On point 1, your position is that the Atheist can not see something that is present. The alternative to that is the person of faith manufactures something that is not present to fit a view. I would think that this is more common as attributing things to the supernatural is part and parcel of maintaining faith.

On point 4, faith does require checking reason at the the door. The word itself is at least partially defined as belief that is not based on proof. Fantastic claims are made by religion but with no proof, to believe one must suspend what is rationale for what is mystical and supernatural. “Showing Christ to an Atheist” will not improve this situation.

On print 5, Prayer is demonstrably false as it has never been observed to be answered outside the laws of probability. When God grants the wish of an amputee to grow back a limb, then you can claim it to be more then a superstition.

-J

I was interested to read your comments about how to engage atheists being one myself. I couldn’t say whether your approach might affect other atheists but, for my own part, I would hope that a Catholic or indeed anyone else would engage me on a subject of mutual interest rather than push Catholicism.

I was most interested in your own case and I’m afraid it looked to me that you had merely rejected one false god, consumerism, in favour of another. Still, if it has improved your wellbeing and your interactions with your fellows who am I to judge?

Jay,

As for your comments on point one, no argument can really be made.  How one sees the author’s comments depends entirely on one’s presuppositions.
On point four - True, faith does not rely on scientific proof based on repeatable experiments.  However, logical argument based on certain empriical evidence does at least point to probability.  This leads to a definition of faith more like belief that which reason points to as true but can’t quite understand.  Not entirely unlike Sherlock Holmes’ “whatever is left, no matter how improbable must be true.”
On point five - I don’t know about amputees but many people have been healed from any number of sicknesses through prayer, with doctors, following extensive investigation, saying that they can’t explain the healing through scientific means.  There is a story about Emile Zola, who said that once a he say a believer dip a wounded finger into Lourdes and come out cured he would believe.  Well, he was presented with a woman cured of tuberculousis that had disfigured her face (yes, he saw the before and after).  Rather than believe, he fled, declaring the woman still to ugly to look at.

WRT 4, yes and no.

If by argument you mean rhetoric, probably not. There is rarely one single reason for being an atheist any more than there is only one single reason for being Catholic. There are several little reasons that add up. As such, you won’t likely convert someone by addressing one point. You have to address them all…which will take a long time…especially since we aren’t conscious of all the little reasons.

OTOH, if by argument you mean Socratic dialog, I disagree. Although I was baptized Catholic, I was so poorly catechized that my faith consisted of two things: (1) Strict Deism, (2) Strong natural law. Strict deism leads to materialism and strong natural law leads to Scientism, a religion shared by many atheists. In my late 30s, I took up Descartes’s challenge of starting from scratch to find out what is true, since I noticed several inconsistencies in Scientism. Though a series of Socratic dialogs with myself I took materialism to the limit and discovered that to be perfectly consistent, I would have to admit that there is no difference between breaking someone’s legs and breaking a chair’s legs, no difference between dying and damaging a computer, no difference between holding a true belief and a false one since both are just configurations of atoms in my mind and neither configuration is objectively “better”. This is if our perceptions of the outside world are accurate since for all we know all our thoughts just a synapse in primordial goo.

If you question deep enough, you see the atheism or strict deism is unlivable whether or not it is true. Any attempt at making it livable ultimately involves a lie to one’s self that one hopes is true and adding/dropping axioms as one needs in life. Ultimately, the questioning will lead you close enough to Platonism, Stoicism, Confucianism, Buddhism, or Catholicism that you’ll end up converting. But you cannot remain an atheist.

ejpostma,

1. I Thought the author was quite clear in her statement. She found something that she did not previously recognize after she discovered faith. I only point out that perhaps the reason why it was not previously recognized was that “it” is an artifact of the discovery of faith.
4. The problem with faith is there is no empirical evidence. While you can claim that God created universe, I can equally claim Zeus did. When one does not have any evidence, the possibilities are infinite. Thus, you can not claim “what is left”.
5 I used a key statement that you ignored - “outside the laws of probability”. By claiming prayer, you illustrate my point 4 that you are dealing from a place of no evidence. On the other hand, probability allows for a spontaneous ‘miracle’ healing. The proverbial ‘one in a million’ is statistically true for certain circumstances. The key is that no one has ever been healed in a true ‘can’t ever happen’ miraculous manner - such as amputees regenerating limbs.
-J

Amos,

As far as I can judge from your post your conversion to atheism had the quite common effect of leading you to some form of nihilism. You seem to have gone through stages, none of which recognised your basic existence as a social animal. As an atheist, if you don’t define yourself in terms of your relationship to your fellows you are bound to follow a path of increasingly unsatisfying self gratification ending in nihilistic hopelessness. Certainly theism is better than this. But it’s not as well as you can do.

@Jay -  We could list illness after illness all with medical proof of healing and recovery as ‘proof’ of the power of prayer.  And yes, your example of an amputee would always remain (obviously the ear repair in the Garden won’t count).  I would reply - it hasn’t happened ‘yet’ or even ‘not that we know’.  As there does remain that one in a million chance it has happened at a time and place (quite ancient or quite primitive) when it was not recorded or has been long forgotten.

And I know the lengthening of a limb would not sway you - it is not the same.  But I’ll make mention anyway of a college friend whose leg was once four inches shorter, requiring the ‘big shoe and everything’ as she would say.  She kept one of her favorite ‘ugly big shoes’ on her shelf as a reminder that she had been healed.  When she was a teenager, after a time of consistent prayer she awoke to find her legs were the same length.  First thing she bought?  A pair of heels!

Rachel,

The illnesses that cite, are all in the realm of statistical possibilities. There is little doubt that people who pray beat the odds and are healed. However, there are people who do not pray that also beat the odds and are healed. To state the obvious, there are also those who pray / don’t pray and are not healed.
.
My point is, if prayer did work and God is infinite in his power, then one would expect to see the occasional ‘impossibility’ healing. To say that it might have happened but went unobserved / undocumented is an exceedingly weak response.
-J

@JayTheAtheist, your comment about Zeus is an easy one to deal with Zeus is essentially a super advanced Extra Terrestrial within the Universe bound by the laws of the universe. God is the creator of the universe and created the laws of the universe. It was never claimed the Zeus created the universe, only that he fashioned the material in it with the help of the other ETs. Two completely different categories.

Zeus may exist, or he may not, but he is certainly not God and he would be just as much a subject of God as we are. A better comparison would be the Deistic God of Stoics and Socrates, Allah, and the Judeo-Christian God. They all define God the same way, but they all attribute different attributes to God. Reason can get you as far as the Stoics, which is at the doorstep of Christianity. Faith, which means nothing more than trust, gets you the rest of the way. If you trust enough to give Christianity a fighting chance, you will see that it is true, even when it is counterintuitive. This is not irrational, since it never contradicts reasons. Rather, it goes beyond reason. This is something you do all the time in life. You regularly trust before you understand. School is based on this. Few of us have actually conducted a relativity experiment but we trust until we are proven wrong.

There are some who would say, “Even if God DID exist, we would make him up anyway.”  To which I would respond, “Even if God DIDN’T exist, we would make up atheism anyway.”

My point: the belief in God necessitates that a believer is held to a higher standard than his own comfort would allow.  It simply does not make sense to choose to invent a god that would require moral accountabiliy in every aspect of one’s life.  If I were to invent a god, I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t place restrictions on doing the things I find pleasurable to excess.

Likewise, it simply makes more sense that someone/something started the universe, rather than that the existence of the universe (and all that followed) happened randomly.  The laws of probability do not, in fact, favor the formation of existence as we know it: all of creation is properly ordered, and that can hardly be random.  By definition, things forming at random would direct existence towards chaos; that there is order in the natural world speaks against a random beginning.

Amos Wang,

You miss the point of me using Zeus. I could substitute in any deity (Allah, Waheguru, Pangu, etc.) and create an equal possibility to the Christian God. Without evidence, any claim can be made by anyone. Pointing at only one and saying it is true with no compelling evidence of such is irrational.
.
Relativity has largely been demonstrated as experimentally true. It is highly unlikely that any evidence will develop that proves it false.
.
-J

Unless your friend’s son was wielding a weapon in the name of atheism, I would suggest not using the term “militant atheist.” If by “militant” you mean “outspoken,” then I would suggest referring to yourself as a militant christian. A little consistency would be nice.

@Jay

The problem with the demand for 100% proof is that we can’t live that way in real life.  You hint at this yourself in what you said about relativity.  Science works by inductive logic and so its conclusions are always somewhat less than 100% certain.  That’s apparent if you read scientific journals.  Newton’s laws of motion were thought to be beyond question but then Einstein showed their limitation.  Science also assumes external causality: that any phenomenon was caused by something or some things external to itself.  Once that assumption is made, subsequent empirical research shows it to be true every time.  Since it turns out to be true for each thing in the universe, that becomes a strong inductive argument for the universe as a whole being caused by something other than itself.  That to me is much more probable and a much less “extraordinary” claim than the opposite, that the universe had no external cause.  That is, the idea of an uncaused First Cause—a timeless Creator—is much more in keeping with our everyday experience.

May I add a couple?
—Misconception 6: Most, if not all, atheists are just mad at God /  despairing of His mercy / know Christianity is true and just won’t admit it / etc.
—Misconception 7: Atheists don’t believe in anything so it’s easy for them to convert.

@Jay,
And so to get from an uncaused First Cause to the Christian God in particular, I would say that Christianity as a worldview is more coherent within itself and more consistent with our everyday experience than any other worldview including atheism.  A couple of quick examples:  I don’t believe in the Muslim idea of God because Allah’s demand to obey without thinking or questioning violates our inherent dignity and the fact that we have been given intellects.  I don’t believe in atheism for many reasons including the fact that without a God there is no objective basis for morality, yet none of us can live without morality.  (People are never moral relativists when it is their own ox being gored.)  Even atheists who like to invoke moral relativism are compelled at times to judge an action as “right” or “wrong.”

@Jay and Kevin
I prefer first mover as it is a bit more scientific than first cause i.e if you believe that the universe has a starting point, whether big bang, flying spaghetti monster, spontaneous creation, etc. There is a necessity for a being that has motion within itself to give motion to all things because of the laws of physics.  Now, you cannot prove that this being is the Christian God.  That is a matter of faith, but the idea of God is a logical necessity if one assumes the existence of a physical universe with a starting point.  The alternative, a non-physical universe, or any universe with or without a starting point, requires just as much faith as the belief in God and the belief in a physical universe with a starting point.  Like I said, you cannot prove the being is the Christian God, but there does exist a need for a being that contains within itself its own motion and necessity.

I thought this post was interesting. 

Here’s another article (just to throw some gas on the fire) about Christians and atheists.  I would be interested to see some thoughts on this: http://www.cracked.com/article_15759_10-things-christians-atheists-can-and-must-agree-on.html

@Jay:  look at this:

“If you had asked me when I was 25 if I felt perfectly complete and at peace, I would have admitted that the answer was no—but quickly added that it wasn’t a problem because I knew what the solution was: I simply needed to advance in my career, lose 10 pounds, travel to a few more places, get a cooler condo, and then I’d have all that inner peace stuff everyone talks about. It was just a matter of time.”

in light of this, also by Jen: 

“I knew exactly how I would have felt if I had achieved all of my worldly ambitions: excited, prideful, honored…and a little bit depressed.”

Go and read <a >the full post</a> for a more complete treatment.

Jen did feel some sort of emptiness for large periods of her life.  She lacked the knowledge to identify it and its source.  A change in context and/or perspective made what had been obscure more obvious.  That’s quite a bit different from saying “She invented this after she converted.”

well, crap.  Here’s the URL of the post I quoted.

http://www.conversiondiary.com/2010/01/how-the-superbowl-reminded-me-why-i-love-lent.html

@JayTheAtheist
What kind of “outside the laws of probability” miracles are you alluding to?  It is highly unprobable that life itself could ever have emerged on its own (roughly the odds are 1x10^40,000), especially in the intricate forms that we see around us.  Wouldn’t the world itself be considered an “outside the laws of probability” miracle?  I’m not exactly sure what you’re looking for.

@Jay

I find it interesting the way you phrased your thoughts here:

“Relativity has largely been demonstrated as experimentally true. It is highly unlikely that any evidence will develop that proves it false.”

Notice the use of “largely been demonstrated” and “highly unlikely…” instead of “demonstrated beyond any doubt” or “impossible”, yet it is certain that you don’t doubt that what you said is true.

You know it to be true by all the evidence available, but I doubt you had to conduct your own experiment to prove it. You just trusted somebody else did it already - persons you probably don’t personally know - yet it does not even cross your mind to question their findings. Proof positive that even atheists have faith :).

That thing between “largely demonstrated” and “beyond any doubt” is what is called a faith. You have it, we all have it, you just don’t call it what it is.

Cheers,
Alex.

The article made some good points, but my thoughts were provoked by a user’s comment: ” Still, if it has improved your wellbeing and your interactions with your fellows who am I to judge?”. To this individual (Gordon Hide) I ask the following: If it were the case that—and according to your senses of the words—the poster’s “wellbeing and…interactions with [their] fellows” has NOT improved, would you then make some sort of judgement?

Hey, this was a great article and I can totally relate to it:

1. I didn’t have a hole in my life, but now God has helped me advance in my career, lose 10 pounds, travel to a few more places, and get a cooler condo! My life is complete, and it was only through God’s Grace that I was able to fulfill the materialistic hole in my soul.

2. No matter how hard I try, I can never seem to convince atheists that God sent bears to devour children for making fun of a bald guy, or that His Law does indeed command us to put to death those that work on the Sabbath. It’s really difficult to reason with an atheist.

3. One of the things I find most frustrating is that most atheists seem to have no concept of ‘Original Sin’. It’s really difficult to have to explain to them that unbaptized babies who die before baptism are still guilty of Original Sin, just as much as any other unbaptized person, and are therefore unlikely to go to heaven. I wish atheists would make a point of familiarizing themselves with stuff like this.

4. For the longest time, no matter how much reasoning I did, I just couldn’t convince myself that God existed. Now that I’ve thrown reason out the door and turned a blind eye to evidence to the contrary, I can fully buy into the inerrant truth of the Bible and God’s Love!

5. The Power of Prayer applies to everyone - atheists included! Why, just look at how much good all this praying for Japan is doing! They’re practically fine over there now, aren’t they? Maybe if we spent just a little less time sending money and aid over there and spent more time praying, we’d be able to really demonstrate the power of prayer.

Arthur,
The universe and earth are NOT fine-tuned for life. We know of conditions that would be more favorable, and we don’t have them.

Alex,
Science is based on reproducible results with peer review. We try to minimize faith as much as possible, which has resulted in us learning more about our reality than at any previous point.

Bill,
A first mover involves the logical fallacy of “special pleading” and presumes omniscience on your part. You state that everything needs a cause/mover (omniscience-how do you know everything does?), but that your god does not (special pleading-everything but my SPECIAL exemption).

@Alex >> That thing between “largely demonstrated” and “beyond any doubt” is what is called a faith. You have it, we all have it, you just don’t call it what it is.

I’m always really amused by this response! It really amounts to ‘you have faith too, so you’re no more reasonable or intelligent than we are’, which really doesn’t do much to strengthen your argument. At best, all it does is demonstrate that we’re both idiots.

@Joe
1) was silly and a straw man argument (you argue something that no one here is holding ... that God grants you material goods to satisfy).
2) Two points here ... if you believe in the Judeo-Christian God, you believe Him to be the author of Life (all lives are His).  You would also believe Him to be goodness itself and all-knowing, and therefore He would direct all lives to their best end possible (aside from the individual’s free will).  This is reasonable.
3) With regards to Original sin, just because we are uncertain of the destination of the unbaptized person’s soul doesn’t mean that we condemn them to hell ... the Church has never officially condemned anyone to hell.
4) Talk about an unreasonable point!  This isn’t even an argument.
5) You just don’t understand what prayer is all about.  It deals with mainly the important part of humanity, the person’s soul.  The effects of prayer on any one person’s soul is not something that can be measured.  Don’t try to make prayer a subject of a science which it isn’t (i.e. what we know of today as the natural sciences) ... it is a study of theology and philosophy.

@Brian
I don’t get your point to me ... doesn’t that make it more “miraculous” that we do indeed have life here on earth and in the universe?

Your second point begs the question.  Minimizing faith does not equal learning more about reality, in my opinion.  I think we need to agree on what is meant by reality ... do you mean just the physical realm?

Your third point is rather interesting ... I’ve never heard of the “special pleading” fallacy.  I believe that Bill is arguing from the premise that since all things move, but not on their own, they must be moved.  Now this cannot go on to infinity, for something had to have movement in itself in order to give movement (something cannot give what it does not have).  Therefore the prime mover.

One thing that could help in conversations with atheists (or at least with me), is to explain in a sane and rational manner, why a living god would require blood animal sacrifice and later the sacrifice of an innocent human being to forgive the guilty. To me that sounds utterly insane.

If a man murders my girlfriend, how is it forgiveness to require a death in return? That is retribution, not forgiveness.  How is it justice when a murderer goes free and an innocent is killed in his stead?

I understand the idea of someone willing to take your punishment and spare you, but are lessons learned that way?  More importantly, I think you should keep in mind that a supposedly “loving being” intentionally created a such insane requirements when he could have created a system of true forgiveness and love.

Please explain how this supposed belief system is love and not sadism.

So, since there are clearly many atheists on the board, can you explain how the universe started?  The Socratic idea of an unmoved mover has been declared wrong, so where do we go from there?

“In the beginning, there was nothing, which exploded.”  Terry Pratchett certainly seemed to know what was going on, right?

@Brian
First we must understand the offense.  God created Adam and Eve to be happy.  He asked them to love Him Who is their happiness.  They disobeyed Him and chose to love themselves over Him.  This resulted in the punishment of removing His graces that He had given them.  Now no human could have these graces (which kept man from death) since Adam and Eve could not give what they did not have.  And the transgression against God was infinite (God is infinite, and so the transgression was infinite).  Now no finite being could possibly atone for an infinite transgression.  Therefore God became Man, and atoned for our sins.  He came to die so that we may live.  His love was totally self-giving (He is Love!) such that He gave His life for us.  Does that make sense?

Arthur,
We are finding more and more planets all the time. The odds you quoted are being reduced with each finding, not to mention the idea of a multiverse (reducing the odds even more with each possible universe).

How do you learn via faith? What do you learn via faith that cannot be learned via the scientific method? Anything COULD be true… so what method do you use to separate fact from fiction? How do you confirm what you learn via faith to indeed be true?

The idea of a prime mover is the special pleading. There should be an infinite regress, the moment you stop, you invalidate your argument. I would also like to point out that we are past Newton. Two objects near one another would be drawn together via gravity, with no conscious prime mover in sight.

@Arthur
1) You’re right; that wasn’t really an argument.
2) I will concede that in some infinite act of kindness that we can’t comprehend, it’s possible that God decided that having bears maul the children to death was the “best end possible”. I can think of other ends that might be favourable, but who am I to question His wisdom?
3) I didn’t say the unbaptized children go to Hell; just that they don’t go to Heaven. I believe the jury is still out on this matter when it comes to Catholic doctrine? I’d be interested to know, if a child is unbaptized, at what age must they be baptized to go to Heaven. vs. Limbo (if that’s still a thing anymore) vs. Hell if they die beforehand. Put a different way, at what age do we become guilty of Original Sin if unbaptized?
4) The author’s point is that you can’t reason your way into knowing and loving God, the corollary of which seems to be that God’s love isn’t something that comes through reasoning, but through a lack of it.
5) Sorry; I misunderstood prayer. Rather than praying for the lives and wellbeing of the mortal bodies of the Japanese then, perhaps I should simply accept their death and just pray that their souls are received well in Heaven?

Brian, how would you construct a system of real love?  Does it involve free will? 
The animal sacrifices to which you refer occur in the old testament.  We don’t do that anymore.  And when we did, it was a symbol.  We did something wrong (you name it, I do stuff wrong all the time) and we give something important to us (an animal) as a gesture of atonement.
For an individual to demand the life of a murderer, that is revenge.
For a society to demand the life of a murderer is the society protecting itself against a danger to the rest of its members.
Finally, if you did something wrong and someone voluntarily took your licks, wouldn’t you learn something from that?  In theory, every Christian who ever lived learned something from the sacrifice of the cross.  That’s why the cross is such an important symbol to Christianity.  And there have been lots of Christians in the past two thousand years.
Also, we believe that Christ died voluntarily, not that some angry bearded guy in the clouds demanded the death of an innocent.  We did bad things (Eve and the appled, Cain and Able, etc.) and if nothing had happened in response to those bad things, what lessons would have been learned?
Instead, we believe a perfect, innocent being said, “Justice requires that restitution be made for the wrongs done.  I will myself atone for those wrongs.”  Justice requires a thief return what he has stolen for justice to be accomplished.  When you have crimes like murder, where the life of the victim cannot be restored, restitution much still be made for justice to be satisfied.  Hence, Christianity.

@Brian

“Science is based on reproducible results with peer review”

So you basically have to trust (a.k.a have faith in) the guys doing the “peer review”...

How do you know they’re compentent enough to do the peer review? You don’t. So you trust them to do their review properly.

How do you know they don’t have personal interest in a review outcome? You probably don’t. So you just trust them….

And on and on…

My point here is not to question the scientific method, but to show that at pretty much every point in a process you cannot function without trust (faith). We trust others they did the research properly, we trust others they did the peer review properly, etc. You most likely won’t cite somebody’s scientific work if you don’t trust them.

I think a lot of people assume, mistakenly, that “faith” as understood by us (Catholics at least) it’s synonym with “blind faith”. It’s certainly not so. Just as in science, we have a basic set of axioms (postulates) upon which we build our understanding. Atheists start with “there is no God”, we start with the “there is God” axiom.

Both necessitate a certain amount of faith as they are not immediately verifiable.

Alex.

Mouse,
“i don’t know” is an allowable statement. However, taking an answer like, “goddidit” without evidence our a way of testing it is intellectual suicide. It is a god of the gaps answer (where a supernatural explanation is given sure to lack of knowledge, but is later removed when we learn more).

Also,  we do have testable theories that jibe mathematically and with evidence for naturalistic beginnings to our universe.

Arthur,
Your argument still ignores what I was saying in my post. Why did your “loving” god establish such a sadistic system when he could have done it far differently?

Gordon,
That may be true, but your comments seem to point to a belief in a real god out there amongst the false gods. One, as you claim, that instructs and provides for well-being and good interactions with others for every single person. I think where you went off track was alluding that this could be served by each religion individual to self. Rather it must be a faith somewhere out there to be found/created/evolved-into.If that faith was not written into the creation/evolution of the world and universally given then how could you have tapped into such a discovery? How else would you know we should aim for those things unless they were written on the human heart? Unless they were reflected in the natures of humans? Reflected in the animals, plant life, cosmos? How else might you have come to such a conclusion if The Truth didn’t exist and provide opportunities for you to know and be drawn to it?That’s all faith is. An universal truth that calls all reconcile themselves to. It’s just about everyone of us struggles in reconciling everything we are for almost all whole lives.

Brian,
I was serious in my question.  Could you please explain the “testable theories that jibe mathematically and with evidence for naturalistic beginnings to our universe”.  The only explanations I’ve heard for that—even from avowed atheists—don’t make sense to me. 
If you’re arguing to change hearts and minds, please explain your version of the Creation myth.  My faith is pretty weak right now and I’ve had a lot of “I don’t knows” lately.  Maybe you’ll gain a convert.

Brian,
The fact that we are finding new planets does not ipso facto decrease the odds of life “just happening”.  It would be like saying that just because I find more grains of sand I have more odds of one of them all of a sudden becoming a grain of wheat.  And the multiverse idea is just theory.

The Church implemented the scientific method long ago ... back when philosophy and theology were generally accepted as sciences (which means simply, bodies of knowledge).  These doctrines of faith are founded on philisophical principles that must be true.  Not anything CAN be true ... such as the idea of a square circle.

Your argument that if there’s no infinite regress then the argument is invalid is not true ... how does that invalidate the argument?

Alex,
I try to minimize faith as much as possible. I don’t actively say “there is no god”. I lack belief in one due to lack of a testable theory with supporting evidence.

The thing you are ignoring with your peer review argument is that you could still replicate the experiment yourself… and that we continually replicate experiments to make sure the findings haven’t changed or were in error.  In other words, faith is minimized as much as possible.

Mouse,
I’m sure you believe such a system is"loving”. That both saddens and disturbs me. If I am guilty of something, I would rather accept the punishment myself rather than see an innocent pay for my crimes, willing or not.

Finally, you mentioned free will. I suggest you read up on the experiments of Benjamin Libet. It looks like we don’t have free will only the illusion of freedom.

Brian,
In what way would you propose is better than what God did?  Why do you call it sadistic?  How is the Faith sadistic?

@Brian
Aristotle postulated a First Mover over three centuries before Christ as an alternative to an infinite regress of causes which (since we now know that the universe is finite) is impossible.  So it is actually special pleading to insist that everything in the universe has an external cause but the universe itself does not.  That explains why people like Hawking feel the need even at this late date to argue that the Big Bang doesn’t argue for a creator.
If you really are interested in the relationship of Christian faith and science I suggest this:  http://www.amazon.com/Soul-Science-Christian-Philosophy-Worldview/dp/0891077669

Twitter@involvednut,
I’m not sure I would call it a judgement. I would have been confused that someone would make a choice that rendered them less happy and worsened their relations with other human beings.

@Joe

“‘you have faith too, so you’re no more reasonable or intelligent than we are’ (...) At best, all it does is demonstrate that we’re both idiots.

Heh! So, rephrasing what you said here, if “you don’t have faith” automatically classifies you as “more reasonable and intelligent than we are”?

Very simplistic criteria. Allow me no to put my faith in what you just said though :)...

Speaking of Hawkins’ book:
http://www.wordonfire.org/WoF-Blog/WoF-Blog/September-2010/Culture—Stephen-Hawking—-More-Tiresome-Atheism.aspx

Brian,

If you’re looking to convince, you can’t cherry-pick which questions you answer.  How would you make the existence-system more “loving” and less justice-based?

Also, the fact that innocents suffer is a part of daily life.  My kids have an “accident” and I clean it up, even though it’s not my fault.  Christianity takes this to a greater degree.  How would you eliminate the suffering of innocents?

Er, that’s Hawking’s…

@Brian

“I try to minimize faith as much as possible. I don’t actively say “there is no god”. I lack belief in one due to lack of a testable theory with supporting evidence.”

So if by “testable theory” meaning scientific in nature, shouldn’t this be indicative that the tools you are using are inadequate?  If one finds that the tool does help with the question, it is the wrong tool for the job.  What you state is like picking up a hammer and saying “I don’t believe in anything that isn’t a nail.”

I know you’ve probably been confronted by someone claiming you were never an atheist so this shouldn’t be a new experience.

Just because you grew up in a non religious home and converted to Catholicism doesn’t mean you shared the same active disbelief. A person that reaches atheism from understanding what constitutes as evidence and proof has about as much chance believing god as they do re-believing in Santa Claus.

Kevin,
Read my comments again. I was not saying that everything requires a cause. In fact, I was refuting that because it presumes omniscience on the behalf of the proposer.

Arthur,
I was not calling “faith” sadistic. I was saying that the idea of needing blood animal sacrifice or the human sacrifice of an innocent in order to gain forgiveness is sadistic.

Also, I’m not proposing a grain of sand turn in wheat. I’m saying that if you have many fields with different conditions, the odds of successfully growing wheat in one of those fields are better than just looking at one field by itself.

Special pleading does not mean that it isn’t true. It means that your argument is logically flawed. If I said, “the sky is clear outside because my eyes are brown”, the sky could indeed be clear, but my statement is also logically flawed.

Mouse,
I’m sorry those arguments don’t make sense to you. Unfortunately, the comment section of a blog isn’t the best place to deal with high level mathematics.
As to changing your heart and mind, I have no desire to enact a heart transplant on you.  I engage in debates and discussion because I think such conversations are among the best ways to get to the truth of matters. You might refute my arguments, and I yours. Together we learn.

@Alex >> “Heh! So, rephrasing what you said here, if “you don’t have faith” automatically classifies you as “more reasonable and intelligent than we are”?”

I wasn’t asserting that people without faith are more intelligent. I was merely pointing out that if a person of faith is taking the stance that atheism is irrational/bad/misguided/whatever, and using “you have faith too!” as a means to support that premise, the argument is not a very strong one. It leaves you in a place where either faith is irrational, thus atheism is irrational (but by extension, so is Christianity), or faith is rational, thus Christianity is rational (but by extension, so is atheism).

Reply to Charles,
I can see how I would have been misunderstood. Insofar as I am alluding to something “real out there” it’s more a matter of a philosophy or world view more consistent with the known facts about existence. I don’t claim any conscious force instructs or provides for the wellbeing of each person. You’re reading more into my post than is actually there.

Insofar as I appear confident in what I write it is not confidence born of faith for which I have little evidence. It is confidence in the knowledge we have gained about our own beginnings and nature from science.

We will have to agree to disagree about the nature of truth and faith. In particular, the search for knowledge is never ending. He who believes he has found “The Truth” has taken a serious wrong turn.

Mouse,
Now, now, now… there are numerous questions and comments going and you’re going to chastise me for not addressing one in particular? Shame on you! I am merely human…

which seques nicely into your question. I am not an omniscient and omnipotent being. If your god truly is one, then he should be able to devise and enact a system that does not require the suffering of innocents. His failure to do so points towards his non-existence.

Colin,
I’ll be the first to admit that the scientific method is limited and inadequaterian,  The supernatural COULD exist and perhaps even interact with our reality… and I might merely be attributing natural and known causes to it.  However, it is currently the best system I have for determining and understanding my reality.

I go back to an earlier comment I made, how do you know that your faith is correctly placed? How do you separate truth from fiction? How can you say that suicide bombers are wrong, when they base their actions on faith?

@Brian,
You missed my point.  Without an uncaused First Cause or Prime Mover you do have an infinite regress of causes.  The only alternative is a suspension of the laws of nature, which in prior centuries was called a miracle.  An appeal to an unknown, undemonstrated exception that isn’t an uncaused First Cause is simply evading the issue.  Provide an alternative model.  Asserting that the only alternative is irrational isn’t one.
As to your caricature of the crucifixion:
http://wordonfire.org/WOF-TV/Commentaries-New/Fr-Barron-comments-on-The-Last-Acceptable.aspx

@Gordon
Christians believe some things that we hold to be true, same as everyone else.  That’s not the same as saying that we know all Truth and inquiry can cease.

@Brian,

“However, it is currently the best system I have for determining and understanding my reality.”

How do you know?  Medical science is hardly recognizabile from a hundred years ago.

“I go back to an earlier comment I made, how do you know that your faith is correctly placed?”

I turn the same question to you.  How do you know the scientific method is a viable way to determine reality?  How many assumptions are you making when you apply the scientific method? (Ordered universe, etc).

I do not ask the question lightly.  My only point is that your questions about my faith (which you assumed) could easily be turned on the scientific method.

@Brian

“I try to minimize faith as much as possible.” (...)“In other words, faith is minimized as much as possible”

You are using “faith” as in the “blind faith” sense here, or even as an “error” or “chance” as it appears in the last sentence. This is not the sense I understand it.

“The thing you are ignoring with your peer review argument is that you could still replicate the experiment yourself… “

This is my point…You could, but you most likely won’t.

How many times did you just pick a scientific journal and said “let’s just verify whatever this guy writes here”?

I am a believer. I am fairly well educated but I won’t presume to argue with you folks because you are all truly too smart for me. Sufficient to say that I simply do not believe in the existence of atheists or atheism.

Kevin,
No, your claim that “The only alternative is a suspension of the laws of nature” is an argument from ignorance. There could be other explanations which you might not know off.  Also, if one argument is proven wrong, it does not automatically make yours true. 

I’d like to point out that I had previously commented on the following…. two objects are attracted together by gravity (warp of space/time) and move towards one another. No conscious prime mover is seen.

Kevin,

The trouble is that those things you believe to be absolute truths are very important things which affect other important areas such as moral decision making.

Error in thought eventually leads to error in action.

And there is the obvious point that most people are not equipped with either the know-how or the equipment to do their own experiments.  Measure the acceleration due to gravity from a falling object?  Probably doable.  Sequence a gene?  I don’t think so.  Science is inductive and less than 100% certain.  (Conclusion being 95% probable is the norm.)  Atheists either don’t understand logic and science or are being disingenuous when they demand 100% proof then turn around and praise science.  And that’s my last contribution today…

“If your god truly is [omniscient and omnipotent], then he should be able to devise and enact a system that does not require the suffering of innocents. His failure to do so points towards his non-existence.”
How does it point to His non-existence—the fact that it was created in a way you disapprove of? In a logical argument, you might have indicted His omnibenevolence; however, the fact that the current system permits the suffering of innocents doesn’t even reach the question of His existence ... especially not as you’ve phrased the argument.

Alex,
I test a variety of my theories each and every day. Granted, there is not enough time/resources for me to continually test all of them, but I do what I can and when I find one to be in error, I try coming up with new theories that incorporate what I’ve learned. It’s not a perfect system, but it seems to work for now.  Of course, that very system is in a constant state of testing itself ;)

Duane,
Of course, you do not need to believe in the existence of atheists… just please don’t run me over with your car when you see my non-existent self. 

Colin,
I freely admit that my worldview is limited. It is built on assumptions which might be in error. I acknowledge that if one of those assumptions is disproven, then I must start over and begin building a new house of cards.

As to it being the best system. Please re-read my comment.
“It is currently the best system I have for determining and understanding my reality .”

I openly admit that there could be other, better, systems. I just don’t know of any currently.

