Should science be secular?

[Kaninchen]

Yes, people have been going to Christian schools and were taught that God created the world and man in 6 literal days for hundreds of years. Those same people went on to be scientists and engineers. Once again, since no one can provide any specific negative effects, it seems there aren’t any.

I am not an advocate for forcing this on ‘institutions of learning.’

God bless,
Ed

No, just an advocate for forcing people to take it seriously.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

*Have spirits/demons been empirically documented? Have they been measured or chemically analyzed? *

Well, because they are spirits, that’s obviously not possible.

However, according to Peck, they can be encountered in person through the demonic possession of humans. Peck describes certain physical traits the patient will exhibit that are typical of a demonically possessed person, especially during an exorcism when the demon cannot resist reacting violently to the prayers of the exorcism uttered in the name of Christ. These traits are not uniform or consistent from one patient to another. Peck’s conclusion is that this is because different patients may be possessed by different demons. After all, Satan is legion.

Peck now believes that some patients seeking psycho-therapy are not able to be helped because therapists have mistakenly diagnosed the problem as a case of neurosis or psychosis rather than demonic possession. In this I think he is on solid ground. Psychiatry is probably among the most atheistic of the sciences, boldly led in that direction from the start by Sigmund Freud who regarded all religion as a sickness.

 

[larkin31]

Oh, don’t say that, think of all the fun you’ll have posting on CAF about which specific dinosaurs researchers think were dancing with Adam and Eve.

right

he doesn’t care because he is not a paleontologist

his computer will likely run on the same circuitry

all the while his children are being taught to ignore all of the empirical evidence that suggests that the world is 4.5 billion years old and that species have come and gone from the fossil record over 3 billion years. Not in 6 days.

 

[Kaninchen]

right

he doesn’t care because he is not a paleontologist

his computer will likely run on the same circuitry

all the while his children are being taught to ignore all of the empirical evidence that suggests that the world is 4.5 billion years old and that species have come and gone from the fossil record over 3 billion years. Not in 6 days.

Oh, in the medium/long term, the impact would be considerable - buoyed up by their victory over creation, other areas of study would be very vulnerable to their attacks as well.

Wonderful for Europe, China and so on, of course - unless one expects investors in research to become interested in dancing dinosaurs, which, I have to say, I really doubt.

 

[edwest2]

No, just an advocate for forcing people to take it seriously.

Feel free to ignore me.

God bless,
Ed

 

[colmcille1]

Feel free to ignore me.

God bless,
Ed

Ed, that is the unbelievers only field of expertise: ignoring others!
Unless of course you irk them with a quotation they refuse to deal with or, and here’s the choice one, you admit that you don’t possess the answers to the fiendishly brilliant encryptions of the Italian train network timetable! Y’know, if I’d known that that’s where all our answers lie, I’d be riding that network forever! But wait awhile, we may be treated to more of said posters sparkling nuggets of wisdom…

 

[Moonstruck888]

Here’s the challenge Moonstruck! (maybe you are moomstruck and can’t think straight :whacky::bounce: Here’s the challenge: Prove that God does not exist!

The ball is in your court now.

:yup: Cinette

Hardly.

I am not making any claims to knowledge or being able to prove anything. I am simply telling you that the evidence that God exists does not satisfy my criteria for belief.

I am not telling anyone they have to pray, be baptised, go to Church, get down on their knees and make fawning supplications or hand over any of their money. I am simply saying that based on the paucity of evidence I will not be doing any of the above.

You obviously know what I mean. I assume you don’t worship Wotan or Shango or Vishnu or the great Joo Joo on top of the hill. You are atheist about the vast majority of religious claims and can see they are based on delusion. For some reason, you have chosen one claim, Christianity, and decided to forgo reason where that claim is concerned.

So, you prove yourself. The ball is still very much in your court and will never be in mine, because I am not taking part in the game.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Kaninchen

*Oh, I’m all for you all embracing creationism - while American universities are busy researching which dinosaurs danced with Adam and Eve, talent and investment will move elsewhere. *

You seem to be quite fixated on Italian train timetables and dinosaurs? What else turns you on? Dancing bunnies?

By the way, I don’t think you have to be worried about American Universities. They are quite atheistic enough, thank you!

 

[d_erford]

Hardly.

I am not making any claims to knowledge or being able to prove anything. I am simply telling you that the evidence that God exists does not satisfy my criteria for belief.

