That’s an excellent point. Athiests are more than willing to accept the witness of history in secular matters, but when it comes to the history of the Catholic Church, they toss it off as invention, even though it is every bit as valid as history as the history of the fall of the Roman Empire.
Amen brother. We all need to be reminded of this from time to time. Thanks for posting.
The atheist will obviously respond, well “I don’t believe God is true or good.” Sighhhh Thanks bro… God or religion is a very lively topic to discuss… and there are no winners in the argument. In fact organized religion brought so much disunity and mistrust among peoples for centuries… just as the scribes and pharisees mistrusted Jesus.Amen brother. We all need to be reminded of this from time to time. Thanks for posting.
God bless,
Ut
Not quite. Henry the VIII was never claimed to be anything other than a human. Since I witness there are humans today, it is not difficult for me to believe there were humans back then.
Because when we look at what people call miracles today, we often find natural explanations. When we don’t, scientists “usually” get cracking on the problem to eventually solve it.
It is entirely possible, that a search for truth has a biological basis and is a by-product of other functions. Such as the ability to read is a by-product of different areas of the brain.There is no actual reading centre of the brain.
This does not mean, that we do not desire a good life for everyone even if that desire has a basis in biology. We could conievably create a heaven on earth if we really wanted(and if it was actually possible from a natural perspective).
My use of the word “you” is often a generalized statment, so sorry to make assumptions.
It’s a good point and any of my thoughts on it, would probably just irritate athiests, so I won’t go there, hehe.
Ah but you see, what was written down, did not necessarily occur. And there is a great deal of biblical scholarship that very much questions the validity of such claims.(IE resurrections and miracles)
It is interesting, we can dive further into that if you’d like
I believe you’ve given a good description of how athiest operate. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you and cheers
We do not have to will ourselves to love a parent. A child will love a parent, regardless of what they do(in many cases) because it is a natural biological process which enabled our survival for many years, as did the natural love a parent feels for a child.
I would say it differently. The love of truth, indicates a love of a higher power (, regadless of wether or not you call that power “god”)
It’s important to note here, we cannot love what we do not “believe” to be good, but we can still love that which is wrong.
No. They will disagree with your belief that God exists.…you know, after all this, I feel like I’m stating the obvious.
I agree that the aim of religion is to know God better, and to know his will better.
Most of the saints of the Catholic church have done the same thing within the confines of the structural church. Bear in mind that the Catholic church believes that it is the church founded by Christ, but it makes no mistake in believing that it is not afflicted by sin and division, just as Paul’s letters to the Corinthians attests, and always in need of repentance.
Thank you again.
Why are you starting with a premise that I am unconmfortable with this concept? Me disagreeing, does not equate to me being uncomfortable.
That’s the way science works. It does not claim something as truth , until it can prove it with a certain degree of probability. This article makes claims, and they are unsubstantiated. This is the POINT of science. You cannot claim something is true and have it declared as fact.
And I responded to your Henry The eight argument.
They don’t usually accuse you of narrow minds, they just think that you believe what you want to. Given no evidence or probability of evidence for what you claim, they won’t waste their time on it.
It doesn’t exist. They will only work on what they can empirically prove and nothing more. Science isn’t magical, it’s just a system that is used so that humans can’t make claims that are unsubstantiated and say they are truth.
I think you are talking about logic not science. Science can only examine what is observable. It cannot examine what is not observable.
By using the word “creative” you are making a statment that already implies a creator.
No-one is denying Jesus. Most think he probably existed.
I think that human nature is composed of an affective aspect, a volitional aspect, and an intellectual aspect. The three of these work in conjunction with each other.
Agreed, with the proviso that often the will to love must include affectivity, or it can render the act hollow, as I’ve explained above. For example, charity to the poor without acompanying human compassion can be very hard to swallow.
This idea has always been at the back of my mind when it comes to my relationships with atheists. If truth is an aspect of God, then atheists are in a way worshipping this aspect.
Agreed. But for the purposes of this thread, I want to focus on the will/desire to love God, or the good, or truth in general.
Part of being a Catholic is the recognition of our deeply flawed human nature. What I often see is the opposite extreem among secular folk. They want to whitewash all our evil as “human nature”.
I believe in evolution, so I wont argue with you about that. However, on a certain level, I believe that our capacity to love, in the way I’ve described above, is dependant on rational and spiritual motivations that trancend the evolutionary framework.
And, irronically, Hilter couched his philosophy of eugenics and extermination in the concepts of evolution applied to human beings.
I would like to get back to this “passion” as well and look deeper into the character of the more altruistic passions, expecially with reguard to love for God.
What makes me think it makes you uncomfortable is that for any other event where 50,000 eye witnesses were provided, you would accept it as probably true. However, since it is related to a religion you immediately make a supposition that it was mass hysteria versus a witnessed event.
