Not a wise move to get her hormones moanin'...
She can be (Yoda) a Jedi warrior.. fighting the "Sith".. (spit)
Posted on 05/03/2015 5:00:52 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
“It can’t be proven or tested as false or true that God exists the same way one can test gravity and its properties... The question at best must be left open, in terms of applied method, reasoning, or analysis.”
Sorry, but I must disagree with your argument as much as that of the atheist. I reject the premise entirely.
We do not need to speculate, hypothesize, or theorize about the existence of the sun. We just need to look up. We know the sun is there through observation (though we may not touch it lest we be consumed, nor look at it directly lest we damage our eyes).
We test theories not facts. We do not test the existence of Abraham Lincoln. He is a historical figure. We do not test the existence of Congress. It is observable. Their existence is not theoretical, it is factual. It is the data. We use theories to make sense of data and then validate the theories by testing.
The idea of testing the existence of God is categorically wrong. God has been observed. For those who have first-hand experience, and have encountered God, there is no need for speculation. For those who have not, the question is more of the credibility of the witnesses.
I am enjoying the smell of fear emanating from Salon.
5.56mm
The United States Supreme Court has never determined whether atheism qualifies as a religion.
OR the Masons, Elk, Moose or even the Boy Scouts..
BUT to some .......... they are...
Sheep pens are indeed sheep pens...
over looking the metaphorical- Lion, Vulture, Pig and Rat PENS...
Some peoples “GOD” is not a god at all... except in a “designer” way... in their imagination..
Water seeks it’s own level... in that way..
lol....
But the 7th Circuit has determined atheism to be a religion, and if their ruling has been challenged, then the Scotus declined to hear the challenge, generally taken to mean they had no problem with it.
So, the legal system sees atheism as a religion in that it deals with ‘ultimate issues’. This is evident in Betty Boop’s post in which she quotes an atheist who tells us where we came from, where we’re going to, our purpose, our meaning, and the values accompanying those positions.
The demon queers are restless at Salon...
She can be (Yoda) a Jedi warrior.. fighting the "Sith".. (spit)
What an interesting post betty boop.....thank you so much. I enjoyed the read greatly!
What is interesting is God never attempts ‘to prove’ that He is. Rather states so...”I am that I am” ...the great “I Am”.
We should undertake a compilation of the “Essays of Betty Boop” found on the millions (?) of pages of threads of Free Republic past.
They would probably make an excellent sequel to her and Alamo’s “Timothy”.
It would take a considerable search engine to pull them all out. We’d have to seek assistance from the NSA. LOL.
I would agree with you in part for as the scripture says...”For we know in part and we prophecy in part, we see thru a glass darkly then face face(from 1Corinthians 13).
I was speaking more to the dead end proofs the skeptics demand but even when you show them they move the goal posts. Real reason posits that that we must acknowledge God as real based on the evidences seen thru out creation; but the stubborn hearts of men still refuse to acknowledge him, inventing in their darkened imaginings more reasons to deny the things of God AS the things of God!
The Bible says it is with the heart we believe unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation, so even reason itself is not enough to seal the deal,,,there must be a personal encounter and submission
to Jesus Christ.
“What is interesting is God never attempts ‘to prove’ that He is.”
Actually, He does provide proof. This is in contrast with scientific theories which cannot be proved. Theories are either simply well-supported, or untested, or falsified.
Don’t surrender to the secular definition of faith as believing something apart from or against the evidence. Faith is reasonable. It is based on real experience, logic and evidence.It is based on what has been seen, heard and touched. Take the resurrection, for example:
Acts 1:3
[The apostles] to whom He [i.e. Jesus] also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.
The apostles who witnessed Christ’s death and resurrection, recorded what they saw, heard and touched:
1 John 1:1
That which was from the beginning, which we [i.e. the apostles] have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life...
Faith is based on reason:
Isaiah 1:18
“Come now, and let us reason together,”
Says the Lord,
“Though your sins are like scarlet,
They shall be as white as snow;
Though they are red like crimson,
They shall be as wool.
“The Bible says it is with the heart we believe unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation, so even reason itself is not enough to seal the deal,,,there must be a personal encounter and submission
to Jesus Christ.”
I agree. See my post #92 above, for further comments on this subject.
Looks just like me! LOL!!!
The bible(NT) is looked on by many as “Jesus Lore”
actually it is.. just opinions of some people.......
Much like “The BIG BANG”.... no proof of that either..
some good suppositions true, but merely science LORE.. i.e. theories..
Others say there’s “proof”... but it is debatable.
Fact remains, “What do you know for sure”.. IS relevant..
takes “faith” to believe something that happened 2000 years ago or even longer..
Are BIG BANGERS religious?... There seems to be many PREACHERS.. of Big Bang Lore..
If eternity future is possible, eternity PAST must be ALSO..
Presently I don’t have enough faith for that... i.e. BANGism
There seems to be more believable lore for Jesus.... AND eternity past.. i.e. GOD..
You know- God making angels and the War of the Angels.. and the emergence of Satan(demons) and all that.. “whatever they are”...
It’s always something... -Roseanna Dana..
Roseanna Dana- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5BKAaZrqgE
.....” Faith is reasonable. It is based on real experience, logic and evidence. It is based on what has been seen, heard and touched. Take the resurrection”.....
Yes, of course God reveals himself in the person of Christ. But many seek God apart from Christ and proof that He is. We often hear people say ...”if your real show yourself to me”. They desire a face, an encounter, an experience.
The evidence they might find might point to God but doesn’t prove God is, rather it ‘points to’. That is what evidence does. Points.
