I don’t know. What is more absurd? Thinking that a toaster made itself? Or thinking there must be an intelligence behind it?
He was raised Catholic, so it is the closest religion to him. It isn’t much of a leap to take that he would consider going to a Catholic forum to hear the other side of the debate.
He personally might not, maybe because he isn’t well versed in both sides of the issue. However, don’t underestimate the power of the atheists’ argument. Just because you personally are completely convinced of your Catholicism does not mean that all others on this board are or will be.
That wasn’t the question he asked, and I think that your own convictions are precluding you from seeing the relevance in his questions.
If he is interested in giving his questions a fair balance of the evidence, that wouldn’t be something that would be the most honest thing to do.
See the logical fallacy called “appeal to the majority”. I personally don’t understand specifically the arrogance that certain atheists have, however, those with stong convictions in the Catholic faith can also often be seen coming across as being arrogant when they perceive their faith to be actively challenged.
I am coming to understand that that is a common argument from the religious, that for an atheist, the only possible way for creation to have occurred is so unlikely due to random circumstance. However, it has come to my attention recently that atheists do not believe at all that it is a random occurrence, knocking that argument.
A car could only be man made: it isn’t biological. No one argues that. There are no lower forms of cars that a car in question could have evolved from. Through an extremely long period of time, simple processes slowly developed into more complex ones. This is not the same as a static car disconnected in possibility that its structure has been created by natural processes.
When things that are empirically unfalsifiable, the burden of proof does NOT fall upon the opponent, but instead the proponents. The opponent cannot empirically prove that the Spaghetti Monster is the creator either.
This is good advice (<- no sarcasm). I really think he does need to pick up some books. There is a wealth of good books on this subject, and while I think others have pointed out a few good ones, it might be best to point him to some more examples just for variety.
She should present evidence by her external actions, just as I or he would. We cannot so easily read in or perceive this same evidence from a supernatural being. Quite a different gap to bridge there.
I have argued for you in many cases here, but that argument is just silly. You don’t currently believe in God, so your intentions can only be harmful here.
There is nothing wrong with trying to understand as much as we can, within our own human ability. To say that something can never be understood is considered by many to be just as a arrogant, as it would be setting a limit for our own future possibilities within our own current possibilities. The search for knowledge is not prideful, in and of itself. The intentions can be argued, not the action.
I agree that in itself, persuit of knowledge is not bad, but good. In persuing knowledge, we can learn more about God’s creation and how it operates, and we can learn many other insightful things. The main point I was trying to make though was that there are some things (in the realm of faith and in the realm of science) that we will simply never be able to fully understand because they are outside of human ability. To believe that humans are capable of understanding every single thing though is to be proud. There are some things that we will never be able to understand.
I don’t think you can speak for all God believers. I think there are differences among those God believers regarding the extent to which “God” controls nature. Clearly you all believe that God created the universe, arguably the single most significant natural occurrence in history. From that I logically inferred that you must also believe that God is the force behind other less signficant natural occurences (wind, volcanos, detachment of embryos from uterine walls, etc.).
No, he has a palm pilot, whatever he does, he writes it down.
Sure they do. Saving the lives of thousands of children and adults does justify “killing” a 4 day old embryo. Such embryos are killed all the time. When people go through in vitro fertilization they usually end up destroying their unused embryos. It makes no sense to ban (or limit funding for) the study of such embryos, especially when it could save the lives of countless children.
I ask because I really want to know. Does God continue to control natural events in your opinion or not?
Let put it this way - There is nothing going by in a blink of an eye without God’s knowledge for Him being the creator of Heaven, Earth and the whole universe.
Sorry, still not enough. I understand that you think “God” is omniscient. The question was what does he currently “control” (i.e. directly cause to occur on a day-to-day basis). (Obviously, if he created the universe, he is the cause in fact of everything that subsequently occurs within it, so that clearly is not my question.)
If many Christians have already answered you the question, why you have to ask again?
You were being vague with your earlier answer, and he assumed that I wasn’t speaking for all Catholics (actually, he included my answer in the even larger category of Christians).
Little does contemporary religion ask of man. It is ready to offer comfort; it has no courage to challenge. It is ready to offer edification; it has no courage to break the idols, to shatter callousness.