Actually, that is not necessarily true. Scientists nowadays spout “truth” about biological and psychological information that has not ever been verified by the scientific method. eg. (and I don’t want to get into an evolution discussion because I think it is credible). Evolution cannot be done by the purely scientific method because they can’t test the hypothesis. They make observations and then give a probable hypothesis, but is is sold as science and truth, but it is actually just a hypothesis because you can’t test it. The same is done with psychology when I’ve read ad nauseum that “it is a biological imperative that men are promiscuous”. When again, it is a hypothesis being sold as truth. To pretend that science does not “cheat” in this manner is naive.
I would agree with that, then you must concede that that if 50 or 100,000 people witnessed something, then the probability that it happened is astronomically high.
I should have worded that one better. As a historical person, it is difficult to refute that he existed. Here is what I meant to say in its improved form. I can understand how people don’t believe that Jesus is the son of God incarnate who came down to to expiate our sins because without an experience of it, it is very hard to swallow.
I hate to tell you this, but I am a scientist and thus a proof-minded creature. Granted, I definitely bias on the science supporting creation because I truly can’t witness creation and not envision a creator. I’m sure you didn’t mean it as such, but throughout your posting, you appear to think I need education on the scientific method. Granted I was in college a while ago, but I haven’t forgotten it.
I find it vaguely insulting that you immediately suppose that theists can’t be scientists too…as if our minds are somehow too limited for the work of atheism???Even if this were true Revert it wouldn’t indicate a lack of comfort. This actually has nothing to do with religion. I am highly skeptical of alien abductions and sightings of big-foot too. When something cannot be proven, I do not think it happened.
There are SOME scientists that lack honesty and integrity sure. As a whole, the community does not. One unfortunate problem in our modern day world, is that information travels a LOT faster than it used to. Any discovery made, would take a year or more to end up in the public sphere. By then it would be verified from several sources and any issues with it would be ironed out(or it would have been dis-proven).
No, I have already explained this, so I’m not getting into it again.
I’m not sure I would totally agree. I think with people we like then yes.
I think it’s very true. Athiests submit to love and truth in their lives all the time. They do not think it is God, but rather just ideals, or concepts. BUT, the point is they give in to it. They are not being governed by simply their own will.(unlike some other non-believers who unfortunately are lumped up with the athiests and agnostics)This idea has always been at the back of my mind when it comes to my relationships with atheists. If truth is an aspect of God, then atheists are in a way worshipping this aspect.
Claiming evil is a part of human nature, is not the same as whitewashing. What will often irritate the secular world, is when bad things are blamed on something “outside” of ourselves. Let me give a quick example.
It’s possible I simply don’t know.
Humans bypassed evolution the day we became self-aware. That is not that we aren’t evolving(we still are), but we are in part now directing our evolution, by keeping those that may be physically weak alive. In the process of doing this, we end up with the likes of Stephen Hawkings etc, We cannot base an ethical system on nature alone due to our self-awareness.
Sure, I’m all ears
Hope you had a lovely weekend.P.S. I probably wont be able to post again until Monday, so have a great weekend.
I’ll emphasize that I don’t believe it because someone told me. I believe it because I have experienced it first hand. That is my personal proof. I will admit my bias toward creation because I cannot deny the evidence of my own eyes and senses, but you too must admit your bias that you are much more likely to dismiss or deny evidence of religious experiences simply because they are religious or spiritual. Equal evidence given for anything else would be accepted but because they are proving something outside your experience it is dismissed. The earliest scientists who brought forth the concept of germs were ridiculed as crazy because they had no concept that tiny creatures were causing illnesses. People who are of a scientific bent sometimes close their minds to alternate ideas, but will argue until they are out of breath that they are not being closed minded.
No, I start with a blank canvas and take a good look around.
This is not an assumption by atheists, it is what we experience. I’ve come across Christians that very much believe that Jesus was a caucasion with blond hair and blue eyes. Jews apparently believe the same thing as christians, and that the bible is word for word correct. We were made in 6 days.
It is true, that we can have access to the same information and not agree. I’m okay with that. Nothing annoys me more than when I disagree with a religous person and they say “you don’t understand”. They will explain it, I ask them what it is about it they think I don’t understand. When all is said and done, I still disagree. They, can almost never accept this. They cannot accept that we really just disagree with their conclusions.I think that is an assumption on the part of atheists that theists can’t seem to throw off. The fact is for a large percentage of us, we went through the same questions, but simply came to a different conclusion than the atheists.
That is not true. Here’s a previous exchange between you:
______________________Dameedna: If you have a collection of people that belief in God, and have a certain image of Jesus in their minds, when they see a cloud that looks like Jesus, they will “witness” Jesus observing them.
_________________ __________________