‘By faith’ we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command,... so that.... ‘what is seen was not made out of what was visible.’...... Heb.11:3
Creation cries out that there is the Creator......the evidence points to that....but HE does not show Himself creating....especially since he commands and it IS. It is by faith then we believe where the evidence points to.
Yes, dear brother in Christ; I noticed that, too.
Still, we can reasonably ask: Is atheism a “religion,” as the Plantiff insists in James J. KAUFMAN, Plaintiff, v. Gary R. McCAUGHTRY and Jamyi Witch, Defendants?
This seems to be a question of the same type as the question: Is gay marriage a “marriage?” The answer depends on how one defines “religion” and “marriage,” respectively. What is disturbing is the involvement of the federal courts in making such determinations at all.
Anyhoot, in the lawsuit you cite from U.S. District Court, W.D., Mr. Kaufman — who was trying to establish an “atheist study group” at a Wisconsin correctional facility on “free exercise” grounds — defines an atheist as <>
…someone who does not believe in the supernatural or in any gods, does not believe in rituals and prayer, basically believes in what you can see and test through science or through your own observations. He believes that atheism is a ‘communal type thing,’ with no hierarchy or power structure. Plaintiff believes that atheists have ethics derived from society, history and personal experience that help believers determine what is right and wrong.Let’s have some fun and “deconstruct” atheism. As you noted, dear xzins, it has many outward features of religious commitment and practice. Certainly, it is a belief system, faithfully, passionately adhered to. It has its own “holy writ,” and “prophets” and “evangelists.”
Here’s the “holy writ” part — which also names a person who qualifies as an “evangelist” of the faith (this from Jeffery Tayler in the article at the top):
The universe, we now know, did create itself, arising out of a quantum event – a “singularity,” when time and space were wrapped into one — some 13.7 billion years ago, exploding from a tiny speck of unimaginably dense, hot matter to its present dimensions. (And it’s still expanding.) Some four billion years back, it is postulated that a still-unexplained chemical occurrence gave rise to the first self-replicating biological molecule from which began life on Earth and from which we evolved according to the (eminently comprehensible) process of Natural Selection. This renders God, as Richard Dawkins put it, “an excrescence, a carbuncle on the face of science,” unnecessary for any phase of “creation.”My problem is, if you analyze this holy writ, you find that it is based on certain thoroughly unexamined (it seems to me) presuppositions: (1) That everything in the universe “supervenes on the physical” (i.e., on matter in its motions). (2) There are only two causes that operate in Nature: the material and the efficient. There are no formal (specifying) or final (purposive) causes in Nature. (3) Rather, the Nature we humans experience and observe is, at any given point in time, merely the outcome of purely random events. The only constraint operating on this randomness is Natural Selection, which itself is based on “accidental” events (random mutations).
To me, the most significant take-away in all of this is the complete denial of any and all metaphysical, cosmological, religious, or spiritual extensions of the natural world. That little maneuver deftly rids one of God; but it also seems to rid one of the human soul, not to mention the very foundations of human reason and human consciousness itself.
But if, as I believe, what we call “religion” is an encounter between God and human souls, then how can atheism be a religion, since it abolishes both?
Atheists tend to brag that they’re just being “scientific.” And since there is no “proof” of God to their satisfaction, it is therefore senseless to impute to such a fiction any role in the creation and unfoldment (evolution) of the universe.
At which point, I’d like to interject an observation that seems to lay out our present quandary very well, indeed:
The enormity of the differential between non-anthropic [i.e., non-life-supporting] and anthropic [i.e., life-supporting] values of our universe’s [fundamental] constants may be likened to a monkey typing out Hamlet (without any recourse to the play) by random tapping on the keys of a typewriter. Needless to say, it requires belief to explain this occurrence by pure chance.In conclusion, it seems to me that, given the above considerations, atheism is not a religion, for all that it may want to be recognized as such.
If one were to come into a room where such a monkey had been typing randomly for a month, and were to discover twelve sheets of perfect Shakespearean prose, one could reasonably and responsibly believe that someone intelligent (possessing a fine knowledge of Shakespeare) had snuck into the room and helped the monkey. Alternatively, one might believe that the monkey had a random stroke of luck that allowed a conspiracy of coincidences unimaginably remote [see Penrose’s number] to occur by pure chance. In one case, one believes in an intellect that one did not see. In the other case, one believes that an unbelievably improbable occurrence took place by pure chance.
…I leave it to the reader to ascertain which kind of belief is more reasonable and responsible. — Robert J. Spitzer, S.J., New Proofs for the Existence of God: Contributions of Contemporary Physics and Philosophy, 2010; p. 65f.
To love God is to love Truth. It seems atheists do neither.
Cheer up, atheists! Though the atheist may not be covered by the Religion clauses of the First Amendment, they are still fully protected by its guarantee of Free Speech, not to mention Free Association….
The case law you cite, dear brother in Christ, did not reach to such sublime considerations; rather, it was decided on pretty narrow, technical grounds that found the Plaintiff's argument "moot" WRT the decision reached — which probably exasperated, frustrated the “activist” or evangelizing Plaintiff to no end....
Thank you ever so much for writing, dear xzins!
I didn't even get into the "fine-tuning" aspects — the dozens of universal physical constants, each of which is not only "fine-tuned" in itself, but — more importantly — are seemingly designed to interact/interface with all the other universal constants, so to produce an anthropic universe....
I find it highly doubtful to suppose that any element of this arrangement is the product of "accident," of pure chance, let alone their combination....
Thank you so much for writing!
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