
/johnny
Huh? This track sounds like the one that comes right before F#ck Western Civilization. You can't be serious. What on earth can you mean? If politics is for real, it is imperative to answer the God question. There is no way around it.
That's just foolish. As an Atheist I can not understand how any supposedly rational person can believe such utter nonsense as religion.
See silly insults can go both ways. I don't begrudge anyone their faith. And as long as its harmless I even encourage it.
Of course I’m serious. How can a species that has not yet learned a fraction of the things there are to know bypass 99.9% of everything and suddenly claim the ultimate knowledge with a straight face?
We make discoveries daily. We do not suddenly know everything about them. Science, actual science, spends years learning about new discoveries and formulates questions along the way as it learns new things about the original discovery. Did Newton envision immediately think about Quantum gravity when the apple fell from the tree? He could not then even envision the concept to ask the question about.
Nor can we.
OK, let’s just say you’re right. But if you or I have any reason, the flip side is also true that we as a species are not capable of even formulating rational questions pertaining to ourselves. So the game is up. Either that or you and I are simply not on page one to even begin a conversation.
(I’m rather convinced that Socrates. Plus I believe love isn’t an illusion.)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.