Posted on 12/20/2010 10:32:51 AM PST by truthfinder9
Apparently, some individuals who support the Intelligent Design pseudo-scientific thinking believe so as a convenient way of introducing God into the science.
I think you hit the nail on the head: anything that lacks explanation is considered "supernatural" by them. At one time, not so long ago, people considered illness and ligthening to be "supernatural" too. In fact, I am curious, since we are on the subject and one poster raised the issue of your medical qualifications, is to ask our supernatural proponents (whose medical qualifications remain a mystery) just which "demons" cause specific illness, or is it an across-the-broad "demonic" property?
I had one Intelligent Design poster tell me that the bacteria and viruses "prove" the demonic etiology of illness—since they are living little "demons" that "jump" into us (invade us), just like the Bible says!(never mind that viruses are really not "alive" in the strictest sense of the word).
broad=board
Why must the effects of ‘supernatural phenomena’ be precluded from consideration in studies pertaining to diseases like cancer, particularly when diseases have been a mode of exerting influence by the divinity figure of your faith?
LOL, I was composing my earlier reply when you posted yours...
LOL, I was composing my earlier reply when you posted yours...
It could be that supernatural forces explain cancer. But I doubt a researcher could get funding to investigate the question.
Remember, I’m speaking to conventional science, hoping to remind you and/or others that conventional science met its limit when the Big Bang was verified.
The atheist has two choices: reject conventional science or accept the fact of extra-natural phenomena.
I’m no scholar on the moslem religion. But it seems the moslem god is not known as one who goes out of his way to show love or to seek reconciliation with man. The inherent nature of the moslem god, as defined by his actions, is very different from that of the God of Abraham.
Christ’s purpose is to reconcile us with God. To repair the damage started by Adam and continued by us all.
Think of it this way: God needed to fix the problem from within. He had to become man, in order to show that man, at least in a single example, could resist all sin and in the final moment take on all sin (on the cross) in a final victory over it.
Christ’s incarnation, when he came to establish the New Covenant in which Old Testament rules were replaced by those of the New Testament, was in the form of a lamb, symbolically speaking. And his purpose was to represent us to God the Father. So of course Christ seems more gentle to us and more “toned down” as you put it.
Please don’t forget—it would be highly unreasonable to expect that we could understand the entirety of God’s plan, including the totality of the nature of the Trinity. But I can’t understand why a person wouldn’t want to know as much as possible about him.
How so?
God had to become man? This sure sounds like this God is subject to Higher Ncesseity.
1) I know you've claimed your not an atheist: in an earlier post #1704 you wrote to me that you weren't.
And for my retort, I was personally admonished in post #1708 by the Admin Moderator.
And on earlier threads you have posts such as this one, #12.
But I've never run across any practicing Christian who (attempting to make, or to bolster their *own* positions), quoted from atheist sites, as it appears you have donein this post #162 and the link to John Adams, Letter to F.A. VanDerKamp; nor again one refers to "praying to an imaginary God" as you did here post #803; nor one who alternately attacked incest (here, post #17) and then reversed tack, using close parsing of the text to argue that father-daughter incest is not forbidden (here, post #192).
So at the very least, you're not always dealing from either the top or the bottom of the deck.
Note the substantiation of the claims that your posting history has changed from more orthodox to...unusual.
SO, in the future, if I do refer to you or to your posts while commenting to another party on an open thread, would you like a courtesy ping, or not?
Cheers!
As for pings, I suppose you plan on continuing your attention-getting rants involving me. I don't care, my pay is the same. Mind over matter: I don't mind and you don't matter.
I would say this latest theory of yours—that Christian doctrine is true except that it leaves out your claim that God has some being above him telling him what to do—is not right.
Asking you to speak honestly is not condescending. Quite the contrary.
I have reached the conclusion that believers' and unbelievers' minds are wired differently. Why this is so, I don't claim to understand.
Believers are so put together that they must answer the big "Why?". They find that their lives are unsatisfied without a knowledge of the ultimate Cause for... well, for everything.
Unbelievers are wired differently. I can go for years on end without thinking about "why" I hold some things to be right and others wrong, or about "why" I am here in the universe. And when I do think about those things, they are more a matter of idle speculation than anything else.
Our minds are wired differently, not better or worse. Neither the believer nor the unbeliever is "wrong" or "stupid" or needs a "crutch". That's why I never attack God or belief in him.
The only time I take offense here on FR is when someone posts to the effect that as an atheist, I cannot be a conservative, or that my atheism is harmful to America. With those ideas up I will not put....
“I can go for years on end without thinking about ‘why’”
Yet everything you post and everything you say about yourself demonstrates the opposite—that your style of thinking is to pursue the “big Why.”
Faith in God is ultimately determined by will. Will, as separate from intellect.
This answers the “why” question about the difference between believers and atheists.
Thanks for the “tip”; I’ll check it out!
This reminds me of the time honored question asked of 6, 7, and 8 year olds. To whit: “God does not have a belly button, and this can be proven. How?”
If it *is* true (I haven't thought it through yet, and I'm still in the Tigger-making-exploring-noises-with-his-tongue-and-what-have-we-here-noises-mode...)
it'd be consistent with many of the early scientists attempting to get to know "the Mind of the Maker" by investigating His handiwork.
What I *do* disagree with altogether, is the idea that science has "supplanted" religion as a superior model, i.e., that religion started out as an attempt to explain the wonders of the world around us, in the absence of technology, sophisticated mathematics, or empiricism. If religions *were* manmade, they'd more often be used to justify sexual escapades and wealth for the leaders -- just as fraudulent hucksters do today; or, give license to drinking & sex -- just as the ancient Greek religions did.
Atheism *may* be harmful to America, if it is used as a stalking horse, or if it either undermines the good results of Christianity, or hollows America out so we get overrun with Moose-limbs the way England is.
Cheers!
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