I am not telling anyone they have to pray, be baptised, go to Church, get down on their knees and make fawning supplications or hand over any of their money. I am simply saying that based on the paucity of evidence I will not be doing any of the above.

You obviously know what I mean. I assume you don’t worship Wotan or Shango or Vishnu or the great Joo Joo on top of the hill. You are atheist about the vast majority of religious claims and can see they are based on delusion. For some reason, you have chosen one claim, Christianity, and decided to forgo reason where that claim is concerned.

So, you prove yourself. The ball is still very much in your court and will never be in mine, because I am not taking part in the game.

May I ask, Moonstruck, what criteria you use for belief? If it is repeatable observations to make scientific conclusions, why is that your only criteria? Also, why do you believe we have forgone reason when it comes to Christianity? I just want to understand what your mindset is, and I apologize if you have addressed this in earlier posts.

Thanks!

 

[larkin31]

I see that no Creationists here, especially not Edwest2–who claimed that the world was created in 6 days–wants to respond to this, where I answered his question directly.

…all the while his children are being taught to ignore all of the empirical evidence that suggests that the world is 4.5 billion years old and that species have come and gone from the fossil record over 3 billion years. Not in 6 days.

 

[Moonstruck888]

May I ask, Moonstruck, what criteria you use for belief? If it is repeatable observations to make scientific conclusions, why is that your only criteria?

Also, why do you believe we have forgone reason when it comes to Christianity? I just want to understand what your mindset is, and I apologize if you have addressed this in earlier posts.

Thanks!

Why do you think there’s a God that cannot be seen, heard, touched, smelled, or detected in any way?

I think the human mind is very susceptible to delusion and hallucination. That is why the scientific method is so important. People base a lot of their beliefs on irrational feelings of conceit and hallucinations of revelation.

I think you have forgone reason when it comes to God because you believe something in the absence of any evidence. What possible reason can you have to believe in anything that gives no indication of any kind that it exists?

 

[d_erford]

Why do you think there’s a God that cannot be seen, heard, touched, smelled, or detected in anyway?

I think the human mind is very susceptible to delusion and hallucination. That is why the scientific method is so important. I think you have forgone reason when it comes to God because you believe something in the absence of any evidence. What possible reason can you have to believe in anything that gives no indication of any kind that it exists?

Now, this is from a believer’s perspective, so I already know you will disagree with it

The issue I see is that you limit the senses you can use, and then say God cannot be detected. There are spiritual senses, but you choose not to trust them because you think the mind can be easily deluded. Of course, simply because it CAN be does not mean it IS. It is similar to a man that never opens his eyes and therefore believes there is no such thing as sight, and if he does open them and sees something, thinks it is a trick being played on him because he does not trust what is happening.

I believe in God because I have experienced and seen evidence of Him in ways you will not accept. To believe that I do not have reason or that I am deluded is simply an opinion based on limitations you have intentionally set on yourself. I can as easily say I think you have been fooled into thinking you only have your five senses.

I wish I could convince you of God’s existence, but paraphrasing one of your previous comments, I will not ‘play the game’ because you will only abide by a set of rules that makes the game un-winnable for a believer.

 

[Moonstruck888]

Now, this is from a believer’s perspective, so I already know you will disagree with it

The issue I see is that you limit the senses you can use, and then say God cannot be detected. There are spiritual senses, but you choose not to trust them because you think the mind can be easily deluded. Of course, simply because it CAN be does not mean it IS. It is similar to a man that never opens his eyes and therefore believes there is no such thing as sight, and if he does open them and sees something, thinks it is a trick being played on him because he does not trust what is happening.

I believe in God because I have experienced and seen evidence of Him in ways you will not accept. To believe that I do not have reason or that I am deluded is simply an opinion based on limitations you have intentionally set on yourself. I can as easily say I think you have been fooled into thinking you only have your five senses.

I wish I could convince you of God’s existence, but paraphrasing one of your previous comments, I will not ‘play the game’ because you will only abide by a set of rules that makes the game un-winnable for a believer.

What organs are responsible for the spiritual sense? How is the information assimilated by them?

 

[Kaninchen]

You seem to be quite fixated on Italian train timetables and dinosaurs? What else turns you on? Dancing bunnies?

I’d have thought that one form of entertainment was pretty obvious.

By the way, I don’t think you have to be worried about American Universities. They are quite atheistic enough, thank you!

Not worried, just hopeful.

 

[d_erford]

What organs are responsible for the spiritual sense? How is the information assimilated by them?