“How can I talk to my atheist friend / family member / coworker about the Faith?”

Don’t waste your time. Normal people, also known as atheists, are not interested in your mental illness.

http://darwinkilledgod.blogspot.com/

@Joe

“I was merely pointing out that if a person of faith is taking the stance that atheism is irrational/bad/misguided/whatever, and using “you have faith too!” as a means to support that premise, the argument is not a very strong one. “

I did not say anything about atheism being irrational/bad/misguided. Most likely you would see the opposite - atheists considering religion irrational/misguided, etc.

I was trying to show that we use “faith” in the same sense that science uses it. There’s nothing magic about it - you do the best with the data you have, and reach a set of conclusions. What differs is the basic set of premises (God exists/does not exist).

@Brian
Gravity is part of the fabric of the universe and is some 14 billion years old, not infinite.  And it’s not an appeal to ignorance to point out an inconsistency in a cosmological model.  Again, provide a viable alternative.  There would likely be a Nobel Prize in it for you.

@Gordon
What is, is.  You can’t say it’s OK for some people to have their “truths’ but not Christians because you dislike where that might lead. That’s subjective.  We could all design criteria that lead us inexorably to a worldview we find palatable, but that gives us no clue whether we’re right.

And that’s all for real this time….

Anthony S. Layne,
Actually, if you look further back in comments, it was about that god’s all-loving benevolence. You just caught the tail-end of the argument.

Joe,
2) First off, it wasn’t punishment for making fun of the bald man, but what He represented, i.e. God and His will for us.  What the children did was wicked, and God (remember, this is based upon other reasoned to conclusions not discussed here) is all-knowing and all-good, so yes, who are you to question His wisdom?  Since I believe in a God as such, it would be arrogance, for my part. :)
3) The “jury” as you put it, states that we don’t know what happens to them.  It is theologically debatable.  We are guilty of Original Sin from the beginning of our existence, since, as I stated above, our parents could not give what they did not have (the grace).
4) Not true.  She says that you can not reason yourself into loving God.  You can certainly know Him through reason (or at least, certain things about Him).  But loving Him ultimately comes down to putting Faith in Someone Who is reasonable to believe.
5) Our prayers would indeed be for the dead souls as well as for the comfort of those afflicted.

@Brian,

“It’s not a perfect system, but it seems to work for now.”

I tried this excuse already, but my manager didn’t buy it. I found his lack of faith distrubing.

@ Brian,
You were asked the question at least three times, twice by me, before you answered it.
As to “the best ways to get to the truth of matters”, answer me this.  According to my “faith”, weak at best right now, I will be able to meet the child that died before I could meet her.  All I have to do is live my life to the best of my ability and not reject the grace and presence of God (I’m not getting into the idea of Purgatory right now).  According to your belief system, I will never meet that child.  She is irrevocably gone, reduced to the mere material we put in the ground last week.
Why is your truth stronger than mine?  Because yours is also unproveable. 
We both believe that human life exists, it is in fact walking and talking all around us. If you are so concerned about the suffering of innocents, would you say that a belief system where innocents is erased entirely from existence is superior to one where an innocent soul is preserved in bliss for all eternity?  You say our god is cruel and unjust in the way he designed the universe.  However, what is cruel and unjust about taking a soul from a pain-filled world into an exitence of bliss?  In our belief system, that’s why the crucifixion happened.  To make it possible for my daughter to continue her existence in a better place than here. 
In your system, no loving power is watching over her.  How then can you say that our system is deficient in love?

Brian,
The sacrifice of animals was something of an acknowledgment of what belongs to God in the Old Testament (OT).  God chose to show us His love by dieing for us on the cross (not promoting that we all do as best we can to find ways to inflict harm upon ourselves).  You still have yet to show how the practice of the Faith is sadistic, or how God is sadistic.

Your grain of wheat in many fields is not a better analogy ... no matter the circumstances, or combination of elements, the chances of the right combinations of elements coming together to form the intricate formulae that culminate in a simple life structure are still beyond probability, at least in this universe.  To speculate that there may be other universes has even less to back it up than to believe in a god.

Fair distinction for the logically flawed does not equal false conclusion.  But you have yet to demonstrate how special pleading is a logical fallacy (could you give another syllogism for demonstration?).

Okay, Brian, fair enough. However, the indictment of His omnibenevolence still depends on an equivocation of what God “wants”: God can create any situation He wants (sense 1); suffering exists; therefore, He wants (sense 2) people to suffer and is therefore malicious, or at least just not all that good. Whether or not you can draw it any further, you’ve already created a logically invalid argument. If, as Thomas Nagel has demonstrated, we can’t know what it’s like to be a bat because we don’t know what it’s like to have reality constructed via echolocation, in the same way we can’t know how being omniscient would affect our decisions. So the whole attempt to indict God’s benevolence on the grounds that “if He is really good He wouldn’t permit suffering because I know I wouldn’t (and it goes without saying that I’m good)” isn’t really an argument against the Judaeo-Christian God but against a superpowered Me—it fails because it’s anthropomorphic.

Kevin,
I pointed out the errors in the First Cause argument. It is flawed by 1. the presumption that all movement must be caused by an outside force and 2. the special pleading involved in stopping the infinite regress (inherent in the argument) at one prime mover.

I was not saying that such an infinite regress is true, only that an infinite regress is inherent in the prime mover argument. 

So, the idea of gravity not being infinite is moot. Also, gravity is not the mover, it is merely an inherent facet of an object’s warping of time/space. One way of looking at it, is that objects move each other by their mere existence, not by some outside mover pushing on them.

As to providing a viable alternative… please see my earlier post that said, “I don’t know” is a viable answer. For now, I am merely falsifying poorly proposed theories.

@ Anthony S. Layne ... wow ... well said!

Brian,
Just to clarify, the First Cause argument is not the same as the First Mover (prime mover) argument.  One argues from cause vs. physical movement.  The former is more of a metaphysical argument, and one that I favor.

Brian: “special pleading” would be an appropriate diagnosis IF it were a question of not presenting all arguments for or against. Here, of course, we’re limited by space. However, by definition a First Cause can’t be regressed, nor could a Necessary Being be contingent on the existence of something else; asking “What caused the First Cause” is like asking how green is that red apple. With this in mind, the charge of “special pleading”; it boils down to little more than a cry of “That’s unfair! You can’t postulate something that can’t be regressed away!”

@Brian,

Please note that I am not attempting to try your patience.  I am curious.
And I appreciate your responses to my queries.

“I openly admit that there could be other, better, systems. I just don’t know of any currently.”

What is your criteria for evaluating these systems? In particular, why limit yourself to a system that by definition cannot test certain aspects of reality?  I.e. beliving only in what the scientific method can prove, which by definition excludes God given that by Christian belief He is purely immaterial spirit.  Not to mention the scientific method cannot validate the validity of the scientific method.

Alex,
“I tried this excuse already, but my manager didn’t buy it. I found his lack of faith distrubing.”
then adopt his better system. Kudos though, for the Star Wars quote.  :)

Mouse,
If you look back, I did answer your question. “I don’t know is a valid answer”. Regardless, please be a little patient. This comment section is growing quickly and questions/comments will be missed.

As to your child… I don’t mean to strip comfort from you. If your life would be better with belief and lead to the betterment of humanity, please disregard me.

If you wish to continue, then fine. You might meet your child, however, the idea of your choices determining which afterlife you go to seems simplistic. We know that brain damage/drugs can alter decision making… how would that impact a soul? We have no physical evidence for a soul either. We can see in a variety of wavelengths. We can detect the biological energy our cells generate… yet no soul.  I believe Joe already addressed the age of accommodation earlier in the comments. At what age is the Original Sin cast on a child’s soul?

Do I think that an skeptical worldview is superior to a religious one? It depends on your end goals. If you want happiness, maybe not. Then again, if happiness is the end result, take a handful of anti-depressants.  Personally, I am more interested in understanding my reality/cosmos/the Truth.

My worldview maybe not be ultimately provable, but it is FALSIFIABLE.  It can be proven wrong and is also self-correcting.  For now, it is the best system I have for learning and understanding reality.

Is my worldview crueler than yours? Actually, I don’t think so. This is probably all we’ve got and I think it makes me treasure existence and the life around me much, much, much more.

Anthony,
I think your argument would hold weight if we weren’t talking about a supposedly omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent being. If I can envision a system without the suffering of innocents, then obviously an omniscient being could conceive of something even better and have the power to create it.

The moment you say that god couldn’t create a system to meet any specific goal without the suffering of innocents, you are limiting one of his attributes (omniscience/omnipotence/benevolence).

Arthur,
So what if animal sacrifice was part of the OT?  We’re still talking about blood sacrifice of innocence to pay for the crimes of the guilty. That is seriously messed up, regardless of where in the book it is. Are you saying that your god WAS sadistic, but got over it?  Personally, I think it got worse when he moved up to human sacrifice… but maybe that’s just me.

The odds on life forming are lower than you’re stating. Where did you get your numbers from? I think you should revisit them.

Better evidence for a god than for a multiverse? I’m sorry, but you’re wrong. We have a mathematical theory for before the big bang that involves a multiverse. Granted, the theory could be false… but it jibes mathematically. We have NOTHING along those lines for a god.

Please google, “logical fallacy special pleading” from a reliable site.

Colin,
You ask me about my system… yet, you do not offer anything better. I asked you before… how do you distinguish fact from fiction in yours? What benefits does a faith-based system offer in determining the truth? How do you determine the truth?

I regard mine as the current best because it offers falsifiability. A yardstick for determining true from false. I can’t see faith doing it, especially seeing the wide and varied beliefs that faith has generated over time.

Anthony,
When you propose a first cause, how do you know that there were not multiple causes?  For example, the Wright Brothers invented the first airplane, but another guy in South America also invented one at the same time. How do we know that there were not several initial causes?  To say that every cause requires a previous cause sets up an infinite regress… to suddenly stop that regress for no other reason than convenience is a logical fallacy. You have no adequate logical reason for stopping where you did.

Anyway, I’ll try and check back later… gotta get back to real life. :)

Brian,

I’m sorry, but if “I don’t know” is all you have, and your worldview is equally proveable/disprovable to mine, I’ll keep mine.  Mine offers hope.

Kant had an interesting theory on knowledge.  He believed that thought can be one of three things.  Opinion.  Belief.  Knowledge.

We all know what opinion is.  You think…I think…you feel…I feel…
Belief, he said, is confirmed opinion.  There is enough evidence, logical or empirical to lend credence and probability to my opinion.
Knowledge is confirmed belief.  This is when there is such a plethora of evidence, logical or empirical, that one would call it fact.  It can’t be argued with.

I think that in this discussion, people are mixing up opinion and belief.  I believe in God.  I don’t have certain knowledge of Him, no, but my “belief” is more than mere opinion.  I base it on evidence.  Not definitive evidence, but evidence nonetheless.

As to the first mover/first cause infinite regression dilemma…I believe Aquinas answers this.

We know that everything in OUR world has a cause, or is moved by something else.  Logically speaking, the first cause would not be of this world.  As the creator of the physical laws, he is not subject to them.  Any more than J.R.R.Tolkien would be subject to the laws of the Ring.  Therefore the cause that caused it all, would not be beholden to the cause that he caused…

If you want to be an atheist then be so. What concerns me most about atheists is that a lot of them are a part of that large amorphous group of left-liberals who not only preach atheism but who often actively work toward the suppression of Catholic/Christian practice. You know who you are. While long ago Catholics used to have socio-political power and now have none, you now have and exercise the social power that comes from the vacumn left by the withering of the faith in the western world. You still seem to be afraid enough of us to want to suppress or destroy us even though we are no threat to anyone or anything but your conscience. Christians have become, or allowed themselves to become a very easy target and who do not fight back. I, however, am not an easy target and I most certainly will fight back. I would never dream of suppressing your beliefs (that would be un-Christian) and I expect the same from non-believers.

Brian,
Okay ... I didn’t understand this before, but now I understand that you take animals to be “innocent.”  Animals, according to the Judeo-Christian tradition, were created for mankind to use.  In fact, the whole universe was created to help mankind know God.  This is why the killing of animals to eat or sacrifice to God is not sadistic.  They were His all along.  And He never moved to human sacrifice ... He laid down His own life!  How is that sacrificing someone else’s life?  So yeah, I think it is just you.
The odds of life forming aren’t lower (by that, I think you mean the odds are better?) ... my stats can be seen here: http://www.evolutionfaq.com/articles/probability-life
Multiverse is mathematically supported?!  I’d like to see how.  I’ve not heard of the theory ... could you summarize?  We do have (and have had long before the thought of a multiverse) an argument for God’s existence, and that is He is the First Cause of all things (inter alia).
From what I’ve found special pleading to be (http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/special-pleading.html), the argument of a First Cause does not fall under this logical fallacy (and neither does the first mover argument).  The argument clearly indicates that God (A) is NOT a part of creation (C).  Therefore He is not exempt, because He was never a part of it to begin with!

Brian: “The moment you say that god couldn’t create a system to meet any specific goal without the suffering of innocents, you are limiting one of his attributes (omniscience/omnipotence/benevolence).

Actually, I’m saying that permitting the suffering of innocents doesn’t successfully indict ano of these three qualities because a result that’s logically excluded doesn’t impute a diminution of any capacity. For instance, you can’t logically have a situation where people have free will yet can’t freely do evil—that’s a naked contradiction in terms. And yet, because it’s logically contradictory, it doesn’t follow that God isn’t omniscient or omnipotent because He hasn’t made a logical contradiction a positive fact. But even if I were to grant the argument, can you imagine how picayune it strikes me? “He can create and sustain a universe but He can’t stop me from stumping my toe ... hmpf, some all-powerful God He is!” Just how do you understand the words “omniscient”, “omnibenevolent” and “omnipotent”?

As for “several initial causes” ... which first cause would be first? Please stop asking questions that answer themselves. The infinite regression is a recognized type of logical “death trap”; could you please tell me how proposing a start point is more illogical than leaving the regression unsolved?

@Brian,

“You ask me about my system… yet, you do not offer anything better. I asked you before… how do you distinguish fact from fiction in yours? What benefits does a faith-based system offer in determining the truth? How do you determine the truth?”

What faith offers is an explanation of things that science cannot answer.  Like all things it must be tested by reason.  But I do not exclude possiblities simply because my framework does not permit me to ask the question.

My point in asking is that you framework cannot account for any aspect of reality outside the physical.  You say you cannot test it therefore it is not real.  To me this like using a metal detector to find your socks.  It is the wrong tool for the job.

“I regard mine as the current best because it offers falsifiability.”

Except for things like the axioms such as the scientific method is a valid measure of truth.  You assume quite a few things about the universe when you lean on the scientific method.  Things you assume by faith and reason.  You cannot prove it is valid.  But it makes sense.  In that respect faith and sciene explore two different aspects of reality. 

By closing yourself off to only what is physically testable you have essentially closed off your mind to other aspects of reality.  You functionaly exclude the possibility of God simply by accepting only the tools that you see and touch.  You can’t touch reason, yet reason is necessary for science. 

In other words I find your framework to be very closed minded.

I thank you for your time.

Brian,

Also, I had a hard time understanding the Argument from Change/Unmoved Mover also.  I got hung up on the visual of things being “pushed” physically.

Maybe it will help to understand that what is really being addressed is potential being versus actual being.  Take a person.  It starts out as a zygote, with the potential to come an embryo, which has the potential to become a fetus, which has the potential to become an infant, which has the potential to become an adult…etc.  The zygote does not cause itself to become an embryo because it is not yet an embryo.  It cannot give itself what it does not have.  It cannot give itself actual existence.  Other things will bring about these changes…we call these the things that “move” it along. 

God is, by definition, an all perfect being.  He has no imperfection.  Potentiality would be an imperfection.  It would render Him less than perfect.  So He cannot have potentiality.  Ever.  He can only have Actuality.  He must exist fully at all times.  Otherwise, He would require something else to “move” Him from potentiality to actuality.  So by definition, He must exist in full, at all times, and never be potential.  To be potential would be to fall short of the definition of God, and require something other than Himself to give Him actuality.  Then HE wouldn’t be God, but the thing that gave Him actuality would be.  And again, God would have to be outside the universe/space/time or else He would be subject to the laws of the universe/space/time. 

Does that make sense?

As for multiple unmoved movers, or multiple gods, again we run into the idea of potential being not “Supreme”.  If there were multiple gods, each would have the “potential” to be the top god, meaning that none would be the fullest, the most, the perfect…which leads to the ontological argument for God’s existence.  I think it was Anselm who said that “God is “that than which a greater cannot be thought”.  Multiple gods would imply that a “greater” could be comprehended.  The gods could fight it out. But then they would once again be “potentially” GOD, and not “Actually” God.

And now I need a tylenol.

Duane,

You know who you are. While long ago Catholics used to have socio-political power and now have none, you now have and exercise the social power that comes from the vacumn left by the withering of the faith in the western world.

We don’t need the political power.  We have the “real” power.  If God is for us, who can be against us?  Seriously, worldly power shifts.  Divine power doesn’t.  This isn’t the first time in history that we have had to give to Caesar what is Caesars.  It won’t be the last.  The Catholic Church warns against Theocracy.  We are to be of the world, but not in it.  Let them have it.  It’s not ours anyway.  Not in any real sense.

As Corapi says…he’s read the book and he knows the ending…we win.  ;)

mk,
The Catholic Church warns against Theocracy?  Where?  I don’t think the Church is against Theocracy (which is simply a state wherein God rules, such as the Israelites had under the Judges and Prophets).  Unlikely on this earth to ever exist, maybe, but not in principle is it taught against.

@Duane >> I would never dream of suppressing your beliefs (that would be un-Christian)

Seriously? Did you miss that whole crusades thing in history class?

Duane,
Do you point to radical Islam and condemn all Muslims (who by the way were equally culpable in the Crusades?)  Look to what the Church <B>teaches,/B>, not to it’s flawed members, who do not exemplify Church Teaching.  If you are living out your Catholic Faith and NOT some personal agenda, then no, you would not suppress another persons faith.  BTW, the Inquisition would probably be a better example than the crusades.

@ Jay,

You wouldn’t happen to be my long lost roommate from Reed College?  It has to be.  How many other atheists with your name exist who are: 1. Interested in trolling Catholic websites (you went to Catholic high school); 2. Have a thorough background in philosophy; 3. Argue in a clear, succinct and orderly manner (this is rare and eliminates almost all other persons named “Jay”; 4. Loves to argue and win. 

If so, it is I, Scott W, the greatest libertine/sensualist you’ve ever met—and three-time bank robber to boot.  We need to catch-up—look me up at my umich.edu address (first initial, last name).  But I have bad news for you: I had a Paul-on-the-road-to-Damascus experience while mowing my lawn!

Yes, I well know about the Crusades and the Inquisition, historical blips, and the debates thereto. Excuse me if I suppress a bit of a yawn. Forgive me if I sound peevish. I unsuccessfully try not to but it is hard with this profoundly troubling subject. For my own sake I must try to keep things a bit light because the situation with those people is so depressing and frightening. The musslemen have been waging wars of slaughter and conquest since about 650 AD, and continue to do so although with a bit more aplomb and attentive to salving the politically correct and hypocritical left-liberal angst in western society. Do I convict the great majority of muslims for the acts of their sons? Yes I do. The muslim majority is as guilty today as the German population was during the rise of the beast Hitler. It would be nice to just lick their boots, shuffle on the ground and say a few mea culpas in hopes that they will allow us to continue our lives, but they won’t. You know they won’t. I am going to stop commenting on this site now because the debate is endless, the debaters are too smart for me, and the left-liberal wall is impenetrable and the troops massed on its ramparts (note the crusade references) wear earplugs as well as blinkers. Take it away folks and thank whatever you believe in that we have at least some nominal freedom of speech and religion, which the musselmen do not have. I will close by saying that while I mourn the future I am glad I will not have to see it. I pray that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ God will have mercy on the souls of your great-grandchildren.

Arthur,

What the Church’s Traditional Teaching is Not

First, the Catholic Church does not support the notion of a theocracy, that is, that both ecclesiastical and secular authority are vested in the same individuals, so that a priestly class also holds the reins of government. Rather, the Church has always taught that the Church and the State are separate powers and each has its own legitimate sphere of influence, although, as Pope Leo XIII noted, “their subjects are the same, and not infrequently they deal with the same objects, though in different ways.” 5 This separation of powers was first enunciated magisterially by Pope St. Gelasius I in the fifth century6, but has been repeated numerous times by Fathers, Doctors, Popes, and Councils. St. Thomas Aquinas summarizes admirably:

For a more in depth discussion….

http://www.seattlecatholic.com/a050615.html

Duane, Sorry, that comment was directed to Joe who had directed one to you.  Ooops.  He, not you, made the comment about us forcing our beliefs on others.  My bad.

Praying for a lot of idiots in this comment thread, and also asking for myself the charity to reach out to them with compassion rather than be pissed off at their inanity.

Gordon,
I may be reading more into it. But if you continue to think what holding an universal truth and ethical standards such as you proposed or claim to have found to exist from science (I find that part confusing - surely any truth so universal would be revealed by the narrow measurements of science) the more of this elusive universal truth you may discover.Even a principle (or philosophy or life goal or world view) such as to be free minded and always seeking different spiritual meanings eventually collapses into an universal truth upon the metaphysical question of why. Why seek, why be open-minded, why be skeptical towards certainty, etc. will eventually reveal a faith in an universal truth, perhaps even the subject who.

Charles,

I can’t believe I was so unclear in what I said. I do not believe in the idea of a universal truth, (except perhaps in theory). I only believe in the quest to continually improve our model of the material world by further investigation. I certainly believe that the knowledge uncovered by science so far is the best that’s out there and that we should base our philosophy on the real world model so far uncovered by science.

As for why be curious: It’s in our genes. Seeking answers has served us well as a survival mechanism. We do it because natural selection has caused us to want to do it.

Mouse
1. my worldview is based on more solid foundation than yours. Yours has already been proven wrong numerous times, believers just choose to ignore it. Likewise, if mine is disproven, it adapts and steers closer to the truth. Yours does not.  Disproving mine actually is something that is beneficial to my worldview in the long term. So, equally proveable/disprovable? I think not.

2. If the only reason you follow your religion is that it offers hope, then why not follow Islam? With that, you not only get hope, you also get 72 virgins.

Personally, I’m don’t care about possibly empty promises. I want the truth.  If you are willing to embrace illusions for the sake of comfort, who am I to say that is wrong? It’s a matter of personal choice.

mk
Granted, your evidence to support your beliefs could be valid, but I suspect that it is subjective or anecdotal evidence… not exactly the most reliable.

First cause/mover argument… Aquinas makes several mistakes.
1. We do not know that everything has a cause or is moved by something else. That presumes omniscience on your part.
2. You neglect an oscillating universe or multiverse that exists eternally… this would invalidate the need for a first cause.
3. How do we know that there is not an infinite regression of gods? It could be turtles all the way down.  To say, “let’s just stop there” at the first turtle is a matter of convenience, not logic.
4. You can call your god perfect, but I would be hesitant to associate such a definition with a being that required blood sacrifice and even human sacrifice to forgive the guilty… not to mention endorsement of slavery, actions of genocide and disasters, etc.  He may be a perfect, but a perfect what?
5. Your argument against an infinite regression of gods is also faulty. You postulate a perfect being without any evidence for such. Why couldn’t the prime mover be a butterfly flapping its wings as it dreams of being a man? :P

Duane
I’m sure that there are a lot of left-liberal atheists. I can assure you however, that not all atheists are. Most of my atheist friends (and myself included) are fiscal conservatives who would fight for your right to practice whatever religion you wish in your private life. Granted, I reserve the right of freedom of speech to debate and discuss religion with you and I also will fight to keep any and all religion out of the government (so as to ensure freedom of belief for all).

As to Christians not fighting back, I suggest you look at the numerous laws and other intrusions of Christianity makes into the public sphere every year. I think most of the aggression you might have experienced from atheists stems from the fact that Christians have and continue to try to force their beliefs and religiously mandated morals on everyone else.

Arthur,
Killing an animal to survive for food is one thing. To require an animal be killed as a sacrifice to be forgiven is sadistic.  I can see that you are attempting to justify such atrocities with the bible, but you are really harming your own case when dealing with non-believers.

As to laying down his own life, that still doesn’t change the idea that an innocent human sacrifice had to be made to forgive the guilty. It’s basically the idea of chucking a virgin (Jesus was a virgin, wasn’t he?) into a volcano to appease the angry fire god. Yeah, so God sacrificed himself… the point is that he still required an innocent to be killed in place of the guilty.  That’s not really forgiveness. To forgive would be to not require the punishment at all. 

Look up M Theory. It is not proven… and we don’t have falsifiable tests for it (other than it being mathematically sound), but it is a possible step forward.

If God created the creation, then he is obviously part of it. How do you create something without putting something of yourself in it?  Also, if God is ALL, then obviously, then he is part of creation.  Seriously, rethink this argument.

Also, where did god get the material to create the universe with? If he created it from nothing, then he created something from nothing which I hear is supposedly impossible from Christians.

If he got it from within himself and he is eternal, then the material also existed eternally and we have an eternal universe once again.

arthur
1. evidence goes against freewill and points to us merely having the illusion of freedom (see Benjamin Libet’s experiments).
2. If we do have freewill, it is not absolute. There are physical constraints, like I cannot fly to the moon on a whim. This means that we could have freedom of action while still not allowing for the suffering of innocents.
3. I’d like to point out that you are applying logic saying why we can/can’t do things, yet your god supposedly created logic. He should be able to create a logical system in which such a system could work. i.e. you are putting limits on your god’s omnipotence.

Colin
I’m aware of the limits of science. You seem to be ignoring the limitations of your worldview however.  You have just as many axioms as mine (more actually).
I’d like you to point to me some of the things that faith proves to you that science cannot. What is the evidence for those things? Oh wait… there is none.  ;)
If something affects me in this reality, it falls within the natural universe and is testable and measurable.  You can’t point to anything that doesn’t and provide a testable theory and supporting evidence for it.

Look at all the instances of scientific advancement, and how many times religions have denied or suppressed those ideas.  I find it surprising how much mankind has discovered about reality with a scientific worldview, how little faith has revealed, and yet you say my view is close-minded.

@Arthur @Amos you both refer to the “Judeo-Christian” god. Perhaps “Judeo-Christo-Islamic” god would be more accurate.

@Joe,

(1) Read Eclesiastes in the Bible (not as “The Word of God” but as existential material like Satre). All those things ultimately add up to an empty life….and they are not things God wants for us (remember, don’t worship other Gods like money, fame, your own self image)

(2) You’re actually proving point (3)

(3) Original sin is easy to explain. We’ve willingly separated ourselves from God. Since God is the source of all God, life, love, and knowledge, we’re messed up as any casual glance of the morning paper can tell you. As G K Chesterton once stated, original sin is the one most emperically verifiable doctrine of the Catholic faith.

(4) Reasoning can be used to prove God exists (just ask the Stoics and Platonists), but not much more, and not in a way that can’t be explained away. But we regularly go beyond reasoning every day and it’s still rational. For instance, how do you know that your wife/girlfriend are faithful? Did you arrange a scientific study, shipping in guys from around the world to test them? Of course not! And if you did, they wouldn’t be your wife/girlfriend any more. So is trying your wife/girlfriend irrational? No. It goes beyond reasoning into the emperical realm.

(5) Prayer is just talking to God because you love him as your Father since we are his children. Nothing more. Is it wrong to tell your father your hopes and dreams?

Brian,

Yes, Terry Pratchett…love him, love Good Omens…

It’s not “my” argument.  I won’t even try to defend it.  I just wanted to make it clear that it wasn’t about “moving” things in the modern sense.

Yes of course it assumes that there is something that is perfect, which we call God.  We’re defending the belief or existence of that God, no other.
So it only makes sense that Aquinas would speak of Him and Him alone.  By definition “GOD” as we use the term, is all powerful, all good, all knowing (or to paraphrase Anselm said, that which is greater than anything else).  Turtles, even an infinite amount of them, would not qualify as God.  You can use a different name, or call your turtles gods with a small “g”, but then we wouldn’t be talking about the same thing.  Either way, Aquinas wasn’t giving a proof for turtles. 

An eternal multiverse would not need God anymore or less than a temporal one.  Would it?  I mean, why wouldn’t you say that God created an eternal multiverse?  Eternal is a term that implies “time” and we have already established that out of necessity, God is outside of time.  Even outside the realm of eternal.  But seriously, this is not my forte.  Science, especially time/space theory gives me a bigger headache than philosophy.

I haven’t stopped at the first turtle.  That would not be God.  It’s not convenience.  It is logic.  IF there is a supreme being who fits the definition of all powerful, all knowing, outside of the universe/time/space, etc ad infinitum, then EVERYTHING would stop where He rests.  Logically.  It could be no other way.  As soon as you introduce something else into the mix, you prove that your first guy could not have been God. 

You can call your god perfect, but I would be hesitant to associate such a definition with a being that required blood sacrifice and even human sacrifice to forgive the guilty… not to mention endorsement of slavery, actions of genocide and disasters, etc.  He may be a perfect, but a perfect what?

I don’t “call” Him perfect.  By definition, He must BE perfect, no matter what I “call” Him.  You can argue that He doesn’t exist, you can say that you don’t accept what He says, but what you can’t do is say that He can’t be perfect, because that is to say that He can’t be Himself.  That would be like saying that you would hesitate to associate dogs with members of the genus Canis that has been domesticated by man since prehistoric times because they have fleas and eat raw meat.

That’s what a dog IS, by definition.
God is perfect, by definition.

As for my evidence being purely anecdotal…I hadn’t even thought of that.  But now that you bring it up, isn’t anecdotal just another way of saying “In my experience”...?  Isn’t that all that science is?  In our experience we find that….?

But no, I was thinking of other things.  The 20 or so arguments (Which when taken singly can seem innocuous, but when put all together begin to make sense), or that God has revealed Himself over history, or that we have a historical record of Jesus, or common sense…

Brian,

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<B>I think most of the aggression you might have experienced from atheists stems from the fact that Christians have and continue to try to force their beliefs and religiously mandated morals on everyone else.</i>
*
*
Socrates once asked a self proclaimed pious man if the a thing was good because the gods said it was, or if the gods said a thing was good because it was.
*
*
Any religion worth it’s weight, bases it’s beliefs on Moral Truth.  They don’t create Moral Truth to fit their beliefs.
*
*
The Catholic Church does not claim that a thing is good because it says so.  It says so, because the thing IS good.
*
*
If you find a religion that creates Truth, run, don’t walk.  If however you find a religion that defends Truth, stick around…there might be more there than you think.  The Church does not impose her beliefs on society.  She upholds the Truth.  There is a difference.

MK
Sigh, the thing is… you have nothing to base that definition of god on. Going back to my earlier comment… if something had to cause the creation of the universe, it could have been an imperfect, finite being… like a cosmic butterfly flapping its wings and setting things into motion, or a god that died giving birth to the universe, or even a non-conscious series of events that led to the Big Bang. We don’t know. The proposed “perfect being” rests on a mere conjecture. There is no real logic to support it, just wishful thinking.

The idea of “the strongest god must have been the creator god” is nonsense. Why? Chronos was overthrown by Zeus… did that make Zeus the creator in the Greek myths? No.

You could say that a god created an eternal universe, but why would you? You’d be going against Occam’s Razor for starters. What is simpler? An eternal universe that has always existed?  or a perfect, all powerful being that created an eternal universe?  Again, we have no real evidence for such a being.

The arguments for the bible being valid regarding the supernatural are not very good. We have no evidence of Jesus from his supposed lifetime. Not very good documentation for the son of the creator of the entire universe. I’m not saying Jesus didn’t exist. I’m saying that the evidence is piss-poor considering the claims about him.

As to common sense… please. The bible has talking animals, scientifically disproven events, and a host of other problems. Common sense is NOT a good argument to bring up.

Brian,

If something affects me in this reality, it falls within the natural universe and is testable and measurable. You can’t point to anything that doesn’t and provide a testable theory and supporting evidence for it.
*
You love your mother, don’t you?  Your girlfriend?  Your wife?  Can you prove it with empirical science?  Yet you “KNOW” it is true, do you not?
That’s “one” thing, anyway.

lol…and Islam and the Catholic Church have advanced science in a million ways.  Mendel was a Catholic.  Copernicus was a Catholic. André Marie Ampere was a Catholic.  Alessandro Volta was a Catholic.  The Vatican Observatory is one of the oldest in the world.  I could go on…?

Sigh, the thing is… you have nothing to base that definition of god on. Going back to my earlier comment… if something had to cause the creation of the universe, it could have been an imperfect, finite being… like a cosmic butterfly flapping its wings and setting things into motion, or a god that died giving birth to the universe, or even a non-conscious series of events that led to the Big Bang. We don’t know. The proposed “perfect being” rests on a mere conjecture. There is no real logic to support it, just wishful thinking.
*
Well of course it could.  But then it would be called something else.  My point is not that because we have given the word “GOD” a specific definition, that therefore He exists.  My point is that there IS a specific definition for the term God.  There just is.  That has nothing to do with whether He exists or not.  Turtles are fine.  You just can’t call them “God”...unless there is only one and He is all powerful, all knowing, all everything…lol…that would be some turtle.

MK,
If you find a religion that creates Truth, run, don’t walk.
You might have noticed this… but I did. I’m an atheist.

I’ve studied a wide variety of religions over the years. Morality is subjective. What is moral during one era of Christianity is regarded as immoral or frowned upon in other eras. It depends on what is needed for survival.

