Revolted.
Jun 5th 2014, 7:54 am
#226
me/moi
Joined: Nov 2012
Location: UK
Posts: 24,531
Re: Revolted.
We can probably agree that the the existence of the tooth fairy is as likely as an old man with a white beard sitting on a throne in the clouds firing thunderbolts at the heathens. That said, I don't think that the weight of evidence that suggests this particular representation of "God" is wrong means that the notion of "God" is necessarily wrong.
Christians would argue that the nature of God is beyond our understanding so any imagining we have will be incorrect. Buddhists will say that God is within human nature and we all have one of those.
For the record, I am not religious and have no belief is a god or gods. I do know people who are highly intelligent, profoundly good and deeply religious. After talking with them I cannot help but think there is something going on there that is beyond my understanding. It also makes me think that dismissing them as intellectual lightweights who believe in fairy stories is not-joined-up thinking.
Christians would argue that the nature of God is beyond our understanding so any imagining we have will be incorrect. Buddhists will say that God is within human nature and we all have one of those.
For the record, I am not religious and have no belief is a god or gods. I do know people who are highly intelligent, profoundly good and deeply religious. After talking with them I cannot help but think there is something going on there that is beyond my understanding. It also makes me think that dismissing them as intellectual lightweights who believe in fairy stories is not-joined-up thinking.
The most interesting example of the above is Francis Collins (the renowned geneticist partially behind the Human Genome project). He is a steadfast believer in god. Most atheists would not call him or others like him intellectual lightweights. However they would question the contradictions in his thinking. Questions he is only able to answer by the word, faith.
Jun 5th 2014, 8:51 am
#228
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 14,227
Re: Revolted.
So you think the tooth fairy might exist? Maybe I'm actually god and I'm toying with everyone. I mean it's pretty closed minded of you to not accept the possibility don't you think?
Jun 5th 2014, 8:58 am
#229
Magnificently Withering
Joined: Jan 2007
Location: Oakville, ON
Posts: 6,892
Re: Revolted.
I wuz gonna say that. Moorish intellectuals from the Muslim colonization of Spain and the coexisting cultures of pre-Crusade Sicily, who got friendly with a bunch of Christian monks and got them to turn their dogmatic beliefs on their heads. Of course, the Roman church treated them as heretics, but the seeds had been sown and intellectual curiosity began to reawaken in Europe. But it was largely in spite of, not because of, the church until it was rather more fully established. The earliest university institutions and other church-founded academies were places of religious doctrine and dogma for a long time before they became places of genuine discovery and enlightenment.
Jun 5th 2014, 9:01 am
#230
Binned by Muderators
Joined: Jul 2007
Location: White Rock BC
Posts: 11,686
Jun 5th 2014, 9:03 am
#231
me/moi
Joined: Nov 2012
Location: UK
Posts: 24,531
Re: Revolted.
Not so. We know a hell of a lot. You need to read your Scientific American a bit more thoroughly. If you had the slightest idea of what we humans (as a species) know, you would not be uttering such nonsense.
Jun 5th 2014, 9:05 am
#232
slanderer of the innocent
Joined: Dec 2008
Location: Vancouver, BC
Posts: 6,695
Re: Revolted.
Jun 5th 2014, 9:10 am
#235
Magnificently Withering
Joined: Jan 2007
Location: Oakville, ON
Posts: 6,892
Re: Revolted.
Hang on, no I'm not: my name is Maximus Decimus Meridius ... father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife, etc etc. Was it you what smote them, then?
Jun 5th 2014, 9:15 am
#236
BE Enthusiast
Joined: Jan 2006
Location: Okanagan region
Posts: 625
Re: Revolted.
We can't even bring something that's been dead for a day back to life. We are so tiny and insignificant in the scale of things that to think we know a hell of a lot is absurd. I'll stop uttering such nonsense when you stop talking out of your rear end.
Jun 5th 2014, 9:16 am
#237
Binned by Muderators
Joined: Jul 2007
Location: White Rock BC
Posts: 11,686
Re: Revolted.
I wuz gonna say that. Moorish intellectuals from the Muslim colonization of Spain and the coexisting cultures of pre-Crusade Sicily, who got friendly with a bunch of Christian monks and got them to turn their dogmatic beliefs on their heads. Of course, the Roman church treated them as heretics, but the seeds had been sown and intellectual curiosity began to reawaken in Europe. But it was largely in spite of, not because of, the church until it was rather more fully established. The earliest university institutions and other church-founded academies were places of religious doctrine and dogma for a long time before they became places of genuine discovery and enlightenment.
Jun 5th 2014, 9:30 am
#238
ModerĪ±tor Emeritus
Joined: Sep 2003
Location: Upstate South Carolina
Posts: 30,768
Re: Revolted.
I wuz gonna say that. Moorish intellectuals from the Muslim colonization of Spain and the coexisting cultures of pre-Crusade Sicily, who got friendly with a bunch of Christian monks and got them to turn their dogmatic beliefs on their heads. Of course, the Roman church treated them as heretics, but the seeds had been sown and intellectual curiosity began to reawaken in Europe. But it was largely in spite of, not because of, the church until it was rather more fully established. The earliest university institutions and other church-founded academies were places of religious doctrine and dogma for a long time before they became places of genuine discovery and enlightenment.
And Christians, they would be another churchy spirutual group if Im not mistaken....
So these godbotherers managed to do some good it seems.
Jun 5th 2014, 9:31 am
#239
Born again atheist
Joined: Jul 2005
Location: Europe (to be specified).
Posts: 30,259