Since we are talking about something that is not physical, there is no need for a physical organ(s). If you want to talk about a spiritual ‘organ’ (I use the term loosely), you can perhaps refer to our soul as that which receives it and our reason that assimilates it along with our soul. But just as we can make our physical organs defective by what we consume and how much care we put into them, we can also dull our spiritual ‘organs’ and senses.

 

[colmcille1]

Hi all True believers,
May I regale you with the revisionist’s version of ‘The Wizard of Oz’?
Well, it involves a girl called Dorothy (she’s kept in the story, you see, because she’s a gay icon and she implicitly supports gay marriage).
Anyway, one day Dorothy came upon three curious folks who were standing by the side of a lonely country byroad.
She was intrigued by their somewhat animated conversation so she skipped up to them nonchalantly.
She listened intently but could not, for the life of her, decipher their strange mutterings.
Eventually, after about nine and a half hours of such mutterings (Dorothy was a patient girl, you see, because she was used to waiting for the advent of gay marriage), she turned to them and said:
“Please may I be your friend?”
All three curious folk turned to face little darling Dorothy. They glowered at the poor frightened girl.
Though Dorothy had been standing there for quite some time, it was only now that she really saw them fully.
The tallest one appeared to be a schoolmarm with a surly aspect.
The chubbiest one was most curious in dress and facial grimace. “Why”, thought Dorothy,
“this one looks just like the caledonian clown in my colouring book!”
The smallest, and by far the uggy-wuggiest to Dorothy’s mind, was the little bunny wabbit!
They suddenly ROARED a chorus of staccato mutterings and…BING!
Reader, Dorothy was convinced!
She grabbed the schoolmarm and the clown by the hand and, with uggy-wuggy bunny wabbit in tow, they skipped and danced and skipped again down the grey brick road to find the wonderful scientific Wizard of Oz.
And they all lived unhappily ever after.

 

[larkin31]

Now, this is from a believer’s perspective, so I already know you will disagree with it

The issue I see is that you limit the senses you can use, and then say God cannot be detected. There are spiritual senses, but you choose not to trust them because you think the mind can be easily deluded…

Could you please define “spiritual senses”? I have never heard that term before, and I do not know to what you are referring. What, precisely, is a “spiritual sense”?

 

[Moonstruck888]

Since we are talking about something that is not physical, there is no need for a physical organ(s). If you want to talk about a spiritual ‘organ’ (I use the term loosely), you can perhaps refer to our soul as that which receives it and our reason that assimilates it along with our soul. But just as we can make our physical organs defective by what we consume and how much care we put into them, we can also dull our spiritual ‘organs’ and senses.

Again, same problem. Our soul cannot be detected and leaves no trace of it’s existence…

 

[Moonstruck888]

Hi all True believers,
May I regale you with the revisionist’s version of ‘The Wizard of Oz’?
Well, it involves a girl called Dorothy (she’s kept in the story, you see, because she’s a gay icon and she implicitly supports gay marriage).
Anyway, one day Dorothy came upon three curious folks who were standing by the side of a lonely country byroad.
She was intrigued by their somewhat animated conversation so she skipped up to them nonchalantly.
She listened intently but could not, for the life of her, decipher their strange mutterings.
Eventually, after about nine and a half hours of such mutterings (Dorothy was a patient girl, you see, because she was used to waiting for the advent of gay marriage), she turned to them and said:
“Please may I be your friend?”
All three curious folk turned to face little darling Dorothy. They glowered at the poor frightened girl.
Though Dorothy had been standing there for quite some time, it was only now that she really saw them fully.
The tallest one appeared to be a schoolmarm with a surly aspect.
The chubbiest one was most curious in dress and facial grimace. “Why”, thought Dorothy,
“this one looks just like the caledonian clown in my colouring book!”
The smallest, and by far the uggy-wuggiest to Dorothy’s mind, was the little bunny wabbit!
They suddenly ROARED a chorus of staccato mutterings and…BING!
Reader, Dorothy was convinced!
She grabbed the schoolmarm and the clown by the hand and, with uggy-wuggy bunny wabbit in tow, they skipped and danced and skipped again down the grey brick road to find the wonderful scientific Wizard of Oz.
And they all lived unhappily ever after.

And their narrator was reported to the forum moderators for his incessent trolling.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Moonstruck

*What possible reason can you have to believe in anything that gives no indication of any kind that it exists? *

It gives no indication you will accept. For billions God gives plenty of indication. But they find these indications where you refuse to find them … in the human heart.

“The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.” Blaise Pascal