Think of all the different Christian sects as living creatures. Each one has slightly different beliefs or practices. These are the mutations. In some environments, certain mutations (i.e. beliefs/practices) are beneficial for survival, whereas others are harmful.  Just like with animals, religious sects undergo constant natural selection. 

I think one of the reasons for the conflicting morals in the bible is because it allows for greater variability and therefore more freedom to adapt to changing environments.  If the bible actually was clear and concise, it would have probably died out centuries ago.

Meh, sorry to go off topic… getting tired.

* You love your mother, don’t you?  Your girlfriend?  Your wife?  Can you prove it with empirical science?  Yet you “KNOW” it is true, do you not?
That’s “one” thing, anyway.
lol…and Islam and the Catholic Church have advanced science in a million ways.  Mendel was a Catholic.  Copernicus was a Catholic. André Marie Ampere was a Catholic.  Alessandro Volta was a Catholic.  The Vatican Observatory is one of the oldest in the world.  I could go on…?

Actually, yes… we can prove such things. I suggest you read up on the research on such topics. We know more and more how our brains and bodies work. Can I prove empirically that I love my mother? Well, we can plug me into a fMRI machine and pretty reliably confirm it.

As to the scientific achievements given by religions… Islam destroyed much of the knowledge of Arabia.  Christians dragged the chief librarian of the Library of Alexandria thru the streets as a pagan. Libraries of the Mayans destroyed. Don’t forget Galileo, Kepler, Darwin, and many others.

btw, look back to Mendel… he was not exactly embraced for his studies.

The idea of “the strongest god must have been the creator god” is nonsense. Why? Chronos was overthrown by Zeus… did that make Zeus the creator in the Greek myths? No.
*
But the Greeks never claimed that Chronos or Zeus WAS the creator God.  They didn’t use a capital “G” because they weren’t talking about “GOD”.  They were talking about “gods”.  It’s not about the strongest “god”.  It’s about nothing at all can be greater than God, by definition.
*
We have no evidence of Jesus from his supposed lifetime. As to common sense… please. The bible has talking animals, scientifically disproven events, and a host of other problems. Common sense is NOT a good argument to bring up.
*
I didn’t say anything about Scripture.  Not one word.  But since you’ve brought it up, the Gospel accounts would count as an historical record.  There were four separate writers collaborating the same story.  We would accept that as a good source in any other account of history.  But, no, I meant non-biblical sources.  The events written about are documented by non Christian writers…Josephus for one.  Then there are the writings of the early Church Fathers.  Historical records of those in governmental or sovereign roles. So we know, as you say, that Jesus existed.  We also know that Christians were martyred, viciously.  I would say that was evidence that they and those that killed them believed what was claimed in the Gospels.  Israel is there.  Egypt is there.  The odds of the whole thing being an elaborate hoax, that people by the thousands have died defending…well use Occam’s razor yourself. 
Or miracles.  Perhaps there is or will be a “natural” explanation, but for now we’re stymied.  (And I do not mean Jesus on a Taco).  Guadalupe, Fatima, Pio…all documented by outside sources.  The fact that as far back as we go in history, man has always believed in the supernatural.  There has never been a time when this was not so.  I could go on, but these are some examples of the evidence of which I speak.  You can refute them one by one, but don’t bother.  Alone, none of them means anything.  Put them altogether, and it should give even the most critical thinker pause.
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I have to get off now, but I’ll check back in the AM to see if you have responded.  I’ve enjoyed this.  Thanks.

mk,
There have been hundreds, if not thousands of gods that have been proposed and forgotten, are actively worshipped today, and ones that will probably be proposed in the future.

Each of these gods had different definitions.

So, I’d like to point you to the Golden Turtle God, Kim Qui

Brian,

Seriously, I have to stop now…

Can I prove empirically that I love my mother? Well, we can plug me into a fMRI machine and pretty reliably confirm it.
*

Would it?  Or would it confirm that when you feel the emotion of love, your brain reacts chemically?  Does your brain cause you to love, or does love cause your brain to react? 
*
As to the scientific achievements given by religions… Islam destroyed much of the knowledge of Arabia.  Christians dragged the chief librarian of the Library of Alexandria thru the streets as a pagan. Libraries of the Mayans destroyed. Don’t forget Galileo, Kepler, Darwin, and many others.

btw, look back to Mendel… he was not exactly embraced for his studies.
*
Your original assertion was that religion was a hindrance to science.  I simply showed you that while sometimes it was, at other times it was also a great boon.  Universities are another example.  But you’re killin’ me here.  I really have to get off now…I won’t even see if you commented again, because I am weeeeeeeaaaaak!  The temptation to respond will be too great.  Get thee behind me satan!

Actually, you miss one of the most important points. Many ex Christian atheists will have read the King James bible and don’t regard Roman catholics as Christians at all. The worship of the Pope and the worship of statues and prayers to dead ‘saints’ need no further argument.

Bri,

So, I’d like to point you to the Golden Turtle God, Kim Qui
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As long as there is none greater, then it’s nice to meet you Kim (May I call you Kim?)
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NOW STOP TALKING TO ME!!!

MK,
Actually… YES. Chronos WAS the Greek creator god.

As to capitalization of “God”... keep in mind that saying Yahweh/Jehovah was a stoning offense back in the day… so saying “God” was a way out.

The four gospels don’t provide a good historical reference of Jesus’s existence. We have no accounts of the writers, many details conflict and they were written at least 40 years after Jesus’s supposed death.

Check your facts. Josephus’s mention of Jesus was again well after Jesus’s supposed death. The passages are highly contested.

I’d like to point out that John the Baptist had a religious following of his own. That religion still exists and it does not support the biblical account of John baptizing Jesus.

Brian,
The only answers you offered to my questions were “I don’t know.”  So, yeah, equally proveable/unproveable.  You seriously don’t know enough to sway even a tepid believer.  And your “I don’t knows” endlessly repeated offer no comfort.  The Christians/Catholics on this site offer multitudinous reasons for the things they believe.  You allude to studies but to not name titles or post links.  You act superior, but your answers lack substance on every level.  Your arguments are sophistical.  So, that pretty much makes even tepid belief and last-ditch hope preferable.  When you can offer something of substance, such as this Truth you allude to but cannot defend, maybe we can talk again.  Be well.

http://www.indefenseofthecross.com/Divine_Mercy.htm

Mouse,
“I don’t know” is at least honest.  As to my arguments being weak. Might I suggest that instead of blindly listening to people, you actually investigate these things for yourself?  Googling is simple and easy if you want to find out more regarding references mentioned.

btw, I really hope that you are not solely basing your worldview on what you read in a blog’s comment section.

I might not sway you… but personally, I didn’t think I was going to. I was aiming my discussion at the people later reading these comments. My goal is to have them THINK and QUESTION and hopefully be a little more skeptical in the future, as well as see if people here could sway me. After all, who am I to say that I am absolutely right in my stances?

Good wishes to you also.

Sincerely,
Brian

Some helpful links dealing with the “arguments” I’ve seen while skimming -

@Joe - http://courageman.blogspot.com/2009/03/god-hates-shrimp-fallacy.html

@Brian - http://catholicphoenix.com/2011/03/16/deep-magic-the-physics-of-sacrifice/

Brian,

“Killing an animal to survive for food is one thing. To require an animal be killed as a sacrifice to be forgiven is sadistic.  I can see that you are attempting to justify such atrocities with the bible, but you are really harming your own case when dealing with non-believers.”

You are begging the question as to why it is sadistic (that is, cruel).  If you take for granted that God is the Judeo-Christian (and I don’t agree that Islamic should be added here, but that’s a whole other subject), it simply is not cruel.  Everything belongs to God.  God commands that something He created be treated in a way that He created it for.  Therefore it isn’t cruel.  You have to admit that this is reasonable.  Your difference with me lies deeper than this argument, so can we move on?

“As to laying down his own life, that still doesn’t change the idea that an innocent human sacrifice had to be made to forgive the guilty. It’s basically the idea of chucking a virgin (Jesus was a virgin, wasn’t he?) into a volcano to appease the angry fire god. Yeah, so God sacrificed himself… the point is that he still required an innocent to be killed in place of the guilty.  That’s not really forgiveness. To forgive would be to not require the punishment at all.”

God is a merciful God, but He is also a just God.  The infinite transgression needed to be addressed.  In His infinite love, He sacrificed Himself for us.  That’s mercy.  He gave us an example of how to live our lives, though we need not submit our lives in the way He did (that is actually impossible, but to get into that, we’d have to first agree on other principles).  That reminds me ... in order to discuss “which” god is the God, don’t we first have to agree that there “is” a God?  Let’s tackle one at a time, eh?

“Look up M Theory. It is not proven… and we don’t have falsifiable tests for it (other than it being mathematically sound), but it is a possible step forward.”

Belief in God is metaphysically sound.  Seeing as how God is a part of spiritual reality, I don’t see how mathematics would be helpful here.  You’re using the wrong branch of philosophy, my friend.

“If God created the creation, then he is obviously part of it. How do you create something without putting something of yourself in it?  Also, if God is ALL, then obviously, then he is part of creation.  Seriously, rethink this argument.
Also, where did god get the material to create the universe with? If he created it from nothing, then he created something from nothing which I hear is supposedly impossible from Christians.
If he got it from within himself and he is eternal, then the material also existed eternally and we have an eternal universe once again.”

Really?  As a Christian I believe God created from nothing.  This is not impossible for God and is what Christians believe.  That is how we can say that God is outside of creation ... He is the Uncreated Being.  God is also not in time or space ... He is immaterial.  Indeed, His creation reflects His being in a limited way, but that is not to say His creation IS Him.  I think you misunderstand the argument.

1. evidence goes against freewill and points to us merely having the illusion of freedom (see Benjamin Libet’s experiments).

Benjamin Libet’s experiments tried did not prove anything about free will.  His experiments were based on assuming that the “unconscious” brain activities were unconscious and related to what was about to take place.  And even if it were granted that the subconscious says something to the consciousness, as even Libet concedes, the conscious will still must allow it or “veto” it.  There is no illusion of freedom here.

2. If we do have freewill, it is not absolute. There are physical constraints, like I cannot fly to the moon on a whim. This means that we could have freedom of action while still not allowing for the suffering of innocents.

Having free will absolutely does not mean that we are capable of doing anything.  It simply means that we are able to will anything.  Again you go with the innocents ... Yes, God was innocent, but it was He Who was offended!  Why can’t He choose the way in which we are forgiven?  He sacrificed Himself!  Be glad it wasn’t otherwise :-)

3. I’d like to point out that you are applying logic saying why we can/can’t do things, yet your god supposedly created logic. He should be able to create a logical system in which such a system could work. i.e. you are putting limits on your god’s omnipotence.

Saying that God cannot create a rock so large that even He cannot lift it is to say nothing at all.  Saying that He cannot create a square circle is likewise.  These are contradictions in terms, and so amount to nonsense.  It would be like denying your ability to think if I asked you to think a thought that you can’t think of.  Is that putting limits on your thinking?

Mk,

I agree with what you said about theocracy understood in that manner ... I guess I was thinking that you also included the idea of a confessional state.  Read this: http://www.catholicapologetics.info/modernproblems/americanism/duty.htm

Thanks for this article Jennifer as this is a topic close to my heart as a former “card carrying” atheist!  I agree with your 5 points and concur that in my experience most Christians, esp. Catholics, are very bad at evangelizing intellectual people who weren’t raised with any Christian backgroud.  I am an engineer who for many years believed that faith and reason where opposed to each other, but was amazed to learn how the Catholic tradition emphasizes both as a way to discovering the truth. 
  A key point for my conversation was that after much study I had to admit that my atheist worldview had many elements of faith as well.  Where did the matter & energy in the universe come from?  How did the laws of physics come into being?  Why are the various universal constants in the laws of physics “tuned” precisely relative to each other so that life could develop (the so-called anthropic principle)?  How did DNA come into existence?  At some point I realized that many of these questions will never be answered, so I had to admit that I also had been subscribing to a type of “faith” system…
  All I can say is that the past 10 years of my life as a Catholic have been great - I am very happily married with 6 children and feel that every day I am becoming a better person as I grow in my knowledge and love of God and love of my neighbor!

@Joanna,
Thank you for the link. However, the issue I have with sacrifice is that your god supposedly designed the universe with the intent that (taking it from the article) love costs.  That he supposedly designed everything so the sacrifice of innocents is needed to atone for the guilty is what I find sadistic. 

Yeah, he then ate the cost himself… but that is beside the point. He is the one who put the price tag there originally.

@Arthur,
No, I’m sorry, but I do not find your argument reasonable. Even if your god created us, I do not think it gives him the right to treat us as it pleases him. If you conceive a son or daughter, does that give you the right to abuse or molest them even if that was your intent while conceiving them?  I would say no.

Is he merciful? I’m sorry, I do not find his actions listed in the bible to be merciful. He cursed all of humanity due to one act committed by our ancestors. To top it off, they had no concept of right and wrong (hadn’t eaten from the tree of knowledge yet, remember?) so they didn’t know it was wrong to disobey the god. I find his actions anything but merciful in that situation. When you add in things like drowning the world, the plagues of Egypt, it just makes it more clear.

You say that belief in a god is sound metaphysically. I am skeptical. We are at impasse. You make the claim, it is upon you to offer a testable theory and proof.

As to creation being God… I was saying that creation would be PART of him. If the universe is not part of god, then god is not omnipresent (i.e. god cannot be everywhere) and is not “all”.

1. Benjamin Libet suggested “free won’t” as an escape clause. Free won’t is a lot different than free willed. I’d like to point out to you that if we truly had “free won’t”, then we should be able to decide to NOT twitch the finger after we see the brain impulse generated. Yet, time after time, we see the impulse and we still “decide” to twitch the finger.

2. God was offended, okay… be glad that he sacrificed himself? Why? I didn’t ask him to. If I’m guilty of a crime, I think it is immoral to have someone innocent of that crime take my punishment. 

3. You can ask me to think of a thought that I can’t think of and I would be unable to due to its contradiction. However, we are again talking about an omnipotent being who supposedly created logic. What you seem to be suggesting is that logic is greater than god.  Otherwise, yes, your god should be able to create a reality where contradictions are allowable.

@Ex-atheist Catholic,
I realize that your post was not addressed to me, but I still wanted to respond.
I can’t answer all of your questions… like where matter and energy came from for example.  However, science is making progress on some and even has answered some of them.

We are getting closer and closer to reverse engineering a self-replicating molecule which could have evolved into DNA.  I suspect that we will achieve this with the use of computers creating a virtual reality and speeding up time.  We’ve already evolved computer programs out of a virtual mathematical soup (Michigan State University).

As to natural law being fine-tuned for life to develop… I’m sorry, but that’s wrong. That is a testable theory and one that has been falsified.  In short, scientists know of better conditions for the development of life in the universe. That we can identify better “fine-tuned” conditions means that our universe has not been fine-tuned for life. 

Regardless of your beliefs, if you and your family are happy and leading productive lives, I wish you the best.

@Brian

You said “If I’m guilty of a crime, I think it is immoral to have someone innocent of that crime take my punishment.”

You might want to think of a different word to use than ‘immoral’.  If there is no God, there is no morality.  Any explanation you use to determine morality (law, majority vote, violence, etc), is simply human made and can be reduced to ‘might makes right’.  Using that philosophy, all you can say about slavery, rape, murder, etc, is that it is your opinion that they should not be done.  You cannot say they are immoral or wrong, for one could simply refute you by saying that their opinion is different than yours.  I’m interested in knowing if you hold that the Holocaust, slavery, rape, etc are actually wrong, or simply something you personally would not have done?

@ Brian

“What you seem to be suggesting is that logic is greater than god.  Otherwise, yes, your god should be able to create a reality where contradictions are allowable.”

God is perfection, and this would include in the use of logic, which does not make logic superior to God, but a part of His nature.  Creating something illogical would be a deficit of logic and would show a lack of perfection.  This is why God cannot create such a reality.  To believe this is a limitation on God is to see illogic as a positive thing that can be done, instead of the lack that it actually is.

Though I am glad to see an attempt to kill some of the negative stereotypes around Atheists, I think there are several condescending statements in here that again misrepresent atheist views. My suggestion to anybody who approaches an Atheist is to avoid pushing your religion completely and try to dialogue with them as a normal person. After all, isn’t that what we are? A Hindu doesn’t accept your god either, would you try to convert them?

I am an extremely happy and content Atheist (and old enough to be sure thankyou), I do not have a god shaped hole and I have looked for god and thought about the ideas of religion a lot), I have not just ‘missed’ god I actually believe that he/she/it is not there and it does not make me sad.

Many studies have shown atheists to have high levels of knowledge on religion. My guess is that you are conflating two types of atheists, the non-religious (those who don’t care about god; weak atheism) and atheists (who have actively studied and rejected religion; strong atheism). Unless you can come up with a fresh argument, you are not likely to convince an atheist with religious reasoning anyway. 

As an atheist I really don’t care if you pray for me, if it makes you feel better. However, I have to tell you that I think you’re wasting your time and that I’d prefer you to go do some volunteer/charity work or something useful like that. Your prayers won’t change my belief, but your effort could change the world.

@Ex-atheist Catholic

I don’t think all people with atheistic/scientific world views are taking the things you listed on faith. My view is that we just don’t have enough knowledge to understand these things yet, so we don’t pretend to know, there is no faith. In short, we are still waiting for the data on these things, but we know sooo much already.

At this point some theists like to bring up a lack of universal knowledge. Like God inhabiting the bits we can’t see (i.e. ‘outside’ of the physical universe) or don’t have knowledge of yet. In short, that science does not have all the answers.

Yes, this is true, these are ideas that scientists accept, otherwise why would we continue to research things. However the advances that we are making continue to convince me that the universe is explainable (and more wonderful) without gods or supernatural occurrences.

The story about the universe that I have learned from science is far more grand to me than any religion. Creation according to science is awe inspiring, terrifying and beautiful all at once, the varieties of objects in the universe and life on our planet is astounding (watch some BBC documentaries for a crash course).

I see the darkness too, but know that we (humans) are one of the only things on our planet capable of helping. We have eaten of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. We are the only creation capable of seeing into the future and seeing the great apocalypse that is coming. You are the ‘son of man’, the ‘second coming’, it is your choices that will damn or save this world. Take head! or your sons and daughters truly will pay for your sins, for a fiery hell is coming due to our sins against this world.

If you need a great story and a place in a great history you already have one without god. If you want a great purpose or battle surely the battle to save the human world from early heat death is the most worthy of causes.

If you just want assurance of paradise on your death, definite ‘knowledge’ on things we have no evidence for, or an attachment to something ‘outside the physical universe’, then science and by association atheism has nothing to offer you.

But I really don’t need these things. I am patient and understand that in some cases we may never know, but adding god does nothing for me.

Brian,
Actually… YES. Chronos WAS the Greek creator god.

As to capitalization of “God”... keep in mind that saying Yahweh/Jehovah was a stoning offense back in the day… so saying “God” was a way out.
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I meant Chronos was not “the creator GOD who was all powerful, all knowing, alletc.  His particular “job” might have been creator, but that didn’t mean the same thing as we mean by God. 
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I think you getting hung up on the definition of God.  There are lots of ideas of God, gods, etc.  Yes.  But Aquinas and I are speaking of one God in particular.  We’re not trying to prove the existence of any other, so obviously we are going to use language that pertains to Him.  Aquinas wasn’t trying to prove the existence of “A” God, but the existence of THIS God.
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Also, and I know this sounds like semantics, when Aquinas says that God must exist, I don’t think he meant that there must be a God.  He meant that IF we accept the idea that there is a God, as we define Him, then existence must be part of his description.  If there is a God, then He must “exist”.  Existence must be a character trait.
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To be, or not to be.  That is the question.  Is it possible for a perfect being to not have existence?  No.  Then he would not be perfect.  See?  So God must “exist”, tho that doesn’t mean that there must be a God. 
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The four gospels don’t provide a good historical reference of Jesus’s existence. We have no accounts of the writers, many details conflict and they were written at least 40 years after Jesus’s supposed death.

I’d like to point out that John the Baptist had a religious following of his own. That religion still exists and it does not support the biblical account of John baptizing Jesus.

First, 40 years isn’t all that long.  People write biographies all the time after the person is dead.  Second, they weren’t written as biographies, per se.  Luke also wrote the book of acts.  So there is some consistency there.  Whether we know a boatload of stuff about the authors or not, doesn’t really matter, does it?  We know they are four separate accounts, that they all tell the same story, that the authors weren’t in it for the money, (no best seller lists to speak of)and that they had no way of knowing that 2,000 years later billions of people would be reading their words.  If we found four versions of “The Lord of the Rings” written by four different authors at four different times in history, we would probably say that it was astonishing.  What are the odds that four different people would coincidentally come up with the same story at four different times, in four different places?  You might say they copied from each other, but why would they?  Especially given how difficult it was back then to put pen to papyrus?  What would be the motive for writing the four Gospels if the writers didn’t believe the words to be true?  What would be the motive to martyr themselves for what they wrote?  I’m not claiming it’s definitive proof.  I’m not claiming ANYTHING is definitive proof.  I’m talking about probabilities.  It lends credence to the claims.  That’s all.  As I said, you can’t take just one thing.  You’ve got to take the evidence as a whole, and you can’t treat that evidence as empirical proof.  Many a criminal has been convicted on less.
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As for Josephus, what difference does it make when he mentioned Jesus.  I talk about Abraham Lincoln and he’s dead.  Does that mean my mentioning has no validity?  Just because he’s dead and I’m not?  I don’t get your point.  You’ll have to cite your source on the contention of Josephus’ writings.
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There are people who believe a lot of things.  The fact that some people followed or follow John the Baptist tells me nothing about Jesus.  It tells me something about those people.  There are still Jews today also.  So what?  Again, cite your source and let me see what you’re talking abut.  John the baptist baptized Jesus the same way many Jews were baptized back then.  I don’t understand why anyone would contest that.  It was common practice to baptize Jews.  Jesus was a Jew. John baptized Him as he probably baptized lots of Jews.  That baptism was very different from the baptism that Our Lord instituted.  That would be like saying there are lots of people that contest Jesus’ circumcision.  It’s a non point.  It was just part of being Jewish.  Why anyone would have a problem with it is beyond me.  What confuses me, is that you say the Gospel writers are suspect, but you accept the writings of a source from the same period that follows John the Baptist.  Inconsistent at best.

Arthur,

http://www.catholicapologetics.info/modernproblems/americanism/duty.htm
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No problem.  I just didn’t want anyone to think that Catholics had any delusions that one day we would RULE THE WORLD!!!! Mwahahahahahah!
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Since there is no difference between Truth and God, (Truth is a who, not a what) we can comfortably fight for Truth in our governments without worrying about offending anyone.  A rose by any other name…

JoAnna,

LOVED the God Hates Shrimp article!  Until someone pointed out that “midgets” is an unacceptable term these days, I used to point out that there is no mention of “beating midgets to death with a hammer” in the O.T. either, but I’m pretty sure it would be frowned upon.  No offense to “Little People” intended… ;)
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As for your second link, Sheen says the tragedy in life is not that there is suffering, but that so much of it is wasted.  What a powerful gift we have been given…the power to atone for transgressions by offering up our own pain for others…

There’s nothing reasonable about faith based beliefs. Faith is the antithesis to reason, so abandon #4. Your best bet is to exploit #1, which has been the modus operandi of religion from the beginning. Always exploit weakness, and/or get people when they’re weak and vulnerable. To convert an atheist, you have to get them to abandon reason and allow themselves to indulge in faith, like getting a teetotaler to drink or a Vegan to eat a burger. That means emotional appeals and exploiting those feelings of depression or lack of satisfaction with their lives and push your religion as means to soothe that, an escape if you will (since that’s what it is). It’s very tough to get someone to indulge like that, so you have your work cut out for you.

#2 is true, atheists see the Christian bible as a Chinese menu of fiction from which believers pick and choose verses to justify whatever they want to believe and do. As for #3, most atheists know the Christian bible and details about various religions better than the practitioners of those religions. Why? Because you use such things to justify actions which impose on us and others. Btw, Catholicism is anything but the kinder, gentler Christian sect.

#5 is just to make yourself feel better about being powerless. If you want to affect change, you’ll have to get off your knees and actually DO something.

@ Brian

God created us, so He made us for a reason.  In our belief, that reason was to love Him.  Therefore to be happy, we need to love Him, and being omnipotent and omnibenevolent and omniscient (O3), He only does what is best for us.  You don’t follow the argument because you don’t understand the argument.  We don’t create our children ... they are made from us, but this is different than creation.  Creation, strictly speaking, is to bring into being that which was non existant from nothing.  Again, I think we need to argue from a more basic principle before going any further.

“Is he merciful? I’m sorry, I do not find his actions listed in the bible to be merciful. He cursed all of humanity due to one act committed by our ancestors. To top it off, they had no concept of right and wrong (hadn’t eaten from the tree of knowledge yet, remember?) so they didn’t know it was wrong to disobey the god. I find his actions anything but merciful in that situation. When you add in things like drowning the world, the plagues of Egypt, it just makes it more clear.”

Read the above ... if you concede that, it logically follows that you would see His mercy even in this.

“You say that belief in a god is sound metaphysically. I am skeptical. We are at impasse. You make the claim, it is upon you to offer a testable theory and proof.”

The theory has been mentioned before ... Everything in creation has existence.  Nothing created (by definition) has existence as part of its essence (otherwise it would be eternal and perfect).  But there needs to be something that causes the existence of all other things.  That thing’s essence would be existence.  This being we call God.

“As to creation being God… I was saying that creation would be PART of him. If the universe is not part of god, then god is not omnipresent (i.e. god cannot be everywhere) and is not “all”.”

?  Really?  So because I am here in this room, it has to be a PART of me???  This argument is absurd.

1. Benjamin Libet suggested “free won’t” as an escape clause. Free won’t is a lot different than free willed. I’d like to point out to you that if we truly had “free won’t”, then we should be able to decide to NOT twitch the finger after we see the brain impulse generated. Yet, time after time, we see the impulse and we still “decide” to twitch the finger.

Um ... no.  In my experience, I have freely allowed for twitches and freely did not allow for them.  There may be involuntary muscle movements from the brain, which I will grant, but that does not do away with free will.

2. God was offended, okay… be glad that he sacrificed himself? Why? I didn’t ask him to. If I’m guilty of a crime, I think it is immoral to have someone innocent of that crime take my punishment. 

Immoral?  On what basis?  If you offend someone, doesn’t that someone decide to an extent the reconciliation?  God doesn’t totally “let us off the hook” ... we need to repent ourselves too.  But He did a large part for us by forgiving us through His sacrifice.

3. You can ask me to think of a thought that I can’t think of and I would be unable to due to its contradiction. However, we are again talking about an omnipotent being who supposedly created logic. What you seem to be suggesting is that logic is greater than god.  Otherwise, yes, your god should be able to create a reality where contradictions are allowable.

Okay, now you’re being stubborn.  God is Truth.  Logical fallacies are untrue.  To ask God to do something self-contradictory is to not ask anything at all ... it would be like asking you to taste the color hard ... words put together but they don’t make sense.

@Dennis
If there is no God, there is no morality
I’m sorry, but you’re wrong. Morality exists and is subjective. Look back at the American Civil War, some Christians considered slavery moral while other ones thought it immoral. It was based on their subjective view.  There are numerous other examples.

Furthermore, look at other cultures (now and at ancient ones). Many followed different gods than yours. Now, if those were false gods, why/how did they have morality?

Look at the history of mankind, everything points to a subjective morality. Do I think that the Holocaust, slavery, rape are actually wrong?  Yes. Yes I do. How can I say that? Because I think the long-term survival of humanity is what is ultimately important and those things would work against it.

Now, how/why do you consider those things immoral when your god supposedly committed genocide on an even more massive scale than the Holocaust with the drowning of the world, how he punished the Hebrews for their infidelities with slavery, and how he set up rules for rape?

God is perfection, and this would include in the use of logic, which does not make logic superior to God, but a part of His nature.  Creating something illogical would be a deficit of logic and would show a lack of perfection.
Sorry, but that doesn’t work. If God created logic, then he defined what it is. Your statement puts limits on his omnipotence as well as putting logic on at least an even level as him.

mk
You’re right, it does sound like semantics. If include in my definition of Darth Vader as that he exists, does that make him exist in reality and outside of fiction?

As to defining your “G"od versus god, again, it sounds like semantics and I fail to see your point. If someone says Cthulu is a greater god than the Christian one, does that mean that Cthulu is God? It’s all subjective opinion.

As to the gospels. 40 years might not be long for some biographies, but we’re talking about the son of the creator of the universe. You’d think he would have made a bigger footprint while he was alive.  For all we know, Paul could have sanctioned four of his followers to jot down the gospels. How do you know that they didn’t correspond with one another? How do you know that they were not given similar starting information? You don’t.  All you got is belief without evidence.

As to Josephus, it makes a difference because he had never met the guy. He was not a witness, only repeating what he had heard.  As to the contention of his writings, google is your friend... it’s pretty easy to find.

As to John the Baptist… it was his religion. If he had actually met the messiah as described in the bible, why wouldn’t he mention that to his disciples?  Of course I’m skeptical of his writings, but the thing is, we have a source outside of the bible that should describe Jesus, but doesn’t. The lack of support for Jesus is a noticeable point.

Arthur,
“As to creation being God… I was saying that creation would be PART of him. If the universe is not part of god, then god is not omnipresent (i.e. god cannot be everywhere) and is not “all”.”
?  Really?  So because I am here in this room, it has to be a PART of me???  This argument is absurd.
No, it isn’t. Are you claiming that you are omnipresent? No. Is your god supposedly omnipresent? Yes. Therefore, your god must be part of everything, else he would not be present everywhere.

As to Benjamin Libet, I don’t think you understood the experiment or the findings. The brain impulse occurs, you can even see it, THEN you “consciously decide” to twitch your finger. If you had free won’t, shouldn’t you be able to decide to not twitch your finger after seeing the impulse? Yet, time after time, after every impulse, the decision is supposedly made to twitch.

As to logic and your god… look, did your god create logic or not?

When I come across the phrase “belief not based on proof” I think of an assertion found in document written hundreds of years ago:
“All men are created equal”. I believe it. Do you believe it? Can you prove it? It seems that the evidence indicates otherwise: that men (meaning men & women) are not equal in physical strength, mental ability, or other measurable qualities. Does that make my belief irrational?

Brian,

No, it isn’t. Are you claiming that you are omnipresent? No. Is your god supposedly omnipresent? Yes. Therefore, your god must be part of everything, else he would not be present everywhere.

Your logic is fallacious.  Your premise is not a given.  Just because you are omnipresent, that doesn’t make everything a part of you.  Think of what is means to be immaterial.  I think your thinking is limited to the physical realm.  God is omnipresent insofar as everything reflects His Being (remember, God is Existence, and so all things that exist hearken back to His Essence).  But this is not to say that everything is a PART of Him ... at least, not in the way you mean it.  All things partake of His Being in a limited way, but He is the one Who gives all things Being.  Finally, I am not arguing that we can reason to a finite existing (in time) universe by reason alone.  By reason alone, the universe may very well have existed from all eternity.  But I do argue that we can know through reason that the universe was created. That leaves us with two conclusions about the universe: either it was created in time (and therefore temporally finite), or it was created co-eternally (God is the cause, but from time infinite).

As to Benjamin Libet, I don’t think you understood the experiment or the findings. The brain impulse occurs, you can even see it, THEN you “consciously decide” to twitch your finger. If you had free won’t, shouldn’t you be able to decide to not twitch your finger after seeing the impulse? Yet, time after time, after every impulse, the decision is supposedly made to twitch.

I understood the findings.  I also know that the conclusions were presumptions about the workings of the brain.  And yet Libet still concedes a free will (just in the negative, which still proves a free will).

As to logic and your god… look, did your god create logic or not?

Logic is our limited way of knowing a certain aspect of truth.  Truth in the form of premises and conclusions.  God is Truth.  So if you mean, did God create the method of logic, I would say indirectly through His creation of mankind, since that is our method of knowing.  But it stands to logic that God is not illogical.  Look, are you rational or not?  Can you act non-rationally?  I don’t mean irrationally, but non-rationally.  No, you can’t because you cannot be other than what you are.

There are so many problems with this article it’s hard to know where to begin. First, shrouding your efforts in a veneer of “understanding” is not going to fool most atheists. Many of your arguments have already been heard by the atheist and she or he finds them unconvincing. People of every sort feel bad sometimes, it’s called being human. Attributing poor feelings to atheism (even as this author does) is no more reasonable than attributing famine to the “evil eye”. Naming where the Bible is right, and ignoring where it is wrong, is one of the most infuriating things atheists deal with especially since, as recent studies indicate, the atheist will more than likely know more about the Bible than the Catholic. Another frustrating thing for atheists is when you show them things Popes or other church officials have clearly said, or even shown them using their own words and the Catholic, feeling trapped, uses the lazy, mindless and projected response of “you just don’t understand it” (much the way this author has done). The most aggravating thing an atheist can hear from someone is “I’m going to pray for you”. It communicates arrogance, a surety of their position when the evidence is unconvincing, a lack of respect and, finally, a willingness to project the Catholic’s failure onto them. Also, as several studies now show, prayer has the same value as giving them a horseshoe.

As I have read this most recent ‘ring around the rosy’ that occurs when atheists come out on Catholic pages and I will admit I chuckle.  It is an endless circle of arguments.  You strive to convince us (Catholics, faithful, believers, etc.)  of how intellectual you all are and how your position is clearly so much more intelligent than ours while some of us strive to sway to our side. 

However, it remains that for you to believe you have consent, admit you were wrong and move on.  The same would be true for me.  I’d have to admit you are right - there is no God and all that I have known my whole life is wrong.  For both of us, the very thought of that is unimaginable. 

In the end we have both read each other’s arguments and stay on our sides of the chasm.  And only in the end, we will know who was right.  And in that same end, neither side can say they didn’t know.

The comments are a trip. For myself, I just say: thanks for a great article, Jen! I always appreciate the effort it must take an author to open themselves up for the typical attacks (even by sometimes well-meaning people). As if you haven’t heard it all before…

Oh! I also meant to say, as someone who has spoken quite a lot with Jehovah’s Witnesses (and my husband with Mormons), that those exact points are still applicable. Except with #2 instead: spend some time talking about the timeline over which the New Testament was actually put together. It emphasizes the Holy Spirit working within the early Catholic Church.

And I’d perhaps add a #6 that really, really helped my mindset during that time of discussion: Read 1 Cor 13 beforehand. A lot. You can do it all “right”, know and say all the “right” things, but without love it is as nothing…

Rachel,
I do not presume to say that I am more intellectual than you. I am friends with many catholics and o know that some are far more intelligent than I am.

It’s more that I think some of you have not been exposed to different arguments, have not spent the time to investigate, or intentionally overlook flaws in your beliefs.

Do I think that atheism is better than your religion? Yes, but that opinion depends on numerous subjective factors, and I would fight for your right to believe whatever you wish.

Is it unimaginable that I could persuade you to change your world view, or you change mine? No, because I was catholic at one point and changed. Right now, if you gave me a testable theory with supporting evidence, you might be able to change me back.

Brian,

You’re right, it does sound like semantics. If include in my definition of Darth Vader as that he exists, does that make him exist in reality and outside of fiction?

As to defining your “G"od versus god, again, it sounds like semantics and I fail to see your point. If someone says Cthulu is a greater god than the Christian one, does that mean that Cthulu is God? It’s all subjective opinion.
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I said it sounded like semantics.  Not that it was.  If you read my comment, you’d see that I was claiming the exact opposite of what you are saying.  The argument from movement is not about proving that there is a God as much as it is proving that IF there is a God, existence would be part of His makeup. 
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Yes, other cultures had other Gods.  No one here is disputing that.  Socrates looked at those other Gods and asked why the heck anyone would worship them.  They were adulterers, ate their children, killed each other, bickered, were jealous…he is the one that pointed out that if there was God worth worshiping, He had better be more than the gods they had.  He should be all good, all powerful, all knowing…etc.  Philosophy is like anything else.  You should understand this…it EVOLVED.  Once the idea of a single all powerful, all knowing etc God emerged, then came the problem of “knowing” who or what He was.  This is where those arguments come from.  You are looking at something that took place thousands of years ago with eyes that exist in 2011.  NO ONE back then was disputing the existence of God in the way that you are.  What they wanted to know was who or what He was…no IF He was. That’s what those arguments are about.  It was taken for granted that there WAS a God.  Either explicitly or tacitly.  Most people probably never gave it a thought one way or the other.  The Greeks were big on virtue.  Socrates demanded a virtuous God, not the pea brains that they were bowing down to.
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So when Aquinas set out to prove that God existed, he was not addressing whether or not there was a God, but whether or not He had “existence”. 
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Along comes the “enlightenment” and suddenly we are questioning whether God is there at all. 
*
And here is another part of the argument.  It isn’t either or.  We are not pure animal, or pure soul.  We are both, and we are free to choose which to be more like.  We can walk with the beasts and devolve, being absorbed into nature, eventually succumbing to nature, OR we can attempt to walk where angels tread.  We can reach higher. 
*
We do have a physical nature.  You choose to embrace that and that alone.  We also have a soul.  Some of us choose to go that route.  As Catholics we believe we, “meaning the person that I am”, is made up of two natures…physical and spiritual.  We choose not to ignore the spiritual.  We embrace both…hence Faith AND Reason.  You on the other hand choose to deny one of your natures.  And that’s fine.  I think people miss the point and believe that by choosing to go strictly with your physical nature, you are living “falsely”, or living a lie. But you’re not.  It’s not like you’re following something that isn’t an option.  You have a physical nature and that is the nature you recognize.  It’s a viable option as far as it goes.  It’s your life.  THAT, is what free will is all about.  The right to choose which part of your human nature you wish to nourish.  I don’t begrudge you that, yet you seem to have a problem with me (Catholics) who embrace their other nature.  I don’t deny your physical nature, yet you would deny me my spiritual one. 
*
As for imposing our will on you…You said yourself that each man has knowledge of what is and is not moral.  You say it is subjective.  You have the right to believe that abortion is a moral act.  You have the right to speak out about it and to fight for it to remain a legal act.  Yet you don’t see this as imposing your lifeview on the rest of us.  Why is it that when I see abortion as an IMMORAL act, and speak out about it, and fight to make it an illegal act, I am accused of imposing my views on you? 
*
You might not call your worldview a religion, but it most definitely is dogmatic and colors your morality.  Perhaps if you stopped referring to our beliefs as ‘religion” and simply thought of it as a worldview every bit as valid as your own, (because after all, it’s all subjective, right?) you might see that your worldview imposes on society every bit as much as mine does.
*
IMO, the fight isn’t really between atheists and believers.  A person can be totally moral if they are an atheist.  Morality comes from reason, not from religion.
*
The real argument, as I see it, is between moral relativists and moral absolutists.  While I believe you can be a moral atheist, I do not believe (except hit or miss…even a broken clock is right twice a day) that you can be a moral person if you are a moral relativist.  Heck, you can’t even play baseball without absolute rules let alone run a society.
*
The problem with relativism and subjective morality, is that when you don’t like the rule you are free to change it.  You are not obligated to society or to the rules of society.  You are not even obligated to the rules you set for yourself because you are rule maker and ruler follower, both.  What you make, you can break.  Not much of a set of laws.  You are obligated to no one and nothing except your passions and emotions.  If your feelings change, so does your morality.  This is why a woman who believed abortion was wrong until she found herself pregnant, can suddenly believe abortion is right, because it suits her.

mk,

*I agree that the idea of supernatural entities have evolved over time. The book, “Evolution of God” by Robert Wright addresses this very topic.

As to choosing between animal and spiritual, there is no evidence for the spiritual. By what basis do you determine what is spiritual? Thru blind faith, beliefs without evidence. It is that kind of thinking that has led people to fly planes into buildings.

On the other hand, there have been atheists who have worked for the betterment of humanity.

What’s strange is that you wish to “walk with angels”, when you have your god drowning the earth and angels wiping out entire cities in the bible for following their freewill.  Wasn’t Lucifer an angel? Where was his spirituality?  My point is that your definition of a “higher state” is subjective also. You ignore a lot of what is in the bible and base your idea of worth on more than just that book.

*I do call your religion a worldview. As to its validity, no… it is not as valid as my own because it does not hold up to scrutiny. Does that mean my worldview is then correct?  No, only more valid because mine is self-correcting.

*I never said I supported abortion. Please do not put words in my mouth. However, as to imposing your will on me… let’s use a blue law, example- a Christian imposed law making it illegal to drink on Sundays. I might say it is wrong to drink on Sundays and not do it myself, allowing you to if you wish.  My freedom of speech does not stop you from drinking. However, Christians have imposed on my freewill by making such an act illegal for me.  Do you see the difference? Saying something is wrong is different than forcing others not to do it.

Now, as to making abortion illegal, I’m curious… do you think we should therefore invade or place economic sanctions on other countries that have legalized abortion in order to stop them? Why/why not?

*Moral absolutists versus moral relativists.  Look at history, morals/laws change over time. By your reasoning, we should still have slavery. 

Just because morality is relative doesn’t mean we are not obligated to the rules of society. If there are societal rules and we break them, the society has set up punishments and restrictions. In other words, in a secular world, we have jails and rehab.

What surprises me is that christians say that god gave us freewill, yet they then try and limit it. Does god want us to choose our actions? then why would christians pass any laws? Doesn’t that hinder our god-given freewill? Also, if we are judged in the afterlife, if christians shouldn’t judge, why do we have laws at all? shouldn’t christians be promoting anarchy and letting god sort it all out later?

@Brian,

“I’d like you to point to me some of the things that faith proves to you that science cannot. What is the evidence for those things? Oh wait… there is none.  ;)”

Where is the evidence that what you see is not a deception? How do you know cause and effect?  I’m asking deeper questions than the trivality of the physical. 

“If something affects me in this reality, it falls within the natural universe and is testable and measurable.  You can’t point to anything that doesn’t and provide a testable theory and supporting evidence for it.”

As stated before it is your methodology that is the problem, not the question.  You demand God conform to your limited framework.  What would be “evidence” for God?  What is the theory?  How is it testable? What is the criteria? you have yet to show that the scientific method is even capable of accounting for the question.

Essentially you are saying that because your framework doesn’t allow for the existence of God, there is no God.  In science, when your model cannot account for an aspect of reality, you change the model.  You don’t conclude that aspect of reality doesn’t exist.

“Look at all the instances of scientific advancement, and how many times religions have denied or suppressed those ideas.”

The university was originally a Catholic institution.  Issac Newton was a monk.  The founder of modern geology was a Jesuit.  The list goes on.  Seriously?  The suppression of science by religion is an athiestic sacred story. 

“I find it surprising how much mankind has discovered about reality with a scientific worldview, how little faith has revealed, and yet you say my view is close-minded.”

Faith and phliosophy are more preoccupied with the true meaning of existence.  Differnt tools for different questions.  Which is my point entirely.

@ Colin Gormley

Amen!  How little people know of history and the Church’s role in it.  The Crusades and the Inquisition being two of the most misunderstood topics that, sadly, many Catholics don’t know enough about.  Suppression of the sciences?!  I think Louis Pasteur would also be inclined to differ.  Galileo’s story is also sadly misunderstood ... the Church never condemned his findings, but his impiety and defiance to Church authority.

Brian,
Technically, you never said you were a moral relativist either. I should have been clearer.  Sorry. I meant the universal “you” of moral relativism, not you personally.  At this point I don’t really know what you think about anything.(Except of course for religion! ;)  I really am sorry if I made it sound (and rereading my comment I see that I DID make it sound) as if I were speaking to you in particular.

But moving on, providing you’re still speaking to me…when I say that you choose to live as the animals, I’m not trying to be snarky.  Saying that there is only a physical world, that we are only cells and brain synapses, etc, is saying that we are nothing more than any other animal except smarter.  Am I wrong? Do you believe otherwise?  It wasn’t meant as an insult, just an observation.  We, as Catholics, don’t believe this.  We believe we are unique among creatures in that we have a rational mind or what the ancients would call a “soul”.  It makes us part animal, part spiritual.
*
As for our world view being less valid, I think you’ll find that since that is your opinion and nothing else, it isn’t any more valid than my opinion.  Isn’t that how it works.  You claim that you can “prove” yours and I say so what?  You, not I, are the one demanding empirical proof.  I am of the opinion that we don’t need empirical proof.  You are of the opinion that we do.  I am of the opinion that there is a spiritual world, you are of the opinion that there isn’t.  This is the problem with opinions.  They cease to be meaningful when they oppose each other because by their very nature they do not require “proof”.  They are opinions after all.
*
Basically, all conversations end with, well that’s your opinion answered with a yes it is.  You give opinion a lot more weight than I do.  On the other hand, I feel that I have plenty of evidence to plead my case, but you reject it.  It doesn’t change the fact that it is evidence, nonetheless.  I have said over and over that I will not be able to provide you with the evidence you seek because we are speaking of apples and oranges.  Someone up there said that it is like trying to find a sock with a metal detector, which is exactly right.  You are using the wrong tool.  I present the Gospels, which in any other debate would be ample evidence that “something” unusual happened 2,000 years ago, and you simply dismiss it.  I could add the book of acts and then you’d dismiss that also, even though it a collection of actual letters written over 30 years.  I could point to the prophecies in the O.T. and you’d dismiss those as well.  You don’t want to look at the evidence with a critical mind.  Which is fine.  But saying that I don’t “have” any evidence is dishonest.
*
As for ignoring what I don’t like in the bible…I am not a bible Christian as the term is understood.  The bible is not “A” book.  It is a collection of books.  Each book is written by a different author in a different style with a different purpose.  I don’t believe the world was created in 6 days, I don’t believe the flood covered “the whole earth” and I don’t believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a fish.  Moreover, I don’t think the authors expected me to believe it.  It is not an historical account.  It is a tool used to express certain “Truths”, not facts.  It would take ages (and I am nowhere near equipped to do the job) to walk through each book and explain the story in whole.  But it MUST be experienced as a whole and not as pieces…we, as Catholics do not pick out certain phrases or words and turn them to fit our vision.  We get our vision by reading what is there.  Were there wars?  Of course there were.  If you insist, we can take them one by one and see why they occurred and whether or not GOD incited them.  Was there animal sacrifice?  Yes.  So what?  What is the difference between sacrificing an animal to God and barbecuing one on the 4th of July?  The Jews believed, rightly or wrongly, that blood contained the life force.  Offering that blood up as a sacrifice was much more than simply slitting the goats throat.  Again, looking at it with the eyes of someone living in 2011 it sounds bizarre.  But those were the times they lived in.  You’ll notice that we don’t sacrifice animals anymore.  Perhaps the Jews were a stubborn people and wouldn’t accept a simpler solution.  It was all they knew. 
*
As for God sacrificing Himself for our sake, would you not throw yourself in front of your daughter if it meant saving her life?  Why is this different.  Every other God up to that point required that we sacrifice ourselves or our loved ones to THEM.  Now we have a God who says no, that is *ss backwards.  I, shall sacrifice myself to, YOU.  Now that is love. 
*
You say that you were a Catholic, but I wonder.  I wonder what kind of Catechisis you had.  I wonder how much you have really read.  If I only knew what I learned in school, I’d be an atheist too.  The Church is rich and deep and wide and high and filled.  No matter how much you learn, there is always more.  Theology, history, doctrine, the saints, the Eucharist alone could take a lifetime, the sacraments, the early church fathers, theology of the body, the music, the art, Natural Law, Canon Law…it goes on and on.  To grasp it all in a few comments on a blog is like trying to name all the stars.  It’s vast.  Vast I tell you!
*
Now if you want to look at one teaching, or one bone of contention, I’d be thrilled to walk with you.  Pick something, anything, stick with it and lets flesh it out.  But we can’t cover it all.
*
Please understand that for me, this is more about explaining what I believe than it is about converting you or anyone else.  Misunderstandings are the enemy of both sides.  I’m just as eager to hear what you believe.  Heck, you could be right and I might just find myself putting up a shrine to Kim before this is over!  ;)
*
Dang…about judging.  I don’t know why you think I don’t judge.  I judge all the time.  We all do.  We’d be crazy not to. 
*
And morals don’t change.  The morals we embrace do.  Chesterton says:

Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable.

*
Positive laws change.  Morals do not.  But of course, I have to say that, as I am a moral absolutist!
*
Just because morality is relative doesn’t mean we are not obligated to the rules of society. If there are societal rules and we break them, the society has set up punishments and restrictions.
*
But you see, that is not the same as obligation.  That comes from avoiding the consequences, which is a different thing all together.  I am not obligated to society.  I find it beneficial to follow the laws of the place I live, but I am not “obligated” to it.  I am, however, obligated to the members of society, but for different reasons.  Reasons, which of course, you do not believe in.

Who needs the lies of the catholic that chases people away. the truth is that the catholic dictate and the residental native people at those schools were all killed. these lies, and grains of sands so to say. where religion ends, spirituality starts, where spirituality ends, divinization begins. life and truth are on the hearts of everyone and no one needs a dirty church to say what is the truth. gone with the wind, i hope.

judgments, no perception. the good word you believe in states the facts to discernment for better judgment in making choices. Creator has given us that gift to chose. We are all here by choice for the comforts we enjoy. give a gift of love and a random act of kindness. The government of our society do no follow human compassion, only greediness in making people their slaves. We live in a world of leaders who take us for granted. We have a Creator given right to breath, live and be in service to others and to live life love and be happy.

maybe we are living in the day of Babylonian times, confusion hehe. climbing a tower of beliefs made by mans head and not the heart.

“I find that when misconceptions like this are cleared up, my atheist friends are pleasantly surprised at how fair and reasonable Catholic doctrine is” - Jennifer Fulwiller

This statement is both deeply absurd and demonstrably false.  Pew Research shows that atheists are actually more knowledgeable about religion that most theists. “Fair and Reasonable” in the same sentences as “catholic doctrine” is an oxymoron.

I am an atheist who graduated from the leading Catholic University in the U.S.  No amount of “sophisticated theology” from the most learned Jesuits could make catholic doctrine appear “Fair and Balanced” to an educated and skeptical student.

Original sin, the eternal torture of hell, institutional misogyny, the blood sacrifice of Jesus, implacable opposition to contraception and indoctrination of children is only a partial list of what makes the catholic church an implacable enemy of humane and ethical society.

@ Q.E.D.

I would have to say that the leading Catholic University in the U.S. (CUA, I assume), sadly is not noted for its orthodox theology department.  Also, the Jesuit order itself has been having difficulties with orthodoxy (Georgetown University for one).  If it is true that atheists know more about religion than theists, these posts certainly don’t show it.

Atheist’s guide to Catholics, by: Andy the ex-Catholic.

1) Catholics are weighed down by guilt.  (See: Stockholm Syndrome) Some people just really love to be told why they are so terrible and deserving of hell.  It’s a natural power structure that human being seem to enact in social interactions.

2) They don’t find the Bible convincing.  You can quote the Bible on a whole litany of things and they’ll happily remind you that the Bible is not their sole source of morality.  They also include 2000 years of Authoritative figures (I’m a little rusty, but I think they call them popes) claiming to speak for God.  Any contradictions are your fault for not just trusting old white dudes telling you what God told them.

3) Arguing with them is a perpetual game of “Calvinball”.  For those not in the know Calvinball is a game invented by Calvin from the famous cartoon “Calvin and Hobbes”, where there are no rules, you just say or do whatever.  They’ll talk about how Homosexual acts are against “natural law”.  When you point out that homosexuality has been observed in many species they will declare that’s not what “natural law” is.  Getting a concrete definition is impossible, it just ends up being whatever suits their argument at that exact moment.

4) They can’t be convinced with arguments at all.  Spirituality is an entirely emotion driven reaction.  Despite the fact that they have not put forth any observable, tangible evidence for any of their claims, it must be true, they can “feel” it.

5) They think prayer actually works.  Found your lost keys? Must be because you prayed to St. Domenico; patron saint of lost things that should be in your pocket.  Earthquake kills tens of thousands of people in Japan?  Well it’s not that they weren’t praying, but you know… HOW DARE YOU ACCUSE MY GOD OF NOT BEING GOOD.

@Andy the ex-Catholic.  Beautiful!  Two thumbs up!

I love the Calvinball analogy.  Though at first I thought you were referring to Calvinism, b.c. you inevitably get into stupid arguments about free-will / determinism when the other person believes in a god that allows Japan’s tsunami to occur.

I would have to say one’s knowledge of theology is irrelevant. What it all boils down to is can you demonstrate the existence of your god? The answer to that is no, so then you’re left with arguing why anyone should believe your god claims without evidence, to which you’re left with pointing to faith. So in the end, you’re left explaining why someone should rely on faith, and then why someone should take what you’re saying on faith. Both are tall orders, especially when, generally, people who take things on faith are considered at best naive, at worst, fools.

You really have your work cut out for you, Catholics.

Reply to: Posted by Arthur Dhanagom on Wednesday, Mar 16, 2011 1:37 PM

“Therefore God became Man, and atoned for our sins.  He came to die so that we may live.  His love was totally self-giving (He is Love!) such that He gave His life for us.  Does that make sense?”

Hypothetically, if Adam and Eve never existed, what would remain of doctrine? Would it not be the case that Jesus died for a *fictional* sin?

If Adam and Eve are false, would that make Catholicism false? In which case, what evidence would convince you that Adam and Eve were false?

Well, having gone the other way (from catholic to atheist), I would have to give the writer mixed marks on this piece.  Her first point is entirely untrue in my case.  During the time when I still professed a faith, I always felt something was missing.  It was only after my realization that this is, in fact, no god at all that I was able to formulate a complete world-view, not distracted in any way by mythology.  I actually agree with her second point.  The bible is persuasive in the same way that a poorly argued thesis persuade one to reject it. Her third point actually brought a smile to my face.  My own “faith journey” included a conversion from catholicism to protestantism (at age 13), motivated by the fact that I DID accurately understand catholic dogma, and thought it to be nonsense.  If you want to get specific, it was transubstantiation that changed my mind.  Even then, I simply could not believe in such nonsense.  Her fourth argument is not an argument at all, but an example of the logical fallacy called special pleading.  The only circumstances under which I will believe in any god is an unambiguous demonstration that the god exists.  And yes, I am not subject to the power of prayer.  In this respect, I am exactly the same as every other human being on earth.  Having said all this, I would not dream of trying to convince any of you that you should become atheists.  What you do with your own mind is your own business.  If you want to know what atheists *really* want, I can’t answer that question.  I can, however, tell you what *this* atheist wants, and that is to be free of religion.  Perhaps the author could explain this to her friend the self-appointed militant atheist-rescuer. You stay on your side of the street, I’ll stay on mine.

“Issac Newton was a monk.”

He may well have been. *Isaac* Newton, the person who discovered gravity, was no such thing. He was deeply religious, he was extremely concerned with theology, he was born in 1642. He wasn’t a monk.

Newton didn’t believe in the Trinity, the Devil, condemned the Council of Nicaea, studied the apocrypha and the occult, specifically condemned the Pope and denied the divinity of Jesus.

He was certainly not an atheist and I’m not even going to assert he’d be one today, but the idea he was Catholic, or even Christian in any conventional sense of the word is ridiculous.

And just as a matter of record, he was never a monk, so please be careful not to say that again, or to trust whoever it was that told you that.

@ Steve Jeffers

“Hypothetically, if Adam and Eve never existed, what would remain of doctrine? Would it not be the case that Jesus died for a *fictional* sin?

If Adam and Eve are false, would that make Catholicism false? In which case, what evidence would convince you that Adam and Eve were false? “

If Adam and Eve never existed, it wouldn’t be a case that Jesus died for a fictional sin, because history as we know it would be different.  If Adam and Eve are false (by which Catholics mean the belief that all humanity came from one man and one woman), then yes, Catholicism is false.  But I accept the statement that Adam and Eve are true based on the premises that A) there is a God; and B) Jesus is that God made man.

@Colin Gormley
“the trivality of the physical.”
The physical is far from trivial and it is absurd to argue otherwise. Every part of you has and is being shown to work by and through physical processes. To me the ‘soul’, if we must use that word, is just a consequence of the amazing interactions of my millions of cells (including the brain and therefore emotions and speech). Speaking of the soul as something nebulous is not very useful; supernatural or outside the physical universe? Nonsense; Love, well I assure you atheists have that but we have better explanations than God imo.   

“when your model cannot account for an aspect of reality”
We have looked at the evidence and determined that god is in fact NOT an aspect of reality. We have tried many methods to prove his existence and yet He is still strangely absent. It was mostly Christians doing the searching if I recall, but still, no evidence…sooo not an aspect of reality imo.

“the true meaning of existence.”
Really? By having Faith in your particular conception of God you have closed your mind to any search for meaning, you have decided that you already know. Philosophy has examined God and often come to the same conclusions as science (again mostly Christians as you pointed out, at least in the western tradition).

What a load of nonsense. You state it’s a misconception to think that atheists are missing something, and then state that ‘we all have a hole only God can fill.’ See how that’s kind of inconsistent? Maybe not, since your reasoning abilities seem to be a little suspect. Further, as someone who was subjected to 18 years of Catholic education, I know the doctrines of your dogma quite well, thank you, and there is nothing reasonable about a belief system that forbids birth control, discourages research into life-saving medical technologies, and considers gays to be subhuman (oh, I’m sorry—they’re just SINFUL). Pz Myers is right, though: it would be excellent if more believers shut themselves up in a room to pray for the godless. That way we’ll be spared your infantile bleating about invisible sky daddies.

I’d say that the newly arrived atheists on here were a tad mean-spirited, but as they don’t believe in “spirit” I fear we’d get into a philosophical debate on whether it was even possible.

But let me say this…in all the comments up til today, there has been an attitude of respect and openness on both sides.  However, we now have an undertone of anger, coming I might add, from the very group that claims to work from reason and not emotion.  Sure sounds like emotional outbursts to me…of course that just my “subjective” opinion.  ;)

@ Alan G. Nixon
“Philosophy has examined God and often come to the same conclusions as science (again mostly Christians as you pointed out, at least in the western tradition).”

It is in the field of philosophy that I think most atheists and Christians disagree ... there are philosophies, and even science (leading scientists), which point to a God.

“But I accept the statement that Adam and Eve are true based on the premises that A) there is a God; and B) Jesus is that God made man.”

Thanks for the swift response.

What evidence would convince you that Adam and Eve were false? And what does ‘all humanity came from one man and one woman’ mean in this context? I believe Adam and Eve to be false because there’s plenty of evidence of pre-human ancestors of homo sapiens. Also because we no longer believe in the idea there was a ‘first cat’ or ‘first chicken’ or whatever, and it’s no longer tenable to believe in special, sudden creation for human beings.

Is it necessary that Adam and Eve were the *first* man and woman? If so, and we accept that there wasn’t a first man and woman, wouldn’t that make Adam and Eve false? And when you say ‘history would be different’, surely what you mean is that, yes, Catholicism would not be true?

@ mk
Indeed ... how about less emotional conclusions from the atheists and more engagement on some fundamental principles to debate?

Not speaking for anyone but myself, but I’m an atheist for one simple reason:  I have seen no evidence that supports the existence of any god or gods.  That’s it.  Period.  Full stop.  The other arguments going on around that (morality without a morals-giver, the character of the god of the Bible, the nature of sacrifice) are all interesting, but ultimately irrelevant to the discussion.  It all comes down to lack of evidence, and the author hasn’t given us any.

@mk

The original blog post is incredibly smug.  Telling us that we have a “god shaped” hole and we just don’t know it, and that you will pray for us comes off as self-righteous, holier-then-thou (literally) insults.

@ Steve Jeffers
“What evidence would convince you that Adam and Eve were false?”
—Hmmm ... well, my belief in them is based on Scripture, which in turn is based on the fact that Jesus is God, which is based in the fact that I believe there is a God.
“And what does ‘all humanity came from one man and one woman’ mean in this context? I believe Adam and Eve to be false because there’s plenty of evidence of pre-human ancestors of homo sapiens.”
—It means that we all have a common ancestry and are all sharers in Original Sin.  The Church does not condemn evolution, btw.  It condemns the fact that the human soul was evolved, but not the body.
“Also because we no longer believe in the idea there was a ‘first cat’ or ‘first chicken’ or whatever, and it’s no longer tenable to believe in special, sudden creation for human beings. “
—This is just a statement ... who says these things are no longer tenable?  We need to go back to my first premise: that God exists and He is Who I believe Him to be.  If this is true, creation is very tenable.

Is it necessary that Adam and Eve were the *first* man and woman? If so, and we accept that there wasn’t a first man and woman, wouldn’t that make Adam and Eve false? And when you say ‘history would be different’, surely what you mean is that, yes, Catholicism would not be true?

—When I said history would be different, I assumed you meant to ask a hypothetical scenario other than what is.  That is, what if Adam and Eve never existed and therefore the human race never existed.  But I suppose you meant simply what if they were false.  In which case I would hold that Catholicism is false.

Oh no’s! The poor Catholics are offended… 

Atheist’s guide to Catholics:

6) They are easily over-offended by anyone applying critical thought to their beliefs.  Instead of asking themselves why they are so offended when all the atheists are doing is asking for some evidence for their invisible sky-daddy; the Catholics just accuse the atheists of being mean, strident, shrill, hateful, etc—because well, that’s easier.

@Arthur

Here is an article you should read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_reasoning

@Andy
Perhaps you need to read that article ... where is my circular argument?

I figured it was worth a shot.  Unlike your theology, for logic, some people are beyond saving.

THE CATHOLIC GUIDE TO ATHEISM (REVISED)

All atheists are asking for is to have any claims backed up with evidence.

There are all sorts of types of evidence. We’re not asking for a videotape of the Garden of Eden with an affidavit signed by God. We don’t need to get into a semantic argument, just, if you make a claim, back it up with *what you consider* to be the evidence for it.

We’re not asking for ‘proof’, just ‘evidence’. We can’t give you proof of our position, either, but we think we can give you evidence.

It’s never ‘strident’ or ‘mean’ or ‘an attack’ to ask for evidence. Feel free to ask us for evidence backing up what we assert.

If you have no evidence, say so, in so many words.

Adapting an argument in the light of new evidence is a sign of strength, not weakness. If an argument is robust, it can survive any challenge. If it isn’t, it should be abandoned.

@Andy
In all sincerety, if you are criticizing my argument, why don’t you point out where the fallacy is?  I obviously don’t see it, but if you point it out I may.

The comment regarding “mean-spirited” or emotional atheists here is both unwarranted and essentially an ad hominem argument. It’s just comical that, while actively avoiding the points raised by casting such dispersions, that person would claim there’s a lack of engagement on issues by atheists. I’ve seen nothing but engagement on the issues here by atheists, and pretty much nothing but avoidance of them by the religious.
• The claim that science points to a god is false. The fact that some scientists actively engage in faith indulgence does not mean science points to a god.
• Arguing that a god exists because a book says so and that the book is true because it’s the word of that god is quite the exceptional example of circular reasoning.
• What certain philosophies conclude as to the existence of a god is virtually meaningless, since you can’t argue something into or out of existence. Demonstrable evidence is required, not navel pondering.

@Arthur
See my post above “Atheist’s guide to Catholics”, specifically point 3, for why I will not get into this with you.

The Catholic’s Jehovah, that Almighty God,
is a capricious and cantankerous sod,
and, so far as I can tell, 
the Catholic often is as well.
            (because)
The Bible Bogey, they’re taught to see,
is three that’s one, and one that’s three.
Being a father, its own son, and a friggin’ ghost;
that with magic spells becomes wine and toast.
Catholic’s claim their god, from its empyrean lair,
is omniscient, omnipotent, benevolent and fair;
but, with the problem of theodicy,
that dogma’s Catholic idiocy.
              (compare)
The Jew’s Yahweh, that wrathful old jerk,
set Jews strict rules on when to work,
how to dress, and what to eat and sip,
and giving baby boys the snip.
Myths of Bronze Age, goat-herding nomads,
metaphorically have them, by the gonads.
              (similarly)
The Moslem’s Allah, that fierce great djinn,
demands in ‘Islam’, literally, ‘Submission’.
Apostasy is treated just like a crime;
they’ll threaten to kill you, to keep you in line.
If you dare draw Mohammad in a comic cartoon,
there’ll be riots and killings from here to Khartoum.
              (likewise)
Hindu, Sikh, Jain, and Buddhist,
Zoroastrian, Baha’i, Mormon, and Scientologist,
Confucianist, Shintoist, and Taoist too,
Spiritualist, Wiccan, and the New Age woo.
Yea, verily, those of each and every religion,
are mired in the miasma of superstition.
              (so)
Why should yours be the “one true faith”,
in the magic tricks of an unseen wraith?
Belief, without evidence, is just plain crazy,
ignorant, stupid, or thoughtlessly lazy.
Life needs no purpose, at a theistic god’s direction;
evolution really happens, due to Natural Selection.

I have sent you this poem in the hope that you will read it and realize that some people find your religious beliefs to be unwarranted and absurd.  When I was a small boy, still in short pants, I understood that religious beliefs in deities were lacking any supporting evidence, and therefore had no basis in fact.  Later, I realized that religion was a tool for controlling people.  Religion should be a private matter, because when it gains political power, as with any ideology, it becomes a tool for oppression.  Please consider the benefits of rational thought over superstition and wishful thinking.

@ Steve
—You seem to be one of the few (besides Brian) atheists who are not getting emotional about this ... which is NOT an ad hominem attack, but an observation that would do them good to realize so that it doesn’t effect their arguments (although readily assent to the fact that both sides have been guilty here, and should be aware of it).  Thank you.  Evidence for the existence of God can be found reading this link:
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1002.htm
@PhillyChief
“The claim that science points to a god is false.”
—Prove it.
“Arguing that a god exists because a book says so and that the book is true because it’s the word of that god is quite the exceptional example of circular reasoning.”
—Where has anyone argued this here?
“What certain philosophies conclude as to the existence of a god is virtually meaningless, since you can’t argue something into or out of existence. Demonstrable evidence is required, not navel pondering.”
—It has been and is again given (read above).  You are begging the question here with your first sentence assertion.

@Andy
Your third point just tells me that I make up stuff whenever I feel like ... Calvinball ... but I’m trying to be logical here, and you have yet to ponit out my fallacy.

Andy,
*
The original blog post is incredibly smug.  Telling us that we have a “god shaped” hole and we just don’t know it, and that you will pray for us comes off as self-righteous, holier-then-thou (literally) insults.
*
First, no.  1 on the list is CLEARLY saying that telling atheists they have a “God-Hole” is NOT to be done.  The author herself states that she, when she was an atheist did NOT feel empty. 
*
Second, I don’t think praying for you is intended to be an insult.  If you were to go to a foreign country and one of their customs was to give newcomers a frog, you would most likely be puzzled but not offended as you would receive the gift in the manner it was intended.  Surely you can see, that prayer, in our minds, is a gift, intended with the best of intentions, for your well being.  You might find it strange, or pointless, but I don’t see how you could feel insulted.  Heck, prayer won’t even give you warts!
*
Daniel,
*
If you look closely, you will see a “;)” at the end of my post.  Unfortunately, emoticons don’t show up on this blog, but I am not offended, even a little.  Amused would probably better describe what I feel.  I was simply having a little fun…

I recently read this on a blog and found it so profound.

“Religious experience is absolute; it cannot be disputed.  You can only say that you have never had such an experience, whereupon your opponent will reply:  ‘Sorry, I have.’  And there your discussion will come to an end.  No matter what the world thinks about the religious experience, the one who has it possesses a great treasure, a thing that has become for him a source of life, meaning, and beauty, and that has given a new splendor to the world and to mankind…” 
-  C.G. Jung

As some have said, this is a game of “ring around the rosie” between those who have encountered God and those who have not.  There’s no amount of convincing, arguing, or reasoning that can sway one to the other side. No amount of “reason” can dispute or judge the experience of another unless that person has, in fact, shared that same experience. 

It takes an act of “free will” and yes, vulnerability to open one’s mind and soul to God’s unending invitation to the life we were created to live.  Once a soul has opened himself to God, He will reveal the world and all it’s truths.  I think that those who have not encountered God miss the meaning of life, which is LOVE, real love, which is self-giving, not the worldly version of love which is almost always flawed and self-seeking.  God is love.  That’s why it is so difficult to understand God unless you have “experienced” Him, just as it is difficult to understand love without experience. 

I imagine some Athiests will have some issues with this since it is completely void of any scientific proof and is based only on personal experience.  I am not interested in arguing, but simply commenting on what I and billions of people throughout the ages have experienced and as a result found real peace, joy, love, hope, truth, and true freedom simply by opening our hearts to the never-ending invitation by God to be all we were created to be.

“But as someone who grew up atheist”

You were never a real atheist (AKA normal person). Real atheists don’t become superstitious idiots like you did.

darwinkilledgod dot blogspot dot com

“They find the Bible persuasive”

What a liar you are. I find the Bible incredibly boring and idiotic, and as stupid as you are.

http://darwinkilledgod.blogspot.com/

PhillyChief,

I’ve seen nothing but engagement on the issues here by atheists, and pretty much nothing but avoidance of them by the religious.
*
Then you haven’t been following along.  Brian and I were having a very thought provoking conversation.  With no insults.  No emotions.  I would say that Richard Harris’ poem might be considered mean spirited, and intentionally so.  And I would say that that was an objective observation, not an opinion.  Surely you don’t think that poem was meant to further the conversation?
*
Either way, I was not offended or angered by said mean spiritedness, just noting that it was happening and which side it was coming from.  Even the prolific reaction to my comment seems out of perspective.  It was meant light heartedly.  While I was not offended, I am truly sorry if you were. 
*

“the Catholic worldview is the most reasonable of all.”

As if out-of-control insanity is reasonable. You’re an idiot.

http://darwinkilledgod.blogspot.com/

“God is love”

Grow up tard. Your invisible magic man is love?

It’s impossible to be more stupid than a Catholic.

By the way, nice child abuse organization you got there. You should be ashamed of yourself you god-soaked idiot.

http://darwinkilledgod.blogspot.com/

Human Ape,

You were never a real atheist (AKA normal person). Real atheists don’t become superstitious idiots like you did.
*
Poor Anthony Flew…should I tell him, or will you?
*
“They find the Bible persuasive”
*
What a liar you are. I find the Bible incredibly boring and idiotic, and as stupid as you are.
*
Do we really not see a difference between “we’ll pray for you” and the above comment???
*
Seriously, you need to read what is written before you comment.  Again, that is a list of what NOT to do.  I really wish we could give traffic tickets to drive by’s that hit, run and then leave the scene of the accident… *note the attempt at an emoticon ->  ;)

Hilarious. I do hope Ms Fulwiler wasn’t paid for this drivel.

Jennifer,
  If those are really the questions your Catholic friends are asking about atheists and those are the answers you are giving, then you have done them a disservice.  Your answers are too facile.  You have mischaracterized the majority of atheists and provided advice that will never work.  As some have noted, your item #2 is the most accurate.  I generally equate the Bible with books like Tom Sawyer or A Tale of Two Cities.  There are real place names, there are some real people mentioned and there are historic events, but the majority of the story-line is made up. 
As for #3, I think you missed the boat.  In fact, most atheists understand both Catholic and Protestant doctrines better than the adherents.  What we usually notice is that most members, and even leaders, do not behave according to the tenets of their religion (e.g. pedophile priests, fundamentalist philanderers, etc) and in many cases don’t know the details of their church doctrine.  Telling us “how fair and reasonable Catholic doctrine is” pretty much means that you are ignoring some of the doctrine.  We don’t find the exclusive boy’s club at the top to be fair.  We don’t find turning crackers into Jesus-flesh and chowing down on it to be reasonable.  We don’t find denying condoms to over-crowded, HIV racked populations to be either fair or reasonable. 
And as for the prayer thing… have at it.  It’s what we would appreciate the most.  You go off and quietly pray for us and leave us alone in all other respects.  Either your prayers will work, or they won’t.  If they work there will be a couple million new Catholics (hurray for you) and if they don’t they you will have done your duty and we can go merrily on our way.  Win-win as I see it.

Eat well, stay fit, Die Anyway

@Arthur:
• There is no demonstrable evidence for yours or any other god, therefore there’s no way science can point to your god existing.
• Your link is not demonstrable evidence, it’s conjecture. The “arguments” on that page are laughable.

Trying to conduct a rational discourse with most religious believers is extraordinarily frustrating. We see rational, logical propositions put to believers, whose answer is invariably some version of: ‘I believe in God, therefore God exists’.

When pushed to address evidence, beyond what is written in their holy books (and it is astounding how most either don’t know or choose to ignore the many internal inconsistencies in their book…and to ignore those parts that they do not actually observe), they resort to logical fallacies, such as the law of gaps:  science/atheism can’t explain ‘x’...my God is an explanation for ‘x’, therefore I win!

But their god is never more than a mysterious ‘black box’ explanation…a self-referential, circular explanation and justification for its own existence. Once we stipulate god as the explanation, rational enquiry is automatically terminated. The atheist is curious to know how and why this god came to be, while the religious says that god is the sufficient explanation for god…and utterly fail to see how facile, simplistic and silly this statement is.

Look at what we, as a species attributed to god(s) in former times…..virtually everything was explicable by god, because the people of the day lacked the intellectual tools and knowledge to see other explanations that made more sense. With each advance of human knowledge, the areas of ‘here be god as the explanation’ diminished.

It is extraordinarily silly to continue to cling to the god of the gaps as the explanation when with each passing decade the gaps shrink.

On the other hand, knowledge that we are a mortal species, and knowledge that, as individuals not only are we doomed to die, and to see so many loved ones dies before us, but to also see how relatively helpless and vulnerable most of us are, tends to make us yearn for a reassuring answer. Our loved ones aren’t really gone…and we won’t really die…what tremendous emotional power these teachings have…especially when pushed onto the malleable minds of young children. Even adults aren’t immune….altho rationally I am convinced that there is no probative evidence for any god, let alone the Xian one, I found myself silently praying as I drove to hospital in answer to word that my spouse was seriously ill. Lest any religious person attempt to use this as ‘evidence’ for my ‘need’ for god, let me assure you that I am well aware that this was the result of extensive childhood indoctrination….my praying was evidence of the scarring caused by a religious upbringing, not evidence that deep inside I still yearn for god.

My primary feeling towards the religious is one of pity. In my experience, the religious tend to have closed minds…which is ironic since they are constantly urging atheists to ‘open their hearts’ to god. I prefer to open my mind to the wonders of the universe as we have come to understand it, and to the wondrous possibilities that, unfortunately, I won’t live long enough to witness. To recall that there was a time when the wonder of it all had a full stop at the end of it…a full stop labelled god…beyond which thought could not go….makes me so sad, since so many are still stuck in that belief system.

@PhillyChief
How is it conjecture?  Please back up your criticism.  Was it how it argued to God that was problematic?  Several subjects were treated therein.  You aren’t being fair when you don’t state what your problem is with the evidence.

I think we atheists, or New Atheists, or whatever have a dirty little secret which it’s time to share:

Atheists in the nineteenth century tended to engage theology in theological terms. Was Jesus really a good man, was Mary really a virgin, isn’t God a bit of a bully and so on. And those are all good questions, but its basic flaw is that it’s only ever sniping.

We’re complete one trick ponies, now, and reading this thread you’ll probably have see what that trick is. We have one question:

‘WHERE’S THE EVIDENCE FOR THAT?’

Now, I agree it might not make for edifying debates, and it’s a bit dull, but there’s a simple fact: it’s a really, really good question and you can see how good a question it is by the extremely poor quality of answers. And whatever else it is, it’s a fair question.

So, that’s it, basically - we’re going to keep asking what the evidence is.

@Arthur

God->Adam&Eve;->Scripture->Jesus->God

@mk

The reason she says you shouldn’t tell us about the “god hole” is because she knows just how smug it sounds.  Why should I believe that you are my friend if you hide your true feelings?  I’m sure to you “I’ll pray for you” isn’t an insult, but put yourself in someone else’s shoes.  When you say that it sounds like you’re telling us that because we’re too dumb/ignorant/hardened/whatever to seek God, you’ll just have to do it for us, with all that divine wisdom that you have.

@Steve Jeffers
I guess you didn’t read my link then.  Here is a relevant part:
“In the world of sense we find there is an order of efficient causes. There is no case known (neither is it, indeed, possible) in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself; for so it would be prior to itself, which is impossible. Now in efficient causes it is not possible to go on to infinity, because in all efficient causes following in order, the first is the cause of the intermediate cause, and the intermediate is the cause of the ultimate cause, whether the intermediate cause be several, or only one. Now to take away the cause is to take away the effect. Therefore, if there be no first cause among efficient causes, there will be no ultimate, nor any intermediate cause. But if in efficient causes it is possible to go on to infinity, there will be no first efficient cause, neither will there be an ultimate effect, nor any intermediate efficient causes; all of which is plainly false. Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God.”
@Andy
Your first “God” in there was never mentioned by me ... I never said I believe in God because I believe in Adam & Eve, which is what your diagram seems to indicate.  Did you read what I posted?

@Arthur
Arguments aren’t demonstrable evidence, first of all. Second, to address that entire site is asking a lot. Bottom line, as I said earlier, you can’t argue something into or out of existence, plus the arguments begin with the presupposition that there is a god with certain traits, and that has yet to be demonstrated. For instance, I could say trans-dimensional gnomes have always existed and they have the power to create universes therefore, using the arguments on that site, I can “prove” the existence of pan-dimensional gnomes.

@PhillyChief
1) These aren’t simply arguments.  They are much akin to the demonstrations in geometry. 
2) We can take your refutations on the site one at a time ... I’m patient :-)  You seem so determined to the extent that you seek a Catholic blog to post your own beliefs, I take it you find it time-worthy.
3) I agree ... you can’t argue something into or out of existence.  So what?  That’s not what is being argued.  You say there’s no evidence.  I say there is, and the above posted link explains why. 
4) You tell me that I am attaching to God yet to be determined traits.  But this is what God is.  God, as everyone means by the term, is primarily the Creator.  I don’t think there’s much dispute about this.  If your trans-dimensional gnome (since spiritual things cannot be identical to one another because they have no differentiating matter, I singularized your term) created the universe, he would be God, but under your special way of referring to Him (i.e. you choose to call Him that instead of God).

How does someone make a reasonable case for faith? Do you know what the definition of faith is? It’s an open admission that you have no evidence for something, but believe in it anyway. How do you make a case for something for which you have no evidence??

I also find it hilarious that the captcha at the bottom of this comment is “military94”. :)

@ Arthur
Your fourth point is evidence enough that you require further study, therefore systematically going through that linked site for you would be futile at this time. If YOU have time, it would be best spent reading a basic book on logic, or order the lecture on Argumentation at teach12.com. It’s very good and might possibly help you, among other things, understand the plethora of mistakes on that link of yours, and really, wouldn’t it be better to be able to do it yourself rather than hear it from me?
Btw, I’m not here posting beliefs. I initially responded to the errors in the article, and then subsequently have responded to people such as yourself.

@What the what??
Just to be clear, I’m not saying that it takes Faith to know that there is a god.  But it does take Faith to believe in God.

Well, Jennifer, you don’t offer very sound advice for dealing with atheists from my perspective.  Here’s my usual reaction when someone, but they’re never a friend, a friend by definition would accept and respect my atheism, begins telling me about their faith.  “Sorry to stop you, but if you don’t want to have your feelings hurt, I’d stop right now. ”  You see long ago I reached an understanding, and that was a profound moment when the realization hit me, that religions in general (and Catholicism to a great degree) are pure mumbo jumbo, an irrational mish-mash of nonsensical beliefs.  Since then I’ve read a great deal of philosophy, quite a number of Christian apologetics, and beliefs like yours seem to boil down to one of two things: 1. I was brought up thinking this way, or 2. I feel better thinking this way.  Neither does anything to convince a non-believer he’s wrong, and after reading your essay I do think you atheism was quite superficial.  Please don’t attribute my atheism to my ignorance of Christianity or Catholicism; I grew up reading the Bible, so that means I know it better than Catholics, and my in-laws are all Catholic, so I’m regularly inundated with the various rituals, incantations, and all.  What if I read you parts of Norse mythology?  What if I told you, you weren’t going to go to Valhalla?  Would that have any impact on you?  Of course not, so why would your mythologies have any greater impact on me?  For me, there is nothing in a Catholic mass that is emotionally or intellectually moving.  It just doesn’t mean anything to me at all, other than the wonderment that this should be satisfying, gratifying, to so many people.  And Catholicism reasonable?  You must be joking!  Catholicism to totally unreasonable about so many things I hardly know how to begin: contraception, abortion, marriage to non-Catholics (& demanding the kids be Catholic!), no meat of Fridays (what happened to that one?), all male priesthood, Papal infallibility, and on and on.  Did you ever think about all those other religions?  Every adherent thinks their religion is the one true religion, and all the rest are wrong or misguided if they happen to be sects that share a common heritage.  You know, we’re only 1 religion apart in our thinking.  You think you’ve found the one true religion (so all the rest are false), and I know they’re all false in their beliefs although religion does tell you a great deal about how people think, act, and explain things in the absence of real knowledge.  Since religions are based on faith, and faith alone, how do you convince a rationale person you know truth?  Let’s see, your religious documents were found hand written on papyrus scrolls in different hands, piece-meal, in clay pots, in caves, and then assembled and voted on, and leaving out some very interesting parts along the way (read the Gnostic gospels).  The Quran was recited by a single person start to finish, and the book of Mormon was delivered on gold tablets that only one person could read.  Which sounds least like the work of a deity to you?  Also you need to understand that I don’t feel anything is missing or absent from my life at all.  I’m quite comfortable knowing what I know and who I am.  Ultimately my energy will dissipate, my body composed of star stuff will be recycled, and I will live on genetically, in part, in my offspring and those of my siblings, and in word and deed for awhile.  This is life, I’m part of it.  I like the idea that I understand reality,  and for all this, I find I appreciate my life, and my activities all the more for knowing how fortunate I was do this and understand it.  It was no small intellectual undertaking and accomplishment to think so, and I did not arrive at this position via childhood indoctrination, in fact I got here in spite of same, and at least initially, when you realize how out of step you are with the great masses, it wasn’t a good feeling to understand how many people are so misguided.  It doesn’t make you feel good to see so many religious people vilify atheists for their lack of faith, not understanding that you can be moral without a god.  So pray away, if won’t do me any harm, but what a waste of your precious life to spend so much time and energy on pursuit of religious fantasy.

@PhillyChief
My fourth point is sound.  What else do people fundamentally mean by God?  This latest post has just been assertion after assertion without any contrary argument.  Perhaps you need the Argumentation lecture.  Does it teach argumentation?  As far as I’m concerned, I know logic well enough.  You, again, have yet to point out any fallacies in my argument.

Nice post! Now if Catholics everywhere would only take your advice they’d leave us atheists alone and resort to prayer to “help” us. Sounds good to me!

Why were you an atheist?

@Plant Scientist
Why don’t you argue the basics before jumping to conclusions about conclusions of Catholic belief?  Catholicism is reasonable IF you grant the basics ... so why not just stop there?  I’ll be the first to agree that the rest is entirely futile/unreasonable/etc. if the basics don’t hold.  But they do.  That’s why Catholicism is reasonable.  Or so the argument goes ...
By basics I mean, there is a God, and He is Jesus Christ.

As a catholic, a few questions/comments you should expect from an atheist would be:
1) Specific religion affiliation is a product simply of what faith tradition you were brought up in. If you where born in Afghanistan then you would be a Muslim. So specific religions are clearly cultural creations and it does not make sense to claim that one religion is correct and the others wrong, just as it does not make sense to claim that one human language is correct.
2) How does what you believe fit within a natural universe of great age that has evolved from simple beginnings to great complexity (not the other way around like a god creator requires)?
3) Do you know about memes and how they can easily explain the evolution of religions belief in a wholly naturalist way?
4) When did souls become introduced in the evolving human species?
5) What other reasons would there be to believe in life after death other than your own personal yearning?

A great many atheists were raised in a religious environment so that theological issues are emotionally fraught for them. Thing is, many of us who don’t believe in God are essentially indifferent about religious matters except for the political issues inevitably connected with organized churches. What believers don’t recognize about atheists like us is that we don’t care about their arguments and concerns in any existential way since we simply assume (for excellent reasons) that all religions are false and go on from there. If we complain about a particular religion like Catholicism, it’s not because it promotes absurd ideas but because it is socially pernicious. I know I’m hostile to the Roman church because of its doctrines, which are none of my affair, but because it is a vicious political organization that has had an extraordinarily long and sorry history of abusing people and continues to do actual evil in the world. I know and respect many members of the Catholic laity, who, in my experience, are vastly better human beings than the hierarchy; but any closed and secretive organization that claims absolute supernatural wisdom is bound to be sexually, politically, and financial corrupt. That’s a far worse problem than the fact that Aquinas’ five proofs for the existence of God have zero cogency.

re: “Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God.”

A couple of comments:  Everyone?  I wouldn’t give something like that the name “God”, but let’s not belabor that bit of hyperbole.  Even if we accept that as generally true, it does not follow that the Catholic Church (or any religion for that matter) has correctly described the attributes and desires of such “God”.  Even if I, as an atheist, were to admit that such a Cause must exist, I have no reason to believe that It wants me to sit in a church on Sunday, sing hymns of praise, snip the foreskin off my little boy’s penis or that praying for any benefit, either personal or general, would result in convincing it to grant my wish.  How do you or I know that the Bible is the correct descriptor of It’s requirements?  Maybe it’s some other religion’s holy book that is correct, or some oral tradition that was never written down?  Or hasn’t even arrived yet?  Or will never arrive because “The Cause” just doesn’t give a damn about that kind of stuff?  You don’t know and I don’t know, and picking one or making up a new one is fruitless.

But beyond that, I find arguments for a “first cause” to be on the order of the old paradox about not being able to get from point A to point B.  You know, first you have to go half of the distance, but before that you have to go only half of the half, and so on.  There are an infinite number of halves but you are traveling at a finite pace so it will take you an infinite amount of time to even reach the half way point.  Thus you can never reach your final destination.  And yet we reach our destinations every day.  The “first cause” argument is a word game of this order. 

My conclusion:  If I’m correct about my assessment of the “first cause” argument… that it is merely a paradoxical word game, then any conclusions about there actually being a “first cause” or that such cause is somehow a “God” by some definition or other, are specious.
If I am wrong about the “first cause” argument then I go back to my first paragraph and aver that we still don’t know what such a Cause would want of us…  sacrifice chickens, paint dots on our forehead, mutilate our babies, eat peyote, wear funny little hats, burn witches.  Maybe any or all of those things are abhorent to “The Cause” and we would be better off not doing any rituals.  And that’s my final conclusion; since I don’t know which activity is favored or disfavored, I’m better off just trying to do what seems better for humanity in general than trying to follow some made-up set of rules.

“Posted by Arthur Dhanagom on Friday, Mar 18, 2011 1:53 PM (EDT):
@Steve Jeffers
I guess you didn’t read my link then.”

Crossposted, that’s all - I wrote that before I saw yours. Again, thank you for the swift and helpful reply. I’ll read the link, digest and get back.

@The Naturalist
Do you intend these questions to be answered, or were you being rhetorical?  Well, I’ll do the best I can with what I know of Jesus’ teachings ...
1) If it is a cultural product, why are there converts from every background to Catholicism (different ages, genders, races, nations, and times in history)?
2) Evolution is not proven; it is still theory (macro-evolution, that is).  In addition to this, we don’t have to deny even macro-evolution so long as the soul is recognized as something created solely (ooo .. there’s a pun!) by God.
3) I don’t know about memes ... what are they?  Just because something can be explained in one way, though, does not invalidate other explanations.
4) If we were to accept evolution, the first soul would have been introduced when the first human being existed.
5) It is reasonable to think that an immortal soul would exist beyond separation of body and soul.  Ideas are immortal (go beyond space and time ... truth is true outside of the physical realm).  Souls have the power to have ideas and make ideas.  Something cannot give what it does not have, or have the capacity to have.  Since souls contain immortal ideas, souls must be immortal.  Therefore it is reasonable to believe in existence after death.

@Thomas
I disagree with your assesment of the argument.  In fact your critique of it being like the word game proves my point.  We get to destinations everyday.  That’s pointing to the absurdity of infinite distance between points.  Well, that’s precisely the point of the argument: you can’t have an indefinite amount of causes (because that would say that there is no first cause and thus, no effects, which we see before our own eyes).
And let’s slow down there ... I didn’t say that just because there is a god that means that my God is the right God ... we haven’t even come to that question yet.  But it seems to me that you are willing to grant the thought that “God exists” is reasonable ... maybe that’s just me, though.

“Evolution is not proven; it is still theory (macro-evolution, that is)” by Arthur Dhanagom

Ok, do you want to know why the eyes of atheist glaze over when theists try to talk about science when they clearly don’t understand it? This is why. You want to hear a Catholic talk about science and evolution, listen to the very impressive biologist Ken Miller. You sir, are no Ken Miller.

The “just a theory” argument betrays a deep and vast ignorance of science. You use the word hear as a “guess.” Evolution is just a guess. This is not what a theory is in science. A theory explains the facts, in sort. It is an explanation so supported by the evidence (which includes things like observations, experimental data, mathematical laws etc etc) that it is given provisional acceptance as the “truth” (provisional because new data may change our understanding.)

So you’ve made a drastic and non-trival error right off the bat. To say “evolution is not proven, it’s just a theory” means you are immediately not going to be taken seriously by anyone who understands science and biology.

You die, you go straight to day of judgement. This is after end of world. It’s in future. Praying means asking for things; if you get prayers answered you change future which is in past from day of judgement. Also please explain saints. They won’t be until judgement day, again it’s in the future and therefore they are not saints. Could you please explain both Saints and praying for things to me? I am a little confused.

As an atheist I don’t have a God shaped hole in my life. I’ve got a Cthulhu shaped monstrosity where my soul is! Ia Shub Niggurath! The goat with a thousand young! with fictional gods like that why suffer the boring righteousness of the other equally fictional god of the Xtians?

by mk: “The idea of “the strongest god must have been the creator god” is nonsense. Why? Chronos was overthrown by Zeus… did that make Zeus the creator in the Greek myths? No.
* But the Greeks never claimed that Chronos or Zeus WAS the creator God.  They didn’t use a capital “G” because they weren’t talking about “GOD”.  They were talking about “gods”.  It’s not about the strongest “god”.  It’s about nothing at all can be greater than God, by definition.”

Ugh. People really need to start reading the western canon.

The Greeks, like ALL cultures and religion, have their own creation myth. That you are apparently ignorant of the story of Chaos and Cosmos, the rise of the elder gods who were overthrown by the Titans who in turn were overthrown by the Olympians does not mean your theology is better than that of the ancient Greeks.

Like yours, their theology was complete that included explanations for how the universe began, what happens after you die, and what the divine wants. It’s just one you reject (even though you obviously know little about what you are rejecting.) When you understand why you reject Zeus, you’ll understand why atheists reject your god.

Memes are infectious ideas that exist in our cultures and societies. They evolve and spread from person to person rather like the common cold. Memes infect people by appealing to psychological needs and weaknesses and through indoctrination when young. Characteristics of memes include: a) they have circular justifications (the Bible says it is true, therefore it is true); (b) they encourage the infected person to actively propagate the meme (you must go and save others); (c) they build in defensive mechanisms that prevent the infected person from doubting the meme (faith is a virtue); (d) they utilize threats and promises to keep the person hooked, (fear of burning in hell or the promise of everlasting life); (e) when hooked people disregard all and any evidence that contradicts the meme (evolution is just a theory); (f) they utilize continual rituals to reinforce their hold on the person (go to church every sunday, pray every day); (g) they evolve just like languages through a process of mutation, design and selection and form branching trees through time (the diversification of the christian religion into over 2000 sects for example) (h) they can provide societal and personal benefits such as community, reassurance, support etc and therefore can be symbiotic rather than parasitic (i) sometimes people become so infected that working for the meme becomes more important than life itself (think religiously motivated suicide bombers).

Memes are a clear natural explanation for all religions belief. Of course when a person is infected with a meme its defensive mechanisms prevent that person from realizing it and often cause the person to be offended.

@Arthur,

First, you are clearly ignorant about science and it shows. The word “theory” has a very specific meaning in the sciences and is not merely a hunch.

Evolution by natural selection is a fact. The evidence to support is is overwhelming. We crawled out of the oceans, like it or not.

Who you are is driven entirely by your brain. You are your brain. Period. Destroy parts of it and you begin to go away. Eventually, all of you will go away. You will be the way you were in, say, 1854. Nothing. Others on this thread have said “you’ll find out”, implying afterlife. What is the “You’ll” part of this? Certainly not your memory. That will be gone. Not your intellect. That will be gone as well. Not your perceptions. Toast. So what will be doing the experiencing? Answer: No part of you at all. You will be gone completely. So you are living expecting a reward (or punishment) that will never happen.

Lastly, and this is a point in general to others on this thread regarding “meaning”. Meaning is a human construct. The universe, filled with billion and billions of galaxies each containing billions of stars, could care less about us. We don’t matter. Nature isn’t cruel. It’s not anything. It just “is”. The only “meaning” in life is that which we give it.

And that makes life so much more precious.

@GrantL
The “just a theory” argument betrays a deep and vast ignorance of science. You use the word hear as a “guess.” Evolution is just a guess. This is not what a theory is in science. A theory explains the facts, in sort. It is an explanation so supported by the evidence (which includes things like observations, experimental data, mathematical laws etc etc) that it is given provisional acceptance as the “truth” (provisional because new data may change our understanding.)
—It is rather you, sir, who are mistaken about science.  Theories explain facts with an educated ... what? ... guess.  It is a theory that puts together pieces of information to form a coherent understanding of the data.  This link (which advocates evolution) supports this understanding that theories can be bad: http://www.fsteiger.com/theory.html
So because it is a theory, does that make it true?  No.  So you have yet to understand what scientific theory is.  Just because there’s one theory doesn’t make other theories null and void.
So you’ve made a drastic and non-trival error right off the bat. To say “evolution is not proven, it’s just a theory” means you are immediately not going to be taken seriously by anyone who understands science and biology.
—Or by those who think they understand the meaning of words when they don’t.  It isn’t proven, and by what I’ve read, can’t be proven.  Evolution (macro) is NOT fact.  Here’s a website of secular scientists who do not subscribe to evolution: http://www.discovery.org/csc/topQuestions.php

@Arthur,

No offense, but you really don’t see how you are embarrassing yourself and it is truly very sad. I would have enjoyed a good debate. But with you it’s like debating a stubborn 5 year old.

I always recall Michael Novak’s prescient comment on atheists (particularly those who hate God):
Mistake Your Own Nature Mistake God
Gathering force over many years, one discovery has hit me with the force of a law: If you make mistakes about your own nature, you will make as many mistakes about God, and quite properly then, reject what your inquiries put before you. The god you fantasize will appear to you not very great, a delusion, a snare from which others ought to be freed. You will despise this god.

This piece is trash.  If an actual reasoned logical argument existed for your belief system, there would be no other thing you need to do except present it.  The problem, of course, is that there are not well reasoned logical arguments for your specific superstitious belief system.  Instead we have mountains of heaving and hawing around fallacies and solipsist appeals ... while blame for your own incompetence never actually seems to fall on your own inept argumentation.

“How can I talk to my atheist friend / family member / coworker about the Faith?” If you want to approach this kind of discussion with an open mind, most atheists will gladly talk about why they don’t believe. But if the real question is ‘How do I convert my atheist friend/family member/coworker to MY faith’ then you will be thought of as no different than an evangelist knocking on our doors on early sunday morning - in other words, very unwelcome. Keep it to yourself.

“The god you fantasize will appear to you not very great”

I’m an atheist. I honestly never, ever fantasize about God, I don’t think about God, second guess him, wonder what I’d say if I’d meet him or whatever.

Yes, I’ve heard of him, yes I’ve read some very well crafted stories about him and met people who think he’s real, but I could say the same about Sherlock Holmes. I get through life without hating Sherlock Holmes.

You are wrong in my case. Choose to believe that or not, that’s the truth.

“If we were to accept evolution, the first soul would have been introduced when the first human being existed.”

Is it necessary that a soul can’t be detected scientifically? Obviously, at the moment we don’t have an instrument that can register a soul, but is it even theoretically impossible to have one? If so, why?

How can we tell the difference between something with a soul and without one? Neanderthals were not ‘human beings’ in the sense of being modern homo sapiens. They had ritual burials and, we think, at least some myth traditions. Did they have souls?

If we were to clone a human being, would the clone have a soul and where would it come from? If a perfect computer simulation of a person’s body and mind was made, would it have a soul? How about an artificial person - a robot, android or so on, one that was so advanced it could pass for human?

If it was only people who have souls, and souls of human beings on Earth are so valuable, why did God wait fourteen billion years to introduce people, why did he wait ten billion years for the Earth to start forming? Wouldn’t the Biblical account make more sense? And yet, all the evidence is that the Biblical account is false.

How to approach an atheist about Faith?  There is a simple answer:  Don’t. 

Live your life, let them live their lives, and leave faith out of it.  Faith is a personal thing to each and every person, even for people who share the same belief system, so just leave others alone about your beliefs or lack thereof. 

I have a firm rule:  I don’t try to convince anyone to drop their religion if they don’t try to convince me to join it.

Thomas,

I’m better off just trying to do what seems better for humanity in general than trying to follow some made-up set of rules.
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Let me ask you this…If you are going to “try” to do what “seems” better for humanity, aren’t YOU just making up a set of rules…aren’t YOU deciding what is right for humanity?  I mean, have at it, but don’t you think it’s a little hypocritical to say that rather than follow some made-up set of rule, you’ll just go off and make up a set of rules to follow?  When you promote contraception, abortion, same sex marriage, etc, aren’t you doing exactly what you are accusing us of doing?  Deciding what is morally “right” for the rest of society and fighting to make it happen?
*
You’re rules say “Contraception for Everyone, even better if it’s free”
My rules say “Contraception is an illusion and a way for people follow their passions while playing sexual Russian roulette.
You’re rules say “Abortion is a perfectly viable choice if a woman doesn’t want a child”
My rules say “If a woman doesn’t want a child it is best if she control her passions until such a time as she is willing or able to accept the consequences of her choice”
Etc…
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But aren’t they both “sets of rules” and aren’t they both “made-up” and don’t we both impose them on the other halves of society?

@Arthur Dhanagom…

BWHAHAHAHA! Did you ACTUALLY just link to the bloody Discovery Institute (which runs the CSC) and call it a secular organization? Are you SERIOUS!? This is an organization whose stated goal is to make creationism the standard paradigm of all cultural thought and “re-christianize” America. They are theocrats whose scientific ideas have been totally debunked. The entire organization was started by a creationist lawyer. Their organized was exposed for the sham that it is several years ago, not to mention very dramatically during the Dover trail when a CATHOLIC biologist Ken Miller disassembled and demolished the entire DI movement.

Seriously, Arthur, you just stepped on a landmine. So you don’t know what a scientific theory, you use a term (marco-evolution) that is only used in creationist circles and then you link to the Discovery Institute’s website to demonstrate you are right? I tell you what, why don’t you also link to Ken Ham’s “Answers in Genesis” to provide evidence that the T-rex lived with Adam and Eve.

Evolution by natural selection is both a theory and a fact. People who know science understand this. People who want to say the sky god did it magically, don’t. And most of them, like you, wear their ignorance proudly.

The fact that you cannot get around the idea that in science a theory is a very specific thing and not “a guess” educated or otherwise was bad enough. Linking to exposed creationists who for years lied about their intentions just makes you look ridiculous.

As an atheist, I found this article to be highly dubious.  First, you (correctly) point out that many atheists don’t feel that something is missing in their lives, but then contradict yourself by claiming that when you were an atheist you did have such a feeling and that other atheists might share it.  It can’t be a myth if its true, so which is it?Your third point is factually wrong.  According to the latest Pew Survey, one in ten Americans is an ex-Cathloic, which would seem to indicate that they actually do know something about Catholic theology and just don’t find it very persuasive.  You also talk about “showing Christ” to atheists by being nice, except that being nice isn’t particular to Catholics, or any other religion for that matter.  Anyone can be nice, regardless of their religion.  If a Muslim or a Hindu or a Bhuddist is nice to me, does it follow that their religion made them nice or that it’s the correct path to spiritual enlightenment?  Correlation does not prove causation.  Being nice is the default expectation we hold for other people.  Nice Catholics aren’t doing anything exceptional by being nice, let alone proving anything to anyone about their religion.  Lastly is the power of prayer, your fifth point.  I’m surprised that the lingering popularity of this idea among religious people since there is no reliable evidence that it’s done anything at all.  The only support people have for it is hearsay, someone who prayed for something and then it happened.  How is it supposed to convert atheists?  Presumably, God, if he existed, could reveal himself to the entire world and convince everyone, if he wanted to, eliminating atheists entirely.  That he doesn’t implies that he doesn’t want to, or that he doesn’t exist.  In either case, prayer seems a pretty futile gesture in the face of rising irreligion.  Maybe Catholics try hauling out some evidence instead.

More hilarity from Arthur: “Just because there’s one theory doesn’t make other theories null and void.”

Well no. You could, I suppose have two competing theories about a particular phenomenon. This almost never happens. Why? because for something to be accepted as a scientific theory it has to explain said phenomenon in a specific manner that explains the data. It has to have specific elements, for instance, it has to be predictive. That is the theory has to tell us what a particular phenomenon will do next, or what we should find next. If it fails on this count, the theory dies. QED.

Your notion here is so wrong. For instance, you could say to me that the theory of gravity is not true, because other theory - which is not null and void just because everyone else accepts gravity - is that things don’t fly off the either because god built a machine in the earth’s core which keeps everyone from flying off into space. That’s your “theory.” That is not a theory. That, aside from being stupid, is AT BEST a hypothesis.

Your problem, among many it would seem, is that you don’t know the difference (in science) between a scientific theory (including what it is and what it does) a hypothesis (a proposed and untested explanation of a phenomena) and a plain old educated guess. You appear to take them to mean the same thing, which pretty much makes you look utterly uneducated.

I am curious.  This is for anyone.  Many of you have said that you have read many “Catholic” books, and are well versed in Catholic Teaching.  Not for the sake of these arguments, but out of curiosity (I help out with our R.C.I.A program and it’s really hard to look at the Faith through eyes that aren’t “in” it) so it would be helpful…and I’m asking sincerely…if we could take one controversial teaching and tell me your understanding of why the Church teaches as she does.  I don’t want to talk about abortion, because I don’t want this to get emotional…so could we take contraception? 
*
Would any of you be willing to tell me your understanding of why the Church is against contraception?  I’d really like to “See” the Church through your eyes.  Please don’t give me all the reasons we’re “wrong”.  I’ve heard those.  I just want to hear your version of why we think it is wrong…anyone?

You are correct that 1, 2, and 3 are not applicable to atheists.  4 is true: we can be convinced by arguments alone - but they have to be /good/ arguments, not this lame, god of the gaps stuff that idiots like William Lane Craig peddles.  5 is true (atheists are immune to prayer, largely because prayer is little more than intention without action), unless we know about it.  See, if we /know/ you’re “praying for us”, we’re likely to be annoyed and more than a little awkward.

GrantL,

You appear to take them to mean the same thing, which pretty much makes you look utterly uneducated.
*
Is that a bad thing?  I mean you say that with such derision, as if being “educated” means something.  If you think you “know” something that someone else doesn’t, wouldn’t it benefit both parties if you were to explain it?  I mean, I’m here to listen as well as talk, and if you are here to do the same, then by all means, educate me.  But don’t insult me just because I don’t know something that you do.  Ignorance is nothing to be ashamed of as long as you are open to new ideas.  After all, at one time, you too were uneducated, right?  Til someone taught you?

mk;

That comment was directed at Arthur not you….unless Arthur is acting as a sock puppet.

In any case, one can tolerate ignorance to a point - as you say, everyone starts from someplace and yes, we don’t know everything and yes, we need to learn.

My issue is Arthur is that he is parroting some pretty standard creationist nonsense and trying to pass it off as science. He is redefining what a scientific theory is and not even accepting that he is wronger than two left shoes. In my experience, these are people who know they are effectively just making up stuff, know what science actually says, but want to change what science is in order to make it fit their religious beliefs. That he linked to a Discovery Institute website is pretty clear evidence of this.

Certainly, there are Catholics (again I point to Ken Miller) who are both believers and scientists. And there is a general level of scientific ignorance in society right now that is just awful, given how important science is to everything from economic policy, to national defense, to health care. As a society, we cannot even hope to make decisions about these things if we are ignorant of the facts.

Grant,

I know the comment was aimed at Arthur.  I’m a 52 year old woman that has just now begun college.  I have taken all of 3 courses.  I’m so uneducated I can’t even begin to tell you.  I’m bound to make mistakes and if it weren’t for the patience of teachers, fellow students and the like, I wouldn’t be able to continue.  Making mistakes is part of the process.  Sorry if I jumped in where I wasn’t wanted, but I just had to say something as your comment hit home.  I remember the first time (on a prolife blog) that I cited the “Elliot” institute and was told in no uncertain terms that I was an idiot.  I learned from that mistake and wouldn’t dream of using anything other than the Guttmacher institute now.  The lesson was learned, but I still remember the sting.  I could have learned the same lesson without the bite…
*
Anyway, sorry for interrupting…

Grant,

While I’ve got you…who is this Ken Miller?

You are giving out poor advice here, on pretty much every point.

Point 1: You are indicating that Atheists don’t know they are missing something but that they actually are and they need some Christians to lead them to that thing. This is absolutely wrong. It is christians that are missing something, an adult view of the world. How arrogant of you to assert that you know what I need. You are ignorant and apparently proud of it.

Point 2: Of course Atheists don’t take the Bible seriously. You are at least correct in saying that your ancient “holy” book is not trusted by people who can think, you fail by not going on to say that it is painfully obvious that no one should.

Point 3: Why would the children who follow the child molesters and monsters of the Catholics think that anyone outside their depraved cult would know anything about the nuances of their particular brand of delusion? Again, a stunning combination of ignorance and arrogance.

Point 4: You are completely wrong. A person does need to check his rationality at the door to be a catholic or any other kind of theist. It’s just that simple. To believe in a being in the sky that loves us, is ultimately good, is omniscient and omnipotent, yet punishes those that love him for all eternity is the act of either a child, a madman or a fool.

Point 5: Atheists are in fact immune to the power of prayer. Everyone is. It has no power. It is more stupid delusion.

Keep your opinions to yourself you stupid little person. They are worthless.

mk, no need to apologize and good for you for going to college! :-)

Ken Miller is a biologist in the United States. He is one of those rare scientists who can explain science so that lay people can get it, much like Carl Sagan did for astronomy. He is able to clearly explain evolutionary science even to those with little or not science background. This is rate because scientists tend to speak in jargon and are often not that great and communicating to non-science people.

Anyway, he is also notable because he is a devote Catholic. While this seems curious to people like me, it does show that a really smart person can also be a believer. The big thing with Miller, it is worth noting, is that when it comes to the physical world, science wins. If there is a perceived conflict between the bible and science when it comes to describing the physical world, the bible is always put aside, which is as it should be.

You can find some of his lectures on Youtube.

Oh boy, here we go:

1) Science is just faith: Wrong. Faith is trust in something untestable. Science is not faith mainly because we can do science. If you think relativity is wrong, you can hypothesize why then create an experiment to test the hypothesis. In a way, science uses man’s competitive nature against one another, to ensure they don’t act falsely and that they keep one another in check. That’s why we trust peer review, because it’s an agreement from various sources on one fact. Faith, however, requires that everyone think in the same manner, and therefor stifles questioning and doubt.

2) Through my experience…: Let me tell you something about the universe. It doesn’t care about you. Not one bit. When you are gone, it will go on. Your experience does not change the truth of a situation, unless your experience can be replicated, tested and observed to be true by ALL observers.

3) The odds don’t allow it…: For anyone who studies astronomy, they can tell you that long odds are what our universe is made of. Besides, what’s the longer odds? That naturalistic causes worked out on one planet out of billions of planets around one sun out of billions of suns in one galaxy out of billions of galaxies? Or that an effect with no cause, a mysterious deity that is both in and out of reality, with no beginning or definition, created everything for one race of animal on one planet near one star in a spiral arm?

“Once you remove the impossible, whatever is left, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”—Holmes.

I find nothing wrong with faith, until it tries to exert itself over everyone, especially those who don’t accept it. Keep your faith out of our science, and we’ll leave you to your churches and your crosses.

Grant,
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Thank you so much. He sounds awesome.  I have a hard time with science for exactly the reasons you stated…the jargon.  Yeah, I’ve always been taught that science and the Faith cannot contradict each other.  Science, being what it is, must be taken as it is, and if our Faith appears to contradict it, then you have to relook at your faith.  Somewhere, someone, misinterpreted something.  Benedict and JPII are two more Catholics that had/have brilliant minds, tho in different fields.
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I’m going to look him up on youtube.  I have an understanding of the theory of evolution, and don’t really see a conflict between it and the Faith.  But I’d really like to know more.  Sitting in a philosophy class with a bunch of twenty years olds who speak of evolution as if it was a close personal friend…well, let’s just say that THAT makes me feel uneducated!
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Sometimes it’s not what you know that makes you seem uneducated, but what you “think” you know.  Which is why conversations like the ones on this blog can be so helpful.  I figure there are as many reasons for being an atheist or a Catholic as there are atheists and Catholics, and making sweeping generalizations can be counterproductive if you really want to learn anything.  I mean, yes, of course you guys pretty much all want empirical proof, and yes basically, each of us has taken a leap of faith, but beyond that, there are probably thousands upon thousands of stories…all worth hearing.
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We’re really aren’t all that different.  You, I’m sure, believe in truth, justice, love, goodness, hope etc.  So do we.  We just give it a name…God.  But the bottom line is that I think all of us want to see more mercy, less war, more love, less anger, more goodness, less sorrow…If we could only talk about how to achieve this without letting our own egos get in the way…*sigh*...ahhhh, human nature.  What are ya gonna do?

If prayer is so powerful stop send missionaries and bibles all around the world, stay home and pray for more converts - let your god and jesus find kids without your help.

“Gathering force over many years, one discovery has hit me with the force of a law: If you make mistakes about your own nature, you will make as many mistakes about God”

Sorry, I raised an objection to this yesterday, but re-reading it ... are you saying you *don’t* make mistakes about your own nature? That you have a perfect understanding or ‘your nature’?

Is this just a coded piece of circular logic ‘I think God wants people to be my religion, so I call that “natural” and any deviation from that “unnatural” and therefore I’m right’. In which case ... well, I think this ‘law’ you’ve discovered might need repealing.

I make mistakes, I have many mistaken beliefs, there are many things I don’t know at all. If someone disagrees with me, I try to work out why, and if they’re right, I’ll change my mind.

Atheists are not the ones claiming to be plugged into infallible sources of absolute moral truth that just so happen to coincide with all their prejudices.

“Your rules say “Contraception for Everyone, even better if it’s free”
My rules say “Contraception is an illusion and a way for people follow their passions while playing sexual Russian roulette.”

OK - I agree with the first one. As an atheist, I’m not saying that this is the decree of an omniscient being, the one who created the universe, and who will send you to Hell for all eternity for disobeying. Are you saying that your rules are equally just your own opinion, reached solely from your own judgment and experience?

You talk about ‘choice’. Women now have the choice of control over when they have children. The vast majority of women - Catholic or not - in full consultation with their partners, do this by using contraception. To deny contraception is to deny the choice.

If I was to tell you that although seatbelts are readily available, you can’t wear one, and if you find your head smashed against a dashboard, that’s your choice for ‘playing Russian Roulette’, what would you think?

If this rule only applied to men, and it was drummed into them from an early age by non-driving women, but ones who claimed that God had made the rule, would that make it more plausible or less plausible?

I’m not even sure what ‘contraception is an illusion’ means. I think it probably means you don’t know much about contraception. Is it 100% effective - well, study after study has proved that condoms lead to far fewer pregnancies than telling girls to cross their legs.

Steve,
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Someone in an earlier comment made a very significant observation.  We all come to accept what we see as Truth based on our experiences.  In science it is repeatable experiences, but still experiences.  For us, it is also experiences.  I understand the frustrating on your part due to our lack of ability to “prove” that our experiences are real and not imagined, but that in itself is not proof that they aren’t.  What I am trying to say, is that even though it wouldn’t fall into your criteria for proof, experience IS a proof of sorts.  WE have experienced it.  We know what we have experienced.  Much like love, it is something personal, intangible, unexplainable, certainly unprovable, yet very real to the person experiencing it.
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You guys often simply dismiss our experiences as silly or inconsequential, but that is akin to dismissing someones marriage because YOU don’t love their partner.  See?  It is your experience that there is nothing supernatural out there.  And that must be respected, because it is your experience.  But our experiences should also be respected.  They don’t have to be provable, and they most likely won’t sway your opinion, but they really shouldn’t simply be dismissed as fantasy simply because you have not shared them.

“I have an understanding of the theory of evolution, and don’t really see a conflict between it and the Faith.  But I’d really like to know more.”

Read The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins, an account of evolution that’s written precisely as a beginner’s guide. Yes, Dawkins is an atheist, and, yes, he addresses some creationist accounts to dismiss them. It also addresses other things like ‘evolution’s just a theory’ and so on. But this is a straightforward introduction to the current scientific model of evolution. $9 from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Greatest-Show-Earth-Evidence-Evolution/dp/1416594795/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1300539054&sr=8-1

Steve,
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OK - I agree with the first one. As an atheist, I’m not saying that this is the decree of an omniscient being, the one who created the universe, and who will send you to Hell for all eternity for disobeying. Are you saying that your rules are equally just your own opinion, reached solely from your own judgment and experience?
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In a way, yes.  I have judged, from my own experience and using my reasoning skills, that this is the Truth.  That I believe it came from God is not the point.  Religion must be based on Truth, or you are right, it is just fantasy.  This is why Socrates was right when he asked “Is a thing good because the Gods say so, or do the God’s say so, because it is the Truth?”  We have to ask, when it comes to these types of questions, “Is it True because the Catholic Church says so, or does the Catholic Church say so, because it is True”?  This is why the Church tells us that the final “judge” in a moral matter, must be the person’s own well formed conscience.  (Well formed being key here…)
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I was not always a practicing Catholic (although I was raised Catholic) but I have always been pro life and against contraception.  They just never “Felt” right to me.  I was only 12 when Roe v Wade happened and I remember being horrified!  And contraception always gave me the willies. 
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But the thing is, no one is forbidding or trying to forbid anyone from using contraception. The Church has no power there.  She speaks out, but she has no power to enforce her beliefs.  Simply saying that She has good reason to believe that contraception is harmful both to the bodies and souls of women is not the same as forcing people to stop using contraception.  Abortion is a different thing.  A life is involved and every citizen, Catholic or Atheist should be standing up for those lives…not because the church says so, but because we are a civilized society and we must protect our most vulnerable members.  Abortion is barbaric and goes against everything good in human nature.  It embraces the most selfish, base parts of who we are.  In short, it is and should be considered criminal.  Whereas homosexuality and contraception are immoral, but not criminal. 
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Even in countries in Africa, where the Church speaks out against contraception, She is not advocating criminalizing it.  She is just saying that there is a better way.  A greater good. Believing that is more responsible to abstain, and if you don’t, to accept the consequences of your actions is meant to appeal to the highest nature in a human being.  We live in a culture where we believe that changing the consequences instead of our actions is the preferable path.  But we believe we are better than that and deserve more.  I understand that doesn’t compute where you are sitting, because if you don’t believe in the soul you won’t believe developing it, but we do.  So from where we are sitting, it is in humanities best interest that we reach higher than we are at the present moment.
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And of course that all comes down to our personal experiences and reasoning skills.  Just as your beliefs do.

“But our experiences should also be respected.  They don’t have to be provable, and they most likely won’t sway your opinion, but they really shouldn’t simply be dismissed as fantasy”

I don’t dismiss, it does frustrate me, and I’ll be perfectly honest and say I do find it a little disingenuous.

As I said about the soul - *why* isn’t it possible to prove it? We’ve got consistent models of the big bang and quantum particles with predictive power - is that really easier to detect than a soul? Why? The Catholic church was hugely pro-science during the Rennaissance, confidently asserting that however hard anyone looked, God’s design would be the only game in town. It’s only since better models than theirs came along that they’ve retreated into faith. Why would the last Pope admonish Stephen Hawking for studying the beginning of the universe? If the Vatican was confident God was there, why wouldn’t they raise billions of dollars to fund Hawking’s research? They did the equivalent five hundred years ago.

The reason I call it disingenuous - if I haven’t the foggiest, I don’t worship the fog. Saying ‘it’s a mystery’ or ‘I can’t prove it’ or ‘I know this is my experience’ ... to me, my impulse is ‘solve, prove, verify’. Saying ‘it’s a mystery’ or ‘oh, it’s the divine will’ isn’t an answer, it’s the avoidance of one.

Steve,
Thanks for the suggestion.  I think I’ll start with Ken Miller first, and then perhaps look at Dawkins.  (lol…visiting the “enemy camp: *shiver*)
But if, as you say, it is a fairly unbiased account, I’m open to it.  I personally hate the idea that we came from apes, but I’m not so full of pride that I can’t admit that my “Feelings” have nothing to do with it. If we came from apes, we came from apes. 
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Someone earlier asked how we reconcile that with the whole Adam and Eve thing, and the response was that we believe “humanity” began with one man and one woman, (tho their names might have been Mildred and Henry).  It’s not that we believe that there were no humans and then God created two of them, as much as He breathed His “Spirit” into one man and one woman at some point in time.  I know that sounds nuts to you, but as I’ve said, we have “experienced” that “Spirit”.  To us, it is just part of what we believe we have come in contact with.  It’s “happened” to us.  I can’t prove that it was anything other than my imagination, but billions of people have “experienced” the same thing.  Even if you don’t think it is “God” at some point you have to look at the phenomenon itself and ask “If it ISN’T God, then what is it”?  It’s affected too many people to simply be written off as mass delusion.  Don’t you think?

Steve,
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They did the equivalent five hundred years ago.

The reason I call it disingenuous - if I haven’t the foggiest, I don’t worship the fog. Saying ‘it’s a mystery’ or ‘I can’t prove it’ or ‘I know this is my experience’ ... to me, my impulse is ‘solve, prove, verify’. Saying ‘it’s a mystery’ or ‘oh, it’s the divine will’ isn’t an answer, it’s the avoidance of one.

lol…I understand your frustration.  It’s frustrating to us too.  We desperately want to be able to prove it to you.  At least I do.  I mean, on the one hand, I have this experience, that is as real to me as my own hand, and on the other, I have half the world telling me I’m crazy or deluded because I can’t prove it.  “I don’t know” is never a satisfying answer, but at least it’s an honest one.  I simply don’t know why I can’t prove what the soul is.  It really is a mystery, to me as well as to you, and it frustrates me too.  I imagine it’s what schizophrenics feel when they hallucinate and can see things and hear things that no one else can.  I don’t have an answer.  I can’t tell you how much I wish I did.  I know who I was before I came to accept the Church, and I know who I am now.  It’s still the same person, but I’m different also.  I’m not saying you would be different.  I can’t know that.  I only know that I am more honest with myself and others, more giving, more at peace.  Could that have been achieved without God?  I can’t say. 
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I’ve always had a bent for the supernatural…so maybe it was easy for me to simply trade in my tarot cards for God.  Maybe I’ll die and that will be it.  Maybe I’m one of those people who so badly WANTS to believe that I do believe.  But if there is one thing I think we can both agree on, it’s that we must be true to ourselves and my self tells me that I have found something…something more precious (to me at least) than Gollums ring.  I wish I could offer more.  I really do.  It would make it a whole lot easier, wouldn’t it?

Oh and as for the Church backing science…I just don’t know enough about science and what the Church’s stance on it today is.  I’d need more information on how they are blocking it…?

“Even if you don’t think it is “God” at some point you have to look at the phenomenon itself and ask “If it ISN’T God, then what is it”?  It’s affected too many people to simply be written off as mass delusion.  Don’t you think?”

To an extent. And I’m aware that talking about people’s personal beliefs is touchy, particularly when you’re telling them you think they’re wrong.

I accept I am wrong about all sorts of things I’ve seen and all sorts of things I remember, let alone about abstract concepts. I’ve been fooled by magic tricks, optical illusions, tricks of the light and so on. For that matter, I’ve been fooled by people who I thought liked me or disliked me, or were being honest or whatever. On the whole, while I think I’m of sound mind and relatively good judgment, I don’t think I’m infallible. I think I’m ‘ordinary’ in that respect, whatever that word means.

The ‘so many people believe’ argument ... even today, most people alive aren’t monotheists. In some countries, like the UK and the Scandinavian countries, the majority are non-believers. Few countries have clear Catholic majorities. And, across history, what counts as divine to some cultures has been so abhorrent that Christians tried to stamp it out. If ‘so many Aztecs believed’ in human sacrifice, did that make it right?

I think when religious people say ‘most people have some sense of the divine’, it’s a little disingenuous - we can see prehistoric ritual objects, but they were shamanistic and about animal spirits and idols - the exact opposite of what the Catholic church teaches today. It’s a bit like saying everyone has an instinctive sense of BMWs and then pointing to Egyptians in chariots.

I think a good analogy is that there’s definitely a ‘UFO phenomenon’. But it doesn’t mean there are aliens coming down in flying saucers to tell us to be nice to each other - the *phenomenon* is that millions of people *believe* they’ve seen a a UFO.

Are they right? Well ... investigations suggest that virtually all of the strange lights in the sky can be easily accounted for, that people are easily fooled by tricks of the light. Many are faked for profit and other advantage. Some remain mysterious ... but I think we need to be wary of those, too. I am sure that some people are absolutely, 100% sincere in their belief they’ve seen a UFO. I don’t think their *honesty* affects *reality*. They did see an alien or they didn’t. Whether they think they did is decoupled from that.

I think the ‘UFO phenomenon’ is psychological, basically. I think it’s fascinating, interesting, ‘real’ and so on. I think it tells us a great deal about how humans see the world, almost nothing about whether aliens have come here in flying saucers.

Personally, I think it’s unlikely that, looking at the size and age of the universe, that we’re on the only planet with life on it. I think there is alien life, I’m more than 99% confident there is. Do I have faith in it? No, I don’t think so. Do I have personal experience? Absolutely not. Is it because of the movies I saw when I was a kid? To some extent, and definitely to the extent that it provides me with a vocabulary and images to work with. Do I think it’s likely I’ll know the answer in my lifetime? Possible, but probably not.

I believe in something, in other words, for which there is no, or extremely faulty evidence.

But my instinct is - OK, build telescopes, scan the heavens, try to figure out where aliens might be, how they might work, how we might communicate.

My instinct is to gather evidence, to test, to try to find out. Not to say it’s unknowable or the aliens work in mysterious ways, or to beam messages out asking some passing alien doctors to come down to cure a friend’s illness.

I think, basically, religion can be treated the same way. Why doesn’t Hubble see God when it looks at the early universe? Why do we have monkey DNA if we’re not monkeys? Medical statistics is an incredibly advanced art at this point, and they weigh all sorts of factors behind medical outcomes. Why is it that prayer simply has no detectable effect on outcomes? These seem like fair questions, not ones that are out of bounds or which it’s impolite to ask.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/cwgbmheyeyey/

That’s the specific instance of the Pope asking Stephen Hawking not to explore the very beginning of the universe.

The Vatican supports science. I’m not saying it doesn’t. I’m saying that it sometimes draws lines in a way that makes it look uncomfortable with what might be revealed.

“By basics I mean, there is a God, and He is Jesus Christ.”

Now, what I would say to your statement is ... that goes beyond basics. If I say ‘something is identical to itself’, that’s pretty basic. But I don’t know whether you mean that ‘Jesus Christ’ is the one described in the Bible and apostolic tradition, or just the Bible, or the one in the Book of Mormon, or the one from The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, or some version that we are only dimly aware of that all of these are reaching for.

When Jesus says in the Bible that mustard seeds are the smallest seeds found in nature ... well, are they? Any gardener can tell you that there appear to be seeds smaller than mustard seeds. Was the Bible wrong? Did Jesus make a mistake? Are those not seeds? Elsewhere, the Bible says bats are a type of bird. Christian fundamentalists insist that scientists have it wrong - bats are not mammals, they’re birds, it says so in the Bible. Is that the case?

Now, one obvious thing to point out, and obviously plenty of people have pointed this out in the past, is that in the Biblical account Jesus makes predictions that fail to occur. The most famous: Jesus says he’ll die and rise after three days. He dies at 9am on Friday, Mary discovers the tomb either before or at dawn on Sunday. However you cut it, that’s less than *two* days.

None of this rules out Jesus existing. But how do you reach this conclusion, how would you test it? What, exactly, does it mean that Jesus exists, if it can’t mean ‘as described in the Bible’? His predictions aren’t accurate, he doesn’t know about seeds and so on, that’s all fairly trivial - OK, did he create the universe? How far from the Biblical account of creation can we stray? 

What does ‘God exists and he is Jesus Christ’ actually mean? What’s negotiable and what isn’t?

@TrueSkeptic
—I’m sorry you are beyond arguing rationally.  To simply say that I am wrong and embarrassing myself is actually quite ignorant on your own end, but if I were an atheist, I suppose I would have just as much patience too ... what good is it to convince someone else I’m right?  It’s not going to ever matter.—

@GrantL
BWHAHAHAHA! Did you ACTUALLY just link to the bloody Discovery Institute (which runs the CSC) and call it a secular organization? Are you SERIOUS!? This is an organization whose stated goal is to make creationism the standard paradigm of all cultural thought and “re-christianize” America.
—Okay, this is just sadly an ad hominem argument ... not really worth refuting as there is nothing to refute, although to make it clear, it says nothing about making creationism the standard paradigm of all cultural thought, etc. ... you totally made that up.  In fact, here is verbatum what the CSC has as one of its objectives:
“encourages schools to improve science education by teaching students more fully about the theory of evolution, including the theory’s scientific weaknesses as well is its strengths.” WHOA!  Did you see that? :-)—

“They are theocrats whose scientific ideas have been totally debunked.”

—Oh, okay.  You said so ... that’s evidence enough for me!  Do you think that holds up in argumentation?!—

“The entire organization was started by a creationist lawyer.”

—So we have to be evolutionists to be fair minded?  What?!—

Their organized was exposed for the sham that it is several years ago, not to mention very dramatically during the Dover trail when a CATHOLIC biologist Ken Miller disassembled and demolished the entire DI movement.

—Oh, okay.  Because a judge agreed with evolutionists, this must be true?!  Your logic is faulty, Grant ... can’t you see this?—
Seriously, Arthur, you just stepped on a landmine. So you don’t know what a scientific theory, you use a term (marco-evolution) that is only used in creationist circles
—okay, so that makes the term invalid?—
and then you link to the Discovery Institute’s website to demonstrate you are right? I tell you what, why don’t you also link to Ken Ham’s “Answers in Genesis” to provide evidence that the T-rex lived with Adam and Eve.
Evolution by natural selection is both a theory and a fact.
—Nope ... no matter how many times you say it, scientific theory does not equal fact!  Any scientist KNOWS this!—
People who know science understand this. People who want to say the sky god did it magically, don’t. And most of them, like you, wear their ignorance proudly.
—Wow, you’re trying to hit below the belt.  Angry lately?  I trust that scientists who have studied much are on both sides of the argument, but you seem to be a bit hasty with coming to conclusions.
The fact that you cannot get around the idea that in science a theory is a very specific thing and not “a guess” educated or otherwise was bad enough. Linking to exposed creationists who for years lied about their intentions just makes you look ridiculous.
—They lie about their intentions?  I suppose you have read their minds and told them what they think?  Could you give some evidence of their falsehood?—

It really and truly puzzles me, Grant, to see you argue this way when you could do better.  Atheists, I am told, are reasonable, and will listen to reason.  What’s more reasonable than logic?  Evolution does not provide all the answers.  It has many gaps to fill.  There is no evidence of one species evolving into another.  There is no evidence that life could just begin on its own.  Science (natural science, that is) seems to bring about more questions than it has answers for. 

@Steve
Evidence of the immaterial must be reasoned to a posteriori, that is from effects to cause.  This is because the cause cannot be experienced through our five senses (by definition).  Now we observe in our experience that humans can form ideas, which are immaterial and universal and eternal (they aren’t physical and therefore aren’t subject to corruption).  Now all things act according to their being (that is to say, something cannot do what it is by its nature incapable of doing).  Because humans have this ability to harness and contain the immortal, it follows that our souls are also immortal.  This is a demonstration of the human soul.

@Steve
Both statements are negotiable ... I’m saying that those are the basic facts that atheists and me disagree about.  Perhaps we need to go further back, but I’m thinking it a good place to start.  I don’t care what the Bible says at this point ... as I’ve made it clear before, I AGREE that if these first two statements are false (God exists and Jesus is God), then Catholicism is a bunch of balogna.  But let’s put first things first and talk about where we agree and go towards where we disagree.  Answer this question, if you don’t mind:  Do you agree that we (humans) can trust our senses (the five)?  Do we experience reality?

Personally, I think it’s unlikely that, looking at the size and age of the universe, that we’re on the only planet with life on it. I think there is alien life, I’m more than 99% confident there is. Do I have faith in it? No, I don’t think so.
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That’s it right there…you don’t have belief.  You have opinion.  BUT, if you were to have that personal experience, believe that you encountered alien life, in addition to your opinion that it stands to reason there is life outside of ours, then you mmight cross over into belief, right?  That’s what Kant was saying.  That opinion is just a feeling, but belief is confirmed opinion.  Not yet proof, but good enough to be trusted.  You could still be wrong, but you might make the choice to go with what you believe you saw.  This would be Faith coupled with Reason…
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Plus, while no one has yet found proof of aliens, they are investigating because it IS noteworthy.  Not to mention that so many of those stories are eerily alike, coming from a hugely diverse group of people.  Proof? No, not yet.  But with no more proof than I am offering, you are of the “opinion” that it might be true.  Which is more than you give God.  Not saying you should give Him more, just saying that if it’s unreasonable for us to do so, then it should be equally unreasonable for you to do, given your criteria. 
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As for the BMW example…I don’t think that’s a good one.  I think it would be better to say that people wanted to “move”, so they invented chariots.  BMW is too much like one particular religion.  Also, you allow for man to evolve in other areas (the mind, the body, societies) why not in religious areas?  Why can’t it be that as time has gone on our view of God has also evolved?  Yes, there are still religions that believe in pantheism, but then there are still people who believe in creationism.  The phenomenon is not that there is a specific God, but that there is a “desire” for any God at all.  Even in those cave drawings, we see what might be called an innate knowledge of “something” else.  Certainly an innate “desire” for something else. I just don’t think you can throw that away.
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One of the problems I find in these arguments is that it really boils to one thing…Is there an objective moral law or isn’t there.  If there is, then it begs the question “From what mind does this Law originate”.  If there isn’t, then why do so many men believe the same things throughout time….ie that murder is wrong.  Rape is wrong…(Note,they don’t believe all of the same things at any given time, but no society has ever not believed ANY of them.  At least not that I know of)
and the other problem is that of free will.  If we are pure brain, matter, cells, genes, etc, and we are simply prisoners of our mental faculty then how can we have free will?  If our brains/bodies are only “some” of what makes us, us, then what is the rest?  Do our brains control us?  Or do we control our brains?  If it’s the latter, then who is this “we”?
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Steve,
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The above post was meant for you too..
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Why do we have monkey DNA if we’re not monkeys?
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Don’t you think an equally important questions is why do monkeys have human DNA if they aren’t humans?  I mean, why did they just “stop” evolving?  If we come from the same stuff, why are we who we are and they are who they are?  I’m sure there is an answer, I just haven’t watched your videos yet, but it has always struck me as odd that the ape only got as far as he did…
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That’s the specific instance of the Pope asking Stephen Hawking not to explore the very beginning of the universe.
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That was the Irish Examiners version Stephen Hawkings version of what JPII said.  I’m not saying it’s wrong, I’m just wondering about the context.  It sounds out of character for the man.  But I could sure see that people would take it as it was intended to come across.  I don’t think any serious Catholic would have a problem with Stephen Hawkings work (his conclusions maybe, if they were based on preconceived prejudices towards atheism, but not if they were fair).  The Truth, after all is WHY we believe.  If it’s not true, I want off. 
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Steve,

When Jesus says in the Bible that mustard seeds are the smallest seeds found in nature
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But Jesus never said that.  He simply said we should have Faith LIKE a mustard seed.  Sunday school teachers are the ones that threw in the “smallest seed” scenario.  Jesus’ only point was that something very tiny could still have a large effect.
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As for which Jesus…well, the most valid sources would come from those who knew him personally, or knew those who knew Him personally.  Which would mean the Gospels and the apostolic succession up to a point.  The Mormons wouldn’t even enter into it.  And we certainly don’t adhere to Sola Scriptura. Neither are we fundamentalists. If it claims that bats are birds (I’m not familiar with this) then obviously the writer got it wrong.  Or was using poetic license. I’d have to see the passage to tell you which.  But the bible is not meant to be a biology text book. 
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The most famous: Jesus says he’ll die and rise after three days. He dies at 9am on Friday, Mary discovers the tomb either before or at dawn on Sunday. However you cut it, that’s less than *two* days.
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I think it’s how you count.  He died (we believe) at 3:00pm.  That means it was still the first day.  Then at sundown the day changes to the next day, what we would call Saturday, then at sundown on Saturday it changes to Sunday which would be the third day.  If the women discover the tomb after dawn then that would count as the three “days” in Jewish “time”.  At least, that’s the way I understand it. 
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Now if you will only accept three 24 hour days in order to be true, you’d have a point…but that is not how we see it.  I could look up the passages to see if the women got there after dawn?
* 
What does ‘God exists and he is Jesus Christ’ actually mean? What’s negotiable and what isn’t?
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LOL…now that my friend is the $60,000 question!  It used to be that all Christians believed the same thing.  Basically what was written in the Creed.  After the anabaptists, Luther and Calvin, that all changed.  Today you have as many different beliefs as you do Christians.  There are 33,000 denominations from the Catholic Church.  I can’t speak for them.  Some believe in the 7 sacraments, some don’t believe in any. Some believe in the Trinity, some don’t.  Some believe Baptism is a must, some don’t.
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I can only speak for Catholics.  We believe in God.  That Jesus is His “son”, also God, that He is actually three persons in one nature (whereas we are 2 natures in one person), that He died, rose, and will come again.  We believe in the True Presence, (God in substance made present in the accidents of bread and wine), along with the Pharisee’s we believe in the resurrection of the body.  We believe that God acts through men in a special way in the priesthood.  (and yes, we believe the priest scandal was HORRIBLE, including the cover ups).  We believe in baptism to remove the sins of our first “parents”.  We believe in heaven/hell and purgatory, the communion of saints, that the Catholic Church is the Church directly established by God, here on earth.  We believe a lot more stuff that is more “theological” than doctrinal, but that about covers it, I think.  Could we be wrong…of course.  But we obviously don’t think so.  It would take forever to run through scripture and show you why, or to read all of the Church fathers…but just the Gospels, the Acts and Pauls letters would give us enough to make it all believable.  Personally, I am always floored when I read Isaiah.  Especially around now, they juxtapose the Gospels with Isaiah readings and it’s astounding how accurate Isaiahs’ prophecies were.
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But I still wouldn’t call this proof.  Not the kind you want anyway.  Evidence, but not proof.

Sorry,
or knew those who knew Him personally.
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That should read “those who knew those who knew Him personally”

Just to let you all know, I think comments here will only go up to 300 and then they close.  At least that’s what happened a few months ago (gotta laugh…I’ve only been to this site to comment on two separate posts and it appears that I have managed to come to the two that filled up and shut down…me and my “big” mouth!

Arthur, sorry it took so long to get back to this:

>“But it seems to me that you are willing to grant the thought that “God exists” is reasonable ... maybe that’s just me, though.”

I suspect we might quibble over the word God.  I’ll concede that we don’t yet have a good understanding of what initiated our universe.  The latest hypothesis is that there might have been a phase prior to the “Big Bang”.  But what caused it all to start?  Don’t know.  Therefore we could hypothesize anything.  You hypothesize a “first cause” which you give the name God.  I hypothesize a race of giant beings living in another dimension who have discovered how to create universes.  We are not the only universe that they have created… there are thousands or even millions.  And they don’t even know we are here.  We are just an accident of chemistry that is below their level of detection.  They created these universes for a different reason and aren’t looking for us nor aware of us.  Would you call these beings “God”?  I wouldn’t.  The word “God” has some specific connotations in the English language and some extremely specific connotations in regard to this blog which is Roman Catholic oriented.  To use that word (God) to signify any process that kick-started our universe is quite a stretch.  If I use the word God I mean it in the generally understood sense of a being who created the world, cares about what happens here and sticks his finger in now and then.  I don’t think that a being like that is reasonable.  And the main reason I say that is (and here we go back to the old mantra) I don’t see any evidence of it.  I don’t see any evidence for the giant beings who create universes either so they and God have exactly the same amount of evidence going for them.  As do 10 million other hypotheses.  Without any evidence whatsoever to go on, I’m holding out.
In the meantime, I do need a set of rules to live by (an ethos).  Something, evolution I suspect, has given me some inate guidelines as well as a brain that can analyze situations.  I can see that a world filled with theft and murder is going to be a difficult place to live.  I can see that a world filled with communities that cooperate with each other is going to be an easier place to live.  The Bible in places has some good advice.  So do other writings; Lao Tse, Confucious, Aesop, Plato.  Considering some of the nasty behavior of God and his minions in the Bible, I find that it is not really the best source for building my ethos.  Those things that it gets right are also found elsewhere.  The golden rule for example is not unique to Christianity.
Bottom line:  no evidence for the Catholic/Christian God and better morals and social guidance to be found elsewhere.  Let’s ring that up as a “NO SALE” ‘cause I’m not buying.

Thomas,
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The word “God” has some specific connotations in the English language and some extremely specific connotations in regard to this blog which is Roman Catholic oriented.  To use that word (God) to signify any process that kick-started our universe is quite a stretch.  If I use the word God I mean it in the generally understood sense of a being who created the world, cares about what happens here and sticks his finger in now and then.
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I think we go with the definition Anselm gave us….”“God is that, more than which cannot be conceived.”
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You’re definition doesn’t fit as something greater than the guys you describe could exist…actually would have to, to explain how they got there.  We actually discussed this up above…there cannot be more than one God.  God must be that which NOTHING can be greater than.  He must also have actual existence and not just potential existence.  More than one God would mean that each had the “potential” to be greater than the others, which would mean that none of them was the greatest thing that could be.  So there can only be One God, and nothing, anywhere, ever, can be greater than Him, by definition.  At least the accepted definition. There are no God definition police, so you’re free to believe what you want. For the sake of a rational argument tho, it helps if everyone is working from the same definition.

mk wrote:
“If you are going to “try” to do what “seems” better for humanity, aren’t YOU just making up a set of rules…aren’t YOU deciding what is right for humanity?”

Quite possibly I didn’t express myself well.  I’m trying not to write a whole book here so in keeping things short I left out a lot of explanation.
I’m not entirely “making up a set of rules”.  Read my response above to Arthur.  I am reading great thinkers of the past, evaluating their reasoning and trying to place it in the context of my present situation.  I don’t always come down on the side of alleviating human suffering.  There are other factors to consider.  But I don’t base my decisions on one hard and fast rule (i.e. the Bible) and say “to hell with my own feelings about this, God says…”.  As an atheist I have the freedom to evaluate the situation, examine some alternatives and choose which action I will support. I’m not locked in by an authoritarian text.  And secondly, unlike most religionists, I’m not out to make everyone else live by the rules that I choose.  I might encourage them; point out the advantages; vote against laws that would limit my choices; but never force them by dint of government to live by my rules.  Abortion is an example:  Under my ethos, abortions would be available but no one would be required to get one.  If your church, Catholic or otherwise, says “no abortions” then fine, you avoid them.  The problem with many Christian churches in America today is that they want to impose the “no abortion” rule on everyone, even those who are members of other religions which have a different set of rules.  That’s why we need strict separation of church and state.  If you want to live by your religious rules, fine.  Just don’t use government to impose them on everyone else.

Thomas,
And secondly, unlike most religionists, I’m not out to make everyone else live by the rules that I choose.  I might encourage them; point out the advantages; vote against laws that would limit my choices; but never force them by dint of government to live by my rules.
*
But of course you do.  You just don’t see it.  You seem to think that “allowing” certain behaviors is not the same as pushing your agenda.  But that’s just not true.  You think because you “allow” women to have abortions you’re not really “Forcing” anyone to have them.  But you backing a law which says it is okay to kill unborn children.  You are just as culpable.  You say you use the vote it get your choices into play, but that IS using the government.  We use that same vote to get them OUT of play. 
*
That’s like saying you didn’t FORCE anyone to have slaves, you just voted for their RIGHT to have them if they wanted.
*
Take sex ed.  In your opinion, all school age children should be taught the merits of contraception.  You think this is best for society and for the kids.  Right now, any child attending public school is going to be exposed to a curriculum that most Catholic parents are sickened by.  Many have pulled their children out of public school and chosen to home school them.  I have chosen to pay outrageous tuition to send mine to Catholic Schools.  I still pay taxes which are used to fund public schools.  So I pay double tuition.  Now where exactly is my choice in all of this.  From my point of view, YOU have used the government to enforce what YOU think is right for MY kids and as a result, I have been FORCED to remove my kids from that system.  Can you honestly say that if the tables were turned, and abstinence only was the ONLY sex ed that was taught in all public schools (by mandate), that you wouldn’t be the first to cry foul…accuse us of jamming our personal agenda down your throat and using the government to do it?  Of course you would.  Abortion, contraception, homosexuality…NONE of these have ANY business whatsoever being taught in the schools.  Start an after school program.  Teach them at non government funded youth programs.  Whatever.  But take them out of the schools.  How fair is it that because you won’t remove these programs, we are “forced” to remove our children?  Parental rights are the rights of parents to raise their children as they see fit.  It is not the governments job to teach our children about things as personal as love, sexual responsibility, or sexual orientations.  Did you know that some countries in the U.N. actually claim there are 9 separate genders?  How am I supposed to fight that?
*
Do you see that you are only seeing your side of the fence?  You don’t believe that you are pushing your agenda on others, but you’re wrong.

@Thomas
I would say that by God I mean not necessarily a person.  I mean the Uncaused Cause (in my demonstration from causes listed above).  Can we agree on this definition of God?  That is, the creator of all existence?
To clarify again, I am simply arguing first that God exists, and, as I’ve said to Steve, this conclusion is only arrived at by an a posteriori method of reasoning for reasons I’ve already listed.  I do not make the claim that Catholicism is the One True Faith yet.  Please, let’s take this argument step by step, otherwise we’ll keep chasing the elusive wild goose.  So can we agree to stick to the topic of God’s existence and leave Christianity out?

I don’t know if I can answer two at once.
mk—
I think that you’ve mistaken my politics.  I don’t think government should be involved in schools at all.  If adults choose to have children then they should pay for their education at the private school of their choice.  That way the parents choose the curriculum.
As for your abortion argument… your paradigm and mine are so different that it’s difficult to have a conversation.  A sperm and an egg meet.  They will, given the right environment, grow into a baby over the course of 9 months.  That’s great if you want a baby (my wife and I have 2, though grown now) but not so great if you aren’t prepared.  You, or at least the religion that you are defending, say that there is something special that happens the moment the sperm and egg unite and that stopping the growth of those cells is “killing”.  In my world, the growth of those cells is no different than the growth of a mole or the “spare tire” around your waist.  They are just body cells and there is no moral reprehension in eliminating them if they are not wanted.  You will think that my position is cold and cruel.  I think your position is silly and inane.  How do we best resolve that?  I go back to my earlier proposal… the government should make no law regarding the issue.  People who are ok with the procedure use it when necessary and people who are opposed to it avoid it religiously.  You will now say, “but I don’t want my tax money to support abortion.”  To which I will say, “I agree whole heartedly.”  The government should not be in the business of taxing us and spending our money in ways that are against our wishes.  So on this topic we have two problems: 1) a government that can be manipulated to pass laws that impose one religion’s rules on people of other religions (or no religion), and 2) a government which takes our money and spends it in ways we don’t approve of.
Oh, and you had an earlier comment about the definition of God.  I still think that Anselm definition is a bunch of meaningless wordplay BUT for the sake of this convesation let’s assume that I suddenly see the light and say “OMG, you’re right.  I totally accept that there is one (and only one) true, supreme, better-than-all-others, omnipotent, first cause GOD.”
Now what?  Now we’re back to where I was with Arthur.  What do I do with this new-found belief?  What does this God want of me, expect of me, require of me?  What am I allowed to do or prohibited from doing?  Do I live by the Hindu rules, the B’hai rules, the Jewish rules?  Do I bow down to Thor, Ganesha, Spider Woman, Mithras, Baal?  Why on Earth would I pick Christianity, much less the Roman Catholic version?  Do you know how the Bible came into being?  Have you ever studied the Council of Nicea… the arguing, the back-stabbing, the hidden agendas?  Do you actually think that a band of nomadic goatherds and sheepherds 3,000 years ago got the God-thing exactly right?  I don’t.  Ring up that “NO SALE” again.  Here I am now, a total believer in this prime-mover God force and I might as well be the atheist I was, making my own analysis and decisions.

Arthur, some of that applies to your latest.  No, I don’t think that we’ve come to an agreement on the definition of God, or god, or gods.  I am probably not the best at responding to your arguments… this is not my normal line of work.  I have read some good responses but I don’t have the thoughts, the words, the reasoning completely memorized such that I can spit it back out in a convincing manner.

Here’s my final entry and then I’ve got to get back to real life:
A couple of years ago the house next door was sold to a new owner.  The lady invited a bunch of the neighbors over for a house warming/blessing party.  We all arrived and were asked to stand in the driveway until the priest had blessed the house.  The priest arrived in formal regalia with a bowl of water and a stick-thingie that looked like a honey dipper.  He dipped it in the bowl, shook some water at the doorway and said some mumbo-jumbo.  While the rest of us waited, the two of them went inside where he apparently did the same to other doorways.  When all of the demons were banished we were allowed to go inside for the party.
Now you want me to believe in, and worship, a supremely powerful being who gives a !@#$% about sprinkling water on doorways?  C’mon!  Ring up that “NO SALE” for the third time.  I’m laughing at this but I’m not in the mood for buying any comedy.

The only proof of God is love and Jesus Christ proved that love.

@Magda

The only proof of love is people looking after each other in an empathetic and caring way, we evolved that love because it helps us survive more effectively by co-operating in groups, that does not make it any less wonderful. I am an Atheist, but my love for my wife exists nonetheless, my love for our families likewise. Giving the credit for good actions to another (plausibly non-existent) being just seems a little unfair, it takes effort to be a good human being, to love and respect people. The credit for love goes to evolution, the credit for enacting it goes to the individual. Imo God just cheapens it.

“I mean, why did they just “stop” evolving?”

OK ... again, I’d really recommend the Dawkins book, which goes through this sort of statement and explains the problem with it.

Monkeys haven’t ‘stopped evolving’, neither have we. It’s a *very* slow process - when scientists talk about ‘rapid’ divergence of species, they mean ‘50,000 years’.

Your question’s a very common one, and the sort of thing that gets a biologist’s eye rolling. That’s absolutely not a personal criticism - it’s a good question, but it’s the *answer* that’s important.

“Because humans have this ability to harness and contain the immortal, it follows that our souls are also immortal.”

So ... as numbers are also immortal abstract concepts, and computers can process vast amounts of numerical data, computers have souls?

Nice post…but but you do realize that something like this will bring out the trolls?

Which begs the question…why do atheists spend their time posting on a conservative catholic website?

Here’s an idea.  Why don’t you keep your ridiculous religion to yourself?  I was raised Catholic.  I know it.  I also know they made things up, could not even stick to the bible, such as it is, in formulating its doctrine.  No one but you cares.  If you have such a wonderful path to paradise, great.  Leave the rest of us alone.

@Uh Oh
This article makes knowledge claims about Atheists and gives suggestions for people who are dealing with Atheists (and obviously more than a few of us disagree with the content). I think every and any worldview has a right of reply. In short, We have a right to defend Our Identity. I don’t care what the denomination or creed of the site is, if you make claims about Atheists… We should and will reply. This is a form of identity politics, in which this article was the aggressor. Simply by attempting to know and convert us, you have begun the game. Have the decency to let us enter the game and defend our view.

Thanks Steve,

I will watch the video (can’t promise about the book).  I figured I had gotten something wrong.  Seems like such an obvious question that it must have been answered a million times.  It’s not so much that I have a hard time believing it, as I don’t “understand” it.  It seems so unlikely, that given we all started out as that drop of mud or whatever, that only one group of “somethings” evolved the way humans did.  All the right stuff was there, and yet everything else just sort of stalled out.  Maybe that’s not the right way to phrase it.  I see what you mean by it all taking a long time (lol…I often say the same thing about the Catholic Church…she does change and grow, but she sure does move sloooooowly).  But we humans managed to get to where we are in the allotted time.  Why didn’t anything else?

I mean, birds have been building “homes” for eons.  But they never get any better. (that’s presumptuous on my part for sure…who’s to say what’s “better”...but they stay the same to each type of bird.  No copying.  You’d think that robins would take something from starlings and by now we’d have bird mansions!)  No other animal has ever “made” anything simply because of how it “looks’...you know, for the sake of “beauty”.  Then there are some species (I think, right?) that have remained virtually unchanged since they came to be.  We’re the only ones who seem to grow at a rate that is traceable.  Just look at this last 50 years.  My mother didn’t even have television, and now we LIVE in a technical world.  That’s just 100 years.  But the squirrel is still collecting his nuts and trout are still fallin’ for the worm on a hook. 

Again, I’m not saying it isn’t true, I just wonder why it hasn’t happened differently.  And being human, I CAN wonder, which is more that we can say for the rest of the animal kingdom.

“We’re the only ones who seem to grow at a rate that is traceable.”

Yes. Humanity has an advantage no other living species does which is ‘grammar’. Other species, like whales, chimps and dolphins have language, but grammar allows ideas to be organized, to separate off subjects and objects and to use metaphor and so on.

I say no other living species - there were other species like Neanderthals who developed it, and art and so on.

As for ‘why are monkeys still monkeys’ - the long story short: the most popular image of evolution, that picture which starts with a chimp, then a gorilla, then a caveman then a modern man is not really how evolution works.

All modern creatures are ‘as evolved’ as each other. They are suited for the places they live. Yes, there are types of simple life, like bacteria, that don’t seem to have changed for billions of years. They thrive the way they are - if you look at who the Earth is really ‘for’ ... well, bacteria exist in the sky, the deep earth, every part of the sea. There are more bacteria in each person than there are people on Earth. There are bacteria who live on volcanic vents in the deep ocean, surrounded by acid - we find it difficult to even send cameras down there, we could never live there.

Humans are not descended from modern chimpanzees, we share a common ancestor, many millions of years ago. One set of descendants of a type of ape became people, another set became chimpanzees. Both adapted to where they were living - chimps stayed in the trees (and are much better at living in trees than we are!) and man moved out of the trees onto the plains. Over many tens of thousands of years, one branch of the family’s legs got longer (which is an advantage if you live in tall grass), another’s wrists got more and more supple (which is best if you live in trees). A chimp’s wrists are far more ‘advanced’ than ours.

We’re good at what we do, but other animals have evolved in ways that make them good at what they do. An anteater’s nose is more ‘advanced’ than ours for catching ants. Giraffes are better at reaching high branches. Bats are better at flying. These adaptations appear over time. It’s very important to note: evolution hasn’t stopped. It moves very slowly, but there are examples in human timescales - moths changed color after the industrial revolution covered British cities in soot: the white ones would be easy to see (and for predators to eat), so they died out and only the darker ones survived. They passed on their ‘dark wing’ genes. So now British moths are darker than they were three hundred years ago.

A good analogy is language. We know English comes from Latin, French and German, so why do people still speak French?

“Can we agree on this definition of God?  That is, the creator of all existence?”

I don’t agree.

I think calling that first cause “God” biases the debate. It’s sleight-of-hand that means you can say ‘OK, so we agree God exists’ and then start arguing about what else we know about God.

The Deists called the first thing ‘the Prime Mover’, but even then, it makes it sounds like a person.

I think there was a ‘first thing’. There had been nothing, then there was something. Not everyone agrees with that, and a ‘first cause’ is not necessary, philosophically.

I also think it is far more likely that the ‘first thing’ was something simple than something complex - more like a particle than a person. I think if something just popped into existence, it was more likely to be something like an electron than a mind.

Scientists have observed very simple particles ‘coming from nothing’, and call this zero point energy.

So I think, given the choice between something simple we know exists and something extremely complex that we can’t know exists, I’d go with the first option.

“Answer this question, if you don’t mind:  Do you agree that we (humans) can trust our senses (the five)?  Do we experience reality?”

No and, er, yes, for sake of argument.

Can we trust our senses? Er, no.

http://static.colourlovers.com.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/images/illusion/772px-grey_square_optical_illusion.PNG

A and B there are the same color. You can prove it by blocking off the surrounding squares.

Trust, but verify.

Do we experience reality? Our brains interpret the data our senses supply it with and match it up to precedents in our memory. So no.

Do I believe we’re all little brains in jars who all experience the world completely differently, so when you see blue I see red? No. I think the analogy is people are all computers of roughly the same processing power running the same operating system. We exist in the same world. So, to answer your second question ‘er, yes’.

Steve,

Okay.  A lot of that makes sense, but I still don’t get why we, and no other creature, has grammar to begin with.  And do we evolve out of need?  Or is it sometimes just circumstances?  Your analogy of Latin, French and German…I see what you’re saying, but with the other animals, once they evolved, didn’t they lose the “memory” of what went before?  We still speak French because we can.  We have a choice in what we keep and what we let go.  Other animals don’t.  Do you see what I mean?  We build on what came before.  We aren’t just submissive to nature.  Free will.  How does Free Will develop or evolve?  Why are we the only ones that have it?  That don’t just “react” to what nature throws at us, but “act” out of choice?

In a way, we run into the same problems with evolution that we do with religion.  There just comes a point where we say “We don’t know”.  But we believe, based on what we do know.  Science can show me the path that man has taken, how we got to be what we are, but it can’t really answer “why”.  Religion/philosophy attempts to answer “why”  but doesn’t even try to touch on “how”.  And once you leave that world of material, matter and such and move into the “why” world of thoughts and concepts that have no matter (which is a singular characteristic of humans even if we don’t know why) then you have to use something besides science to express/explain it.  Am I making any sense? 

So you are absolutely right when you say that we can’t “Prove” empirically, that God exists, the fact remains that science can’t answer a whole lot of questions either.  Isn’t it just as disingenuous to say that after you reach a point with science, certain questions just can’t be answered, but then balk at another “school” attempting to answer them?  If they could be answered with science, wouldn’t they be?  Science is awesome as far as it goes, but what happens after it reaches it’s limits?  Science simply can’t answer questions like “Where did it all begin?” or “Why do humans have Free Will” or “What is the mind” or “Do we have a soul” or “Is there anything besides what we see”?  Wouldn’t it make sense that we use science to discern matter, but we use rational thought to discern the world of ideas?

I don’t know.  I haven’t been studying this stuff long enough.  I just keep running into science addresses what science addresses, but something else is needed to address what science can’t.  And I have my own personal experiences to back up what I believe.  Which in the end is really all we can go on.  No, they aren’t scientific, and to be sure our subjective interpretations of reality can and often are wrong, but what else do we have?  I know what I know, or at least I know what I think I know…I have to trust myself, don’t I?

mk,

“The phenomenon is not that there is a specific God, but that there is a “desire” for any God at all.  Even in those cave drawings, we see what might be called an innate knowledge of “something” else.  Certainly an innate “desire” for something else. I just don’t think you can throw that away.”

I’m going to be honest: the problem with discussing ‘God’ with religious people is that the concept darts about. One minute ‘God exists and he is Jesus Christ’, and the next minute a Neanderthal cave painting of the Great Hunt is evidence of God. One minute God’s external existence is the only necessary condition for the creation of the universe, the next he’s just a hunch an individual has. One minute, it’s all explained in the Bible, the next the Bible’s a cobbled together Iron Age document
that only grasps for the truth.

This is a Catholic board. The Catholic God is, and this is firmly to the Vatican’s credit, something of a fixed target. Do I believe that human beings have an innate sense of Catholicism, as expressed in the Bible and the apostolic tradition? No. No one can believe that. The Pew survey last year asked: ‘Which of the following best describes Catholic teaching about the bread and wine used for Communion?’ and gave the options: ‘they become the body and blood of Jesus Christ’, ‘they are symbols of the body and blood of Jesus Christ’ and ‘Don’t Know’, 41% of *Catholics* chose ‘they are symbols’. Four out of ten *Catholics* don’t have an innate sense of Catholicism.

http://pewforum.org/U-S-Religious-Knowledge-Survey-Who-Knows-What-About-Religion.aspx

So, do I believe that most people have a sense of monotheism? No. At no point has the majority of the human race ever agreed with the statement ‘there is only one God’.

I believe that human beings, probably thirty thousand years ago, became intelligent enough to look at the world and have a need for: explanation, control, better fortune. They had the sense there is ‘more to life’.

But atheists have all that, too. Science is based on all that, too. The negotiation between the world as it is and the world as you’d like it to be doesn’t have to be a religious negotiation. The quest for understanding a vast, complex universe ... well, there was a time when the religious answers were the best game in town. Now, to be honest, they just get in the way. No, I wouldn’t personify it, I certainly wouldn’t call it ‘God’.

“I still don’t get why we, and no other creature, has grammar to begin with.”

Again, I’d recommend finding a good book by a scientist, not a short post by a blogger. These are good questions, but they tend to have good answers, too.

Language is a *very* recent development. As I think you said, it’s an incredible leap, one that very quickly has all sorts of consequences.

Where did we get it? Our distant ancestors probably hunted in packs in grassland. Look at the way, say, big cats hunt, you can see co-ordination, a certain way of doing things that works. But they also learn and pass on techniques to children. Our ancestors just did that better. Grammar allows for a much more complex set of instructions - instead of ‘Run! Rock! Wait!’ you can say ‘Steve, run over to the black rock and wait until you hear me call out’. Straight away, there are all sorts of new, abstract concepts - the sense of the past, present and future, for one.

“And do we evolve out of need?  Or is it sometimes just circumstances?”

Both. This really is where you need a book, not a few sentences.

I’m sorry to fob you off like this, but much smarter people have written much more eloquently about this. The Dawkins book I recommended - The Greatest Show on Earth is a good one.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Main_Page

Has good, quick summaries and links, but you probably won’t appreciate the tone.

2 Alan G Nixon
Evolution as an explanation for love cheapens man.

“Evolution as an explanation for love cheapens man.”

Saying that if you love your child, you’re not actually loving, you’re only acting as a relay for God’s love cheapens man. Saying that if you love someone who happens to have the same set of genitals as you it doesn’t count as love cheapens man.

There is certainly an argument where religious feeling is aesthetic rather than rational. I’ve just been out and it was raining and I got wet. The idea this was essentially a random mechanical process seems far more aesthetically comforting to me than the idea a supernatural entity aimed every drop at me like little wet bullets because it feels one of my ancestors did something wrong with an apple.

The way to look at evolution is to see it as an immensely powerful, long process. Jesus lived two thousand years ago. For two *million* times longer than that, there’s been life on Earth, constantly adjusting, finding ingenious strategies to survive, becoming everything from mushrooms to redwoods, maggots to people, all by following the same simple imperatives.

The idea that we’re born in sin, live in a broken world, are paying for the sins of the very first people, that life’s basically miserable, that God is going to send most of us to eternal damnation, that God’s smashed us down three times at least and will do so again ... that ‘cheapens’ humanity. Evolutionary theory has none of that.

The universe of the scientific model is older, richer and stranger than the one in the Bible, and the more you know, the more interesting it becomes. With theism, you very quickly hit the wall of ‘oh, it’s a mystery we can’t solve’.

Regardless of which of us is right, I think mine’s the richer view.

@Steve

“Answer this question, if you don’t mind:  Do you agree that we (humans) can trust our senses (the five)?  Do we experience reality?”
No and, er, yes, for sake of argument.
Can we trust our senses? Er, no.

http://static.colourlovers.com.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/images/illusion/772px-grey_square_optical_illusion.PNG

A and B there are the same color. You can prove it by blocking off the surrounding squares.

—That’s quite the optical illusion!  I still can’t see how they’re the same color, but I’ll take your word for it.—

Trust, but verify.

—Sort of ... I mean, you don’t live as if you don’t trust your senses without verifying them all the time, do you?  Most instances of our experiencing via our senses we know to be true without verifying them.  Right?—

I think calling that first cause “God” biases the debate. It’s sleight-of-hand that means you can say ‘OK, so we agree God exists’ and then start arguing about what else we know about God.
—Well, not really.  You like to call it the first cause.  I just call it god.  It’s a matter of semantics.  By god I don’t mean a person, but a being whose existence is necessary for all other things to exist.—

The Deists called the first thing ‘the Prime Mover’, but even then, it makes it sounds like a person.
—Well, let’s take your term, then.  From now on, the debate is about a first cause ...—
I think there was a ‘first thing’. There had been nothing, then there was something. Not everyone agrees with that, and a ‘first cause’ is not necessary, philosophically.
—I don’t know of anyone who disagrees, precisely because it stands to reason that, philosophically speaking, there must be a first cause.  But this is besides the point.  We agree that there is a first cause, right?—

I also think it is far more likely that the ‘first thing’ was something simple than something complex - more like a particle than a person.
—This is very interesting, because we both agree here again.  God, or the first cause, is simple.  In fact, according to my belief, He is the most simple being (simple meaning that He is not composite of anything other).—
I think if something just popped into existence, it was more likely to be something like an electron than a mind.
—But the first cause never did just “pop into existence” remember?  It always did exist.  It’s existence is necessary.—
Scientists have observed very simple particles ‘coming from nothing’, and call this zero point energy.
—I’d like to see evidence of this.  Has this been verified?—
So I think, given the choice between something simple we know exists and something extremely complex that we can’t know exists, I’d go with the first option.
—I would too.  The first cause is simple.  We agree.—
Do we experience reality? Our brains interpret the data our senses supply it with and match it up to precedents in our memory. So no.
—We don’t?  That’s problematic, because if we don’t experience reality, how could we ever know anything to be true?  Even the sciences would be subject to doubt (at root, they are based upon observation).—
Do I believe we’re all little brains in jars who all experience the world completely differently, so when you see blue I see red? No. I think the analogy is people are all computers of roughly the same processing power running the same operating system. We exist in the same world. So, to answer your second question ‘er, yes’.
—Didn’t you just contradict yourself?  So we do experience reality ... this is important for me to understand your position, so as to know where we differ at root.  So far we seem to agree that A) There is a first cause, B) We do experience reality, and C) We can trust our senses MOST of the time (at times it needs to be subject to verification).  Is this fair?
To answer your question about the soul of a computer, computers are not living beings, so they do not hold these immaterial ideas in the same way that we do.  And you keep bringing up Neanderthols in other posts ... is there proof that these creatures had ceremony or language?

“Sort of ... I mean, you don’t live as if you don’t trust your senses without verifying them all the time, do you?”

No, life’s too short. I make lots of assumptions. And, of course, like everyone else, I make lots of mistakes.

“I just call it god.  It’s a matter of semantics.  By god I don’t mean a person, but a being whose existence is necessary for all other things to exist.”

I agree it’s semantics. I believe that there was a first thing. If you want to call that God, that’s fine, but arbitrary and I’m sure you can see the immense gulf between ‘there was a first thing’ and ‘so all of Catholicism is necessarily true’. The reason I wouldn’t call it ‘God’ is because it’s a word with other connotations. Do I believe the first thing was supernatural, conscious, capable of hearing prayers, purposefully shaped reality, intelligent, wise, benevolent, knew Jesus and so on? No.

I picture the first thing as a tiny quantum particle, without even the possibility of consciousness, the sort of thing zero point theory says is popping into existence all the time. We can call that ‘God’ if you want. But why not call it a ‘particle’?

“I don’t know of anyone who disagrees, precisely because it stands to reason that, philosophically speaking, there must be a first cause.  But this is besides the point.  We agree that there is a first cause, right?”

We agree. Not everyone does. Many religions talk about cyclical universes, one rival scientific theory to the Big Bang was (it’s a little discredited at the moment) that the universe was simply eternal, and kept churning away (‘steady state theory’). Other religions and scientific theories have order being brought from some eternal chaotic pool of matter (the Biblical account seems to say this, actually - that God shaped an existing lump of stuff, rather than create it from nothing, although obviously that’s not Catholic doctrine).

“This is very interesting, because we both agree here again.  God, or the first cause, is simple.  In fact, according to my belief, He is the most simple being (simple meaning that He is not composite of anything other).”

Here’s where we disagree. God isn’t simple as I’d use the word. I know that theologians have stated that he is but ... well, he seems awfully complex to me. ‘Simple’ is a little dot. ‘Complex’ is a mind capable of drawing up not just some random universe, but a carefully-planned one, and with the ability to put that into action. Am I more complex than an electron? Yes. Is the Christian God more complex than me? Yes, surely.

“I’d like to see evidence of this.  Has this been verified?”

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=follow-up-what-is-the-zer

“We don’t?  That’s problematic, because if we don’t experience reality, how could we ever know anything to be true?”

I’m happy to go through life thinking that what my brain tells me is ‘the real world’. Ultimately, can I prove it? No.

“Even the sciences would be subject to doubt”

But that’s the point - the sciences are absolutely subject to doubt. Doubts that are tested by experimental and theoretical modeling. Science is a process, not a set of immutable laws. We have rules that seem to work. We can predict what will happen to a body in motion given known forces or whatever, and those things will happen. If they didn’t happen, or happened inconsistently, the rule we came up with clearly isn’t complete. It would be science that discovered the discrepancy and science which would come up with a better rule. These are ‘working explanations’, not laws in the sense of something immutable some scientist has decreed.

“Didn’t you just contradict yourself?  So we do experience reality ... this is important for me to understand your position, so as to know where we differ at root.  So far we seem to agree that A) There is a first cause, B) We do experience reality, and C) We can trust our senses MOST of the time (at times it needs to be subject to verification).  Is this fair?”

(A) and (C), yes, with the qualifications I listed. (B) I don’t believe I *directly* experience reality, I believe I have senses that give me very selective information (I don’t ‘see’ gravity or infrared, or electrons or quantum branching - many animals will see, hear and smell things I can’t). Which my mind can build up into a working model, which I’d call reality.

The ground feels solid, flat and unmoving. It looks like the Sun is moving through the sky. It does not feel like I’m on a giant tilted ball, which is spinning on its axis, while being hurled around a Sun which is itself orbiting the center of the galaxy. 

I do not agonize about this. To all practical purposes, I’m real, I wander through a thing called ‘reality’, it’s almost certainly the same ‘reality’ for all of us.

“To answer your question about the soul of a computer, computers are not living beings, so they do not hold these immaterial ideas in the same way that we do.  And you keep bringing up Neanderthols in other posts ... is there proof that these creatures had ceremony or language?”

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/The-Skeletons-of-Shanidar-Cave.html

“I’ve just been out and it was raining and I got wet. The idea this was essentially a random mechanical process seems far more aesthetically comforting to me than the idea a supernatural entity aimed every drop at me like little wet bullets because it feels one of my ancestors did something wrong with an apple.”

It is very sad that this is your impression of God and explains volumes as to your position regarding Him.  I know that there are those that live with this perception of God, but that is not Him.  I’m sorry to accuse you, but the above statement is written by a person who clearly has not encountered our Loving God, plain and simple. 

While you accuse us of NOT being reasonable, we are quite reasonable in the fact that we allow that you have formed your opinions, beliefs through your scientific experiences (even though we may disagree with some), but you, my friend refuse to even acknowledge our experiences as valid simply b/c they are not scientific.  For some reason, you have chosen to close you mind to even the possibility and that is a pity.  If you were sincerely seeking the truth, you would be open to all possiblities.  Christians (or at least I can speak for myself) in particular Catholics are not closed off to science, we see it through our profound experience of God.  That doesn’t void scientific proof.  We are looking for proof that God exists and we see that clearly in science, or at least I do.  They don’t contradict each other for me.  Science is opened up and brought into light through the eyes of God.  Granted, I am not a scientist, but there are Christian scientists with this view.  Have you read any of their findings? 

The experience of God is unquestionable to those of us who have chosen to open ourselves to that experience.  I can travel clear across the world and visit someone whose language and culture I don’t even share, and the experiences are the same:  God enters your life, touches your heart,  reveal His love and truth, and your life is forever changed.  The variables are as different and unique as there are people, but the experience is the same. That experience shapes who you are.  It is SO REAL that it is the prism through which you see everything. It’s as if someone has turned on a bright light when before you were trying to read in a room lit by a 5 watt bulb.  The more you seek truth and knowledge, the more it is revealed to you and your soul, yes your soul, burns with understanding and there is a peace of heart and you just know that you know that you know this is real and true. 

You may just discount this as something or another.  I can’t remember all of the reasons you used to discount what I and so many, many others KNOW is real, but I pity you for that and wish and pray that I could somehow inspire you to begin that adventure with me.  Not because I want to be right, but because I know it would mean so much to God because YOU mean so much to God.  That’s the bottom line of it.  As I said before, God is Love and to experience and encounter Him, we have to be willing to enter into relationship with Him.  This like any other relationship requires a bit of willingness and vulnerability and yes, uncertainty as well, but one we’ll never regret.

The God I have seen you describe here is NOTHING like the God I know.  It’s only the impression that people who don’t know Him, have of Him.  It’s just sad is all.

I grew up an atheist.  But the day came when I realized my life was meaningless, just endless consumption, just washing only to get filthy again, just wearing the same old clothes every day.  I had a job and friends, but it all seemed so grim.  And then you die, and lie rotting in the grave.

One day, I went outside on my lunch hour.  It started to pour, and I entered a church to dry off.  The Blessed Sacrament was there exposed and some women were praying the rosary.  Somehow I knew it was God and that he loved me.  I wept silent tears.  Seven weeks later, I was a Roman Catholic.

I have struggled with my faith.  Read about it here:

http://www.lulu.com

My books are the path of my soul.  They may be classics one day.  Enjoy!

@Reverend Doctor Howard,

Have you ever heard of Direction for our Times?  There are volumes that can be downloaded.  They have a website www.directionforourtimes.com

The Volumes are based on private revelation, but are filled with peace and the fruits are amazing. 

May God Bless you on your salvation journey!

“but you, my friend refuse to even acknowledge our experiences as valid simply b/c they are not scientific.  For some reason, you have chosen to close you mind to even the possibility and that is a pity.”

No. I don’t believe in God, and some of the reasons are scientific, many of them are evidence-based (doesn’t it worry you that your religion says that if you pray for the sick it will help and there’s clear evidence it doesn’t, for example?). I don’t find the idea of God comforting or pleasing. It’s certainly not something innate in me. Am I open to experience God? I’ve never consciously closed myself to any of the gods.

As I say, I don’t ‘hate God’. I don’t think people who believe in God are stupid or evil or anything, at least no more than anyone else. I just don’t think, ultimately, that religion offers good explanation or guidance. I think people can make mistakes. If some people really only act benevolently because they think God wants them to, then ... well, there are worse mistakes to make.

I don’t have a god-shaped hole. It’s the opposite, really. I’ve read up on it, talked to people, and the feeling I always get is ‘is that all there is to it?’. I know a lot of people screwed up by their religion - guilty that they love someone their religion says they shouldn’t. I don’t think I have all the answers, but I get by just fine without a soul, I live my life unaffected by the idea of sin, I make judgments, but I don’t try to second-guess the divine will. All of that seems designed to get in the way of life, not to enrich it.

When Jesus said ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’, he was, whether he knew it or not - or actually said it or not - quoting Confucius, who’d said it five hundred years before. It’s a great rule. It doesn’t need a God looming over me to make me want to do my best to follow it.

“Somehow I knew it was God and that he loved me.  I wept silent tears.”

This is your experience. You do accept, of course, that far more people raised Catholic left the faith? That 10% of the American population describe themselves as ‘ex Catholic’.

@Steve
I agree it’s semantics. I believe that there was a first thing. If you want to call that God, that’s fine, but arbitrary and I’m sure you can see the immense gulf between ‘there was a first thing’ and ‘so all of Catholicism is necessarily true’. The reason I wouldn’t call it ‘God’ is because it’s a word with other connotations. Do I believe the first thing was supernatural, conscious, capable of hearing prayers, purposefully shaped reality, intelligent, wise, benevolent, knew Jesus and so on? No.
—Please, please remember, I am not concerned with Jesus, Catholicism, etc. at this point.  We just need to find common ground from which to see what we can/should expect (probable conclusions) from what we know.  I agree, just because there is an uncaused cause does not mean that Jesus is God or that God is a person ... I haven’t yet claimed any of this, so don’t put words in my mouth ... yet—

I picture the first thing as a tiny quantum particle, without even the possibility of consciousness, the sort of thing zero point theory says is popping into existence all the time. We can call that ‘God’ if you want. But why not call it a ‘particle’?
—Again, because this first cause didn’t just pop out of nowhere ... it always was.  There is a philosophical principle that goes, “something cannot give what it does not have.”  If this “particle” was the Uncaused cause, then all of this complicated universe came from it.  Now, remember that something that is non-material, i.e. no matter involved, (for that is what I claim ... the Uncaused cause is immaterial) is simpler in construct than material beings which have both matter and form (immateriality is just form).  Now matter is potentiality.  That is to say, everything material is always at potency towards being some other “thing”.  But forms are always constant and immutable (think of the idea of 2+2=4).  The first cause is the cause of everything else, being form in its simplest and most actual existence (from which all other beings gain existence).  Since we see intelligence in the universe, we know that this uncaused cause must be intelligent (therefore, a being with intelligence, i.e. a person).  Does this stand to reason?—
“I don’t know of anyone who disagrees, precisely because it stands to reason that, philosophically speaking, there must be a first cause.  But this is besides the point.  We agree that there is a first cause, right?”

We agree. Not everyone does. Many religions talk about cyclical universes, one rival scientific theory to the Big Bang was (it’s a little discredited at the moment) that the universe was simply eternal, and kept churning away (‘steady state theory’). Other religions and scientific theories have order being brought from some eternal chaotic pool of matter (the Biblical account seems to say this, actually - that God shaped an existing lump of stuff, rather than create it from nothing, although obviously that’s not Catholic doctrine).
—Well, your account of the Bible is not true.  2 Maccabees 7:28 states “Son, look upon heaven and earth, and all that is in them: and consider that God made them out of nothing”.  I know Scripture isn’t convincing to you, but I would like to clarify any misrepresentations you may have.—

“This is very interesting, because we both agree here again.  God, or the first cause, is simple.  In fact, according to my belief, He is the most simple being (simple meaning that He is not composite of anything other).”

Here’s where we disagree. God isn’t simple as I’d use the word. I know that theologians have stated that he is but ... well, he seems awfully complex to me. ‘Simple’ is a little dot. ‘Complex’ is a mind capable of drawing up not just some random universe, but a carefully-planned one, and with the ability to put that into action. Am I more complex than an electron? Yes. Is the Christian God more complex than me? Yes, surely.
—Again, see the above.  God IS simple, because He simply IS.  This is what we believe.—

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=follow-up-what-is-the-zer

—This seems to be yet another mathematical speculation, not to be measured according to reality, from what I understand of the article. Here’s a passage from the article: “One should not take this vacuum energy too literally, however, because the free-field theory is just a mathematical tool to help us understand what we are really interested in: the interacting theory. Only the interacting theory is supposed to correspond directly to reality.”—

I’m happy to go through life thinking that what my brain tells me is ‘the real world’. Ultimately, can I prove it? No.

—Indeed we can’t prove it.  That’s the idea behind first principles ... they are self-evident.  They need no proof!—

But that’s the point - the sciences are absolutely subject to doubt. Doubts that are tested by experimental and theoretical modeling. Science is a process, not a set of immutable laws. We have rules that seem to work. We can predict what will happen to a body in motion given known forces or whatever, and those things will happen. If they didn’t happen, or happened inconsistently, the rule we came up with clearly isn’t complete. It would be science that discovered the discrepancy and science which would come up with a better rule. These are ‘working explanations’, not laws in the sense of something immutable some scientist has decreed.
—So is there anything that you are certain of?  Any immutable fact that you know of?—

(A) and (C), yes, with the qualifications I listed. (B) I don’t believe I *directly* experience reality, I believe I have senses that give me very selective information (I don’t ‘see’ gravity or infrared, or electrons or quantum branching - many animals will see, hear and smell things I can’t). Which my mind can build up into a working model, which I’d call reality.

The ground feels solid, flat and unmoving. It looks like the Sun is moving through the sky. It does not feel like I’m on a giant tilted ball, which is spinning on its axis, while being hurled around a Sun which is itself orbiting the center of the galaxy. 

I do not agonize about this. To all practical purposes, I’m real, I wander through a thing called ‘reality’, it’s almost certainly the same ‘reality’ for all of us.

—So you are practically speaking, someone who believes in immutable truths.—

“To answer your question about the soul of a computer, computers are not living beings, so they do not hold these immaterial ideas in the same way that we do.  And you keep bringing up Neanderthols in other posts ... is there proof that these creatures had ceremony or language?”

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/The-Skeletons-of-Shanidar-Cave.html
—I didn’t see anything about language from this article, and to say that flowers having been found over the “graves” of some of the Neanderthols pointing to some kind of ceremony is a bit of a stretch, don’t you think?  All that from finding pollen there?!  As if pollen couldn’t have floated there later?  The rest of the article is speculation, seeing as how none of it was backed up by their findings (at least, I found no proof in the article that they wore clothes, etc.)  The article even uses the word “hypothesis” which is even weaker than a theory (as we all found out above ;-)  <—That was meant not to be sarcastic, but to keep the conversation light-hearted.—

Only the elimination of all conservative Christians will allow all Americans to be free and the world to no longer have to live in fear of the U.S.A.‘s imperialist, terrorist holy war. The conservative ideology has never helped mankind in any way, it has not only never helped mankind in anyway, it has oppressed, murdered, raped and killed all those in it’s way to gain power. History shows us this. Fact shows us this. James Madison, the “Father of the U.S. Constitution”, along with many founders of this country, regardless of their religious or non-religious affiliations, knew keeping politics and religion separate not only preserves each, but helps them flourish: “The number, the industry, and the morality of the Priesthood and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the Church and the State.”

@Reverend Doctor Victoria A. Howard
“I grew up an atheist.  But the day came when I realized my life was meaningless, just endless consumption, just washing only to get filthy again, just wearing the same old clothes every day.”

Many Atheists do not feel like you did, I feel closer to the universe because of the connections that science teaches me we have (particularly the fact that we /are/ animals and need other animals/plants to survive). Meaning in life is what I make it, I get to choose and that is wonderful. I don’t think I consume more than anyone else and in fact science is currently teaching us(via climate science) that we cannot consume this way and that we must conserve to save our planet. Science is ever moving and changing, how could you feel unchanged, I wake up everyday with the possibility of new discoveries or leaps forward in our ability to help this amazing world. I love my planet and the creatures on it(including humans), God just cheapens what is otherwise the most amazing story ever told, so grand that no human before science was able to come up with anything close. Our early attempts seem like self-centered and ignorant fairy tales when compared to what we now know. I wake up refreshed by enlightenment and free to be good for goodness’ sake.

You say, “doesn’t it worry you that your religion says that if you pray for the sick it will help and there’s clear evidence it doesn’t, for example?”

No, it doesn’t worry me because it is not true.  I personally see evidence of answered prayer all the time and I know many people who have seen and experienced (there’s that word again) evidence of answered prayer and I’ve read and heard countless stories of people I don’t know who have seen evidence of answered prayer. 

To be honest, I think the reason you don’t think religion or God doesn’t offer explanation of guidance is because you don’t understand or know the first thing about God or the true teachings of any one religion.  You say you have read up on it and talked to people, but I think I have read all of your posts and your understandings of at least Catholic Church teachings are all false when it comes to prayer, abortion, contraception, even evolution (were you the one who mentioned the article about Steven Hawkings and John Paul II. Google JPII and evolution and read what he has said about it.)  You reject something without even trying to understand it, which convinces me that you are biased b/c if you were open to truth, you would at least try to understand what exactly it is that you are choosing to reject.  What if you do possess an immortal soul that will live forever depending with the choices you make here on Earth.  You are quite a gambler to be betting your immortal soul on something NOT being truth when you haven’t really fully investigated nor even been open to that possibility.

@Alan G. Nixon

I hate to disappoint you, but what you are experiencing IS God. Just because you refuse to put the name of God to it, doesn’t mean it isn’t God.  God doesn’t cheapen it, God wrote that story you so lovingly describe. 

If only you could swallow that huge ego and open your heart to EVERYTHING HE wants to give you and teach you.  From a comment in your earlier post, it sounds like you don’t have much time left.

My faith lies in the mystery of finding what is counter-intuitive is true and really works in my life.  If faith was simply a way to find your way with pure reason, then why would an atheist remain one?  No, faith is something that bursts upon us when we realize that God’s ways are not our ways.  The Beatitudes are counter-intuitive.  They don’t go against reason so much as go against our desire to do our own will. 

Now I want to know why all those bright, scientifically minded and obviously superior atheists can’t control the weather? Why they can’t live forever?  Why they insist that only 4 dimensions exist when mathematicans work in myriads of dimensions and know they exist?  Here is an insight a brilliant Christian mathematican made: hell is two dimensional.  Now for the kicker: Blaise Pascal another brilliant mathematican’s “wager” was something like this: If a man of faith is wrong and dies, he hasn’t lost anything.  If an atheist dies as is wrong, he has lost everything!

“But we have to be on the lookout for this line of thinking and reject it as soon as it arises, because what people without faith need more than anything—more than our arguments and facts and books—is simply our prayers.”
Jennifer F., you are spot on with this - and the comments above prove it.

Steve J
You misunderstood me.

@Erin

Sorry Erin, I very much disagree and it is certainly not an Ego thing.

What I am experiencing is life. Putting the name God to it does not add anything to the explanation or the feeling for me, in fact I find most descriptions of God puny/undeserving compared to the scientific reality. I do not believe that God wrote the story, the idea of God is nonsensical to me and saying He wrote it is a non-explanation.
I am not the one claiming special knowledge, I claim things that we have evidence for, which I think is a much more humble position than belief in an unevidenced being in order to make yourself feel better, less lonely, more loved, special or saved or whatever. The universe does not care for me, I care for it as I do for my parents and my fellow human beings. My heart has never been closed, but despite this I still don’t believe in your version of God or any Gods for that matter.
No, I have plenty of time left, by average life about 30+ years, but I am old enough to know where I stand and I am happy with my my conclusion.

“But we have to be on the lookout for this line of thinking and reject it as soon as it arises, because what people without faith need more than anything—more than our arguments and facts and books—is simply our prayers.”
Jennifer F., you are spot on with this - and the comments above prove it.”

Prayer just keeps you indoctrinated and does nothing at all to Atheists. This solution just seems like an attempt to stop people thinking. If they are praying they are not thinking about the valid criticisms of Atheists.

But seriously, I do understand why you have the urge to do this, but I assure you that it only makes you feel better and waste some time. Put your effort into some real world activities that will actually help people and Atheists would be much more happy, don’t waste it praying for us.

Alan G.
I pray, in the Name of Jesus, that one day you will understand why I pray.
You have a large heart and the vastness of God’s Love will one day overwhelm it.

“Steve J. You misunderstood me.”

It happens. Although I don’t think it happened here. I think crediting God with all love ‘cheapens’ humanity more than crediting evolution would. And no one credits evolution with love anyway. The point of evolution is emergent complexity - big, sophisticated, amazing things emerging from simple rules.

As I say, a lot of this is aesthetics, and we can phrase this anyway we want to skew it. I’d rather be a monkey looking up at the stars than a wretched sinner hand built by God but guilty looking down at my own penis, yes. I’d rather admire the men who built the Tower of Babel than worship the God that smashed it.

@Magda
I hope that one day you will understand why I do not pray. If you have a large heart then helping people is far better than praying, action in this world is #realmorality that may help real people. I will not waste my one and only life on an imaginary friend. Carpe diem, for it may be your last and there is no afterlife.

@Magda
“Evolution as an explanation for love cheapens man.”
No, I really don’t think it does, the amount of time and lives that went into evolving our communal feelings cannot be seen as cheap. Creation ex nihilo in 6 days sounds cheap to me as opposed to millions/billions of years of evolution. @Steve Jeffers answered the your statement well, so I will leave it there.

“You are quite a gambler to be betting your immortal soul on something NOT being truth when you haven’t really fully investigated nor even been open to that possibility.”

Thanks.

Look, you can believe me or not. I know a lot of Catholics, I’ve studied religion. 

“I’ve read and heard countless stories of people I don’t know who have seen evidence of answered prayer.”

The science of medical statistics is incredibly advanced. They study *everything*, because they want to know every single factor that leads to better medical outcomes. Not anecdotal stuff, actual unbiased analysis of the figures, looking at thousands of cases.

Prayer - either individuals praying for themselves, family members praying, groups praying, priests praying makes no statistical difference. The only study that found any difference at

That your aunt got better when someone prayed doesn’t matter - all other things being equal, an unprayed for atheist was just as likely to get well, too. The priest ‘cured’ of back pain by the intercession of Cardinal Newman? He was on medicine to relieve his pain and his recovery took *longer* than average! Those are facts. That you might not accept them facts doesn’t stop them being facts.

“Blaise Pascal another brilliant mathematican’s “wager” was something like this: If a man of faith is wrong and dies, he hasn’t lost anything.  If an atheist dies as is wrong, he has lost everything!”

Marya, I’ve discovered a way into Heaven. I’ve written a book which tells you what to do. Come to my meeting once a week, also I’d like you to sit down once a week and tell me about everything bad you’ve done, including any sexy thoughts you’ve had. I expect donations, I’ll also be in charge of any family weddings and funerals. The key to it all is guilt. Also, there are certain sex things I want you to do and not do. Don’t worry, I’ll explain the scale of punishments later. Anyway, I want your kids to go to special schools I run, oh and you know how every school and organization has child abusers and that’s a lot of fuss about nothing? Good. Oh, you’re wondering where my employee Bob went? I moved him to a different location. No reason.

If this doesn’t work, you haven’t lost anything. So I assume we have a deal?

@Steve Jeffers
Hear Hear!

@marya
Pascal’s wager is extremely well known to Atheists, but we do not accept it as a true proposition. There is more than one choice here, you are pretending it is your God Vs Atheism… But I see a hundred more choices and your version doesn’t make any more sense to me than the others. What if Hindu is actually the one true religion and you have made the wrong choice? What if I choose your religion only to be reincarnated as a lower being because I got it wrong? I choose to believe none of these crazy stories are true and that science is providing us with the best answers at this point.

“Again, because this first cause didn’t just pop out of nowhere ... it always was.”

Mine popped out of nowhere.

All this particle has is energy. Energy can become matter, but precisely what it becomes depends entirely on the other forces at work on it. It doesn’t contain blueprints or intelligence.

“There is a philosophical principle that goes, “something cannot give what it does not have.”

A rock does not contain a statue. Your brain grew in the womb, continued to form in early childhood and has been constantly maintained with a flow of nutrients. You did not have to ingest ‘intelligent’ food for that to work. Your eye did not have to ingest ‘seeing’ food.

Complicated structures can form following simple rules - frost on a window pane, for example. They don’t need to be guided. The freezing water droplets are not encoded with the pretty pattern, it’s just crystals slotting together.

Birds in a flock have two simple rules: follow the guy in front, don’t bump into anyone. As a result, flocks of birds seem to act in perfect harmony, all simultaneously flying one way and the other, like a single organism. A complex structure (one that would be pretty much impossible to choreograph) emerges. 

But here’s the kicker: your argument, which is obviously a traditional one, starting with Aristotle via Aquinas, depends on a first cause that *necessarily* takes the form you describe. But we know that the universe could have started a different way. Scientists aren’t sure which model happened, but there are five main candidates. The whole crux of Aquinas was ‘there is literally no possible other way this could have happened’. Aquinas’ argument collapses if there’s the *possibility* it happened another way. And that possibility exists. Now, you’re going to play the ‘just a theory’ card. Your position is ‘just a theory’, but unlike modern scientists, Aquinas did not have the observed data or computers to model it. We’ve seen the early universe, we have models that are not complete, but which are entirely mechanical in nature, ones that don’t need to talk about ‘forms’ and ‘necessary beings’. 

If we’re talking about the same thing, then your God is a mindless particle that ceased to exist within 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 of a second.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Planck_epoch

This thing you wanted to call God contains no ‘forms’ or intelligence, no blueprints, no plan, no consciousness.

We are not talking about the same thing.

“No, faith is something that bursts upon us when we realize that God’s ways are not our ways.”

OK. The original article and a couple of the recent posts present atheists as people who have never experienced faith, and we’ve had two ‘ex atheists’ saying the scales fell from their eyes.

But there’s a very simple, undeniable fact here: many, many more people are heading the other way. Thirty million Americans describe themselves as ex-Catholics.

So explain that. Explain how people can have access to this wonderful godhead, taste the actual body of Christ ... then decide, actually, no, it was all a load of nonsense.

They have realized that what they thought was contact with the divine was actually just something else. Either self delusion or cultural expectation, ignorance or outright manipulation.

Regardless of whether they are right - clearly it *is* deniable once you’ve experienced it. Clearly it isn’t wholly convincing.

Now, you’re argument is going to be that they got it wrong, that they’re not true, that there’s something in their lives that led them astray, or that they have issues with the Church, not God. But they exist. They bought the argument at one point, then they stopped believing.

So, as someone who’s never believed, I don’t buy the story that if I’d only seen the light it would never leave me. Plenty of people have seen the light and walked away, utterly unconvinced.

Mine popped out of nowhere.

All this particle has is energy. Energy can become matter, but precisely what it becomes depends entirely on the other forces at work on it. It doesn’t contain blueprints or intelligence.

—Here you admit that it didn’t come from “nothing” ... there was energy which preceded the matter.  So I’m not convinced that your something came from nothing.—

“There is a philosophical principle that goes, “something cannot give what it does not have.”

A rock does not contain a statue. Your brain grew in the womb, continued to form in early childhood and has been constantly maintained with a flow of nutrients. You did not have to ingest ‘intelligent’ food for that to work. Your eye did not have to ingest ‘seeing’ food.

—The rock DOES contain the matter of a statue.  What gives it its shape is some exterior principle (i.e. the human mind) which has the form.  The matter for my brain came from the elements my mother ate.  Intelligence comes from the soul, and is not material.  Therefore it has nothing to do with the growth of intelligence (directly).  Your point is moot.  The food is able to be seen and light gives it that power ... an eye cannot see something unseeable.  The principle remains.—
Complicated structures can form following simple rules - frost on a window pane, for example. They don’t need to be guided. The freezing water droplets are not encoded with the pretty pattern, it’s just crystals slotting together.
—Via the nature of water and how its molecules are restricted (or ordered) to interact.—

Birds in a flock have two simple rules: follow the guy in front, don’t bump into anyone. As a result, flocks of birds seem to act in perfect harmony, all simultaneously flying one way and the other, like a single organism. A complex structure (one that would be pretty much impossible to choreograph) emerges. 
—Something birds do instinctively ... so?—

But here’s the kicker: your argument, which is obviously a traditional one,
—does that make it a bad one?—
starting with Aristotle via Aquinas, depends on a first cause that *necessarily* takes the form you describe. But we know that the universe could have started a different way.
—Here’s where I think you misunderstood the argument.  It doesn’t matter necessarily how the universe started ... we know there was a first cause.  Scientists (at least, the ones you speak of) are trying to figure out a cause of the universe, but not necessarily an uncaused cause, which always begs the question, “And what started that?”.  No matter how far back you go, we both agree that there was an uncaused cause.  And for reasons mentioned above, it always has been (meaning there was no “before”) out of necessity, and must (I argue it would follow) contain within itself the perfections of everything that flows from it.— Scientists aren’t sure which model happened, but there are five main candidates. The whole crux of Aquinas was ‘there is literally no possible other way this could have happened’. Aquinas’ argument collapses if there’s the *possibility* it happened another way.
—Again, I don’t think you understood the argument ... it is a metaphysical one (before physics, by definition), so the science you speak of has nothing to say on this ... it is the science from which physics takes its principles—
And that possibility exists. Now, you’re going to play the ‘just a theory’ card. Your position is ‘just a theory’, but unlike modern scientists, Aquinas did not have the observed data or computers to model it. We’ve seen the early universe, we have models that are not complete, but which are entirely mechanical in nature, ones that don’t need to talk about ‘forms’ and ‘necessary beings’. 
—Nope ... no theory card.  That’s beside the point.  Even if I were to grant you the point that the universe could have begun in any of multiple possible ways, there is always going to remain the uncaused cause—

If we’re talking about the same thing, then your God is a mindless particle that ceased to exist within 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 of a second.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Planck_epoch

This thing you wanted to call God contains no ‘forms’ or intelligence, no blueprints, no plan, no consciousness.

We are not talking about the same thing.

—I suppose your assessment is correct ... we aren’t talking about the same thing because your cause that you point to was caused.  The uncaused cause is outside of time (its being was necessary, so it always was)—

“God wrote that story you so lovingly describe.”

The story wrote itself. And that’s so much more wonderful and impressive.

Again, I know that the Church has conceded science, and now talks in terms of all the wonderful things beyond science, like love and purpose and so on.

So let’s just talk about aesthetics. Let’s just talk about art and beauty and love. Isn’t the atheistic version of how we got here just so much more beautiful, so much more elegant? Isn’t the idea that we got here ourselves just so much more satisfying? Isn’t a morality based on making the best of this one life, and leaving the world better for those that follow better than that the idea that it’s all about where you go afterwards? Isn’t it just more satisfying to talk about real things, like friends and art and nature than abstracts like sin and guilt and atonement? Isn’t being open better than tribalism?

If God really exists, what’s he going to value - that you were good to your friends and created more than you destroyed, or that you had some water splashed on your head by an old man who, deep down, you know is a bit creepy? Do you really think that if two people run a charity together that helps millions, and they live good lives, and one of them is a Catholic and the other is a Muslim that God will send one of them to Heaven and the other to Hell? Do you really think you could rest easy in Heaven, eat at God’s table, knowing that he sent most of your friends and family to eternal torment?

As Douglas Adams said, the garden’s beautiful already, you don’t have to imagine there are fairies in it.  I live a good life without God. I’ve reversed Pascal’s Wager - I do my best to live kindly, live generously, I do it with no thought of God, simply because I think it’s the best thing to do. If God exists, and he sends me to Hell for that, then God is not the sort of thing I’d want to spend eternity with anyway.

Correction:  Metaphysics literally means, “after physics”, but was meant to be the foundation of physics, so the point remains.  By before I meant in the causal sense, not the chronological.  It is the science which explains the principles of physics.

“Intelligence comes from the soul, and is not material.”

Your evidence for that being?

My intelligence is a function of the complex structure of my brain. It’s material, nothing to do with a ‘soul’.

But, OK, if you’re right, you’ll be happy to accept this challenge: go to a brain surgeon and have him remove some of your brain, at random. Your soul, not being material, can not be altered by a surgeon’s knife and so your intelligence, as it comes purely from the soul, will be unaffected.

“The uncaused cause is outside of time (its being was necessary, so it always was”

We’re going round in circles. That is not a necessary model, there’s no evidence for it, there are better alternatives that make sense and only involve the very simplest processes. We don’t need to invoke metaphysics, we can do it all with physics. We don’t need to invent other realms, or a being that by definition acts like no other thing has ever acted, or metaphysical forms. We can get from ‘nothing’ to ‘the universe we see’ with quantum effects that models predicted and which were subsequently observed. Nothing came from ‘outside the universe’ or ‘beyond time’ or whatever.

Now, regardless of whether that happened - Aquinas’ argument *depends* on the fact that there’s no other possible explanation than his. And there are other *possible* explanations.

Your evidence for that being?
—The brain is only the instrument through which the soul functions in the physical realm.  Sure, if you mess the brain up, that will mess up the soul’s functioning through it in the body.  My point remains.  Challenge met and, for the above reason, not accepted. :) Again, it derives from the principle that act follows upon being ... to act in a rational way means that we must be rational (capable of utilizing the immaterial abstractions), meaning that we must have immateriality—
We’re going round in circles. That is not a necessary model, there’s no evidence for it, there are better alternatives that make sense and only involve the very simplest processes.  We don’t need to invent other realms, or a being that by definition acts like no other thing has ever acted, or metaphysical forms. We can get from ‘nothing’ to ‘the universe we see’ with quantum effects that models predicted and which were subsequently observed. Nothing came from ‘outside the universe’ or ‘beyond time’ or whatever.

—We wouldn’t be going round in circles.  You keep thinking that the uncaused cause could be physical.  I say it is not, because everything physical is temporary (as you claim your original particle to be).  But something which existence is part of its essence will never expire.  So you have yet to offer an alternative option.  Metaphysics deals with being and essence.  Physics is restricted to the material realm.  Are you denying that there is an immaterial reality?  This is a different question to tackle then ...
But you are begging the question here.  We do need something exterior to all things that do not have existence as part of their essence, for we know them not to be the uncaused cause.  This is just an exercise in logic, and from self evident principles we observe.  Not being open to the science of metaphysics is just as close-minded as those Catholics you point to who do not appreciate other scientific disciplines.  Aquinas’ argument does depend on no other explanation, and you have yet to yeild one.—

“But something which existence is part of its essence will never expire.”

Again, you don’t need to invoke metaphysics, regular physics serves: energy can’t be created or destroyed, only converted. The energy from this particle is released, the universe begins, the interactions from then on are simple, mechanical processes.

The key difference here is that when I say ‘nothing’, I mean ‘nothing’. Not ‘nothing except it’s surrounded by a metaphysical realm in which eternal forms including intelligence exists’.

“to act in a rational way means that we must be rational (capable of utilizing the immaterial abstractions), meaning that we must have immateriality”

Yet when a computer runs a mathematical equation no human could ever do, it doesn’t have a soul. So there’s an example of ‘unsouled’ matter working with abstractions (purely in abstractions, as it happens). If it’s possible for a computer to utilize abstractions without a soul, it’s possible for a brain to.

@Steve
That was clever, btw ... getting me to disassemble my brain so I wouldn’t be able to continue using it here :D

Steve J and Alan G
Evolution as an explanation for love not only cheapens man, it cheapens love.
Prayer is humility at work.

“The brain is only the instrument through which the soul functions in the physical realm.  Sure, if you mess the brain up, that will mess up the soul’s functioning through it in the body.  My point remains.”

For me, it’s a question of variables, the same as with medical outcomes.

We have two versions of what might be happening:

1. We’re purely physical.
2. We’re physical with a metaphysical component.

Either way, you can take the metaphysical out of the equation with the same result. Damage the brain, it doesn’t matter whether (1) or (2) is true, the result is the same. The *physical* brain is necessary, you don’t need to act like there’s a soul.

“Evolution as an explanation for love not only cheapens man, it cheapens love.”

No.

Again, this is all in how you phrase it. We both agree that people are capable of love and that it’s wonderful and to be celebrated.

My way, it took fourteen billion years of getting here - struggle and strategy, processes so gradual even if we lived a thousand times longer we’d barely see them. We earned it.

Your way, love’s just a handout.

I’ll try to explain what I mean by variables with a parable:

Three groups get lost in the mountains.

The first group are devout Catholics. They pray and radio for help.
The second group are devout Catholics. They pray, but don’t radio.
The third group are atheists, they radio but don’t pray.

A helicopter rescues the first and third group, but the second is never rescued and they get eaten by bears.

Now ... what’s the explanation?

Here’s the theological argument: it was God’s divine will that the first and third group were rescued, and that the second were eaten by bears. God always knew this would happen, it is part of His merciful plan. Yes, good things happened to atheists and bad things to believers, but that is because God operates at a level we can’t fully understand. We should pray, spend some time in religious study and take comfort that God is looking after the ghosts of the second party. Unless the bear got them before the appropriate rites were conducted, in which case they are screwed and ended up in Hell. 

Here’s the atheist explanation: in this situation, prayer didn’t help, radioing for help did.

Which argument do you find most persuasive?

If the helicopter wasn’t working, what would have happened?

This thread has predictably devolved into an exchange of posts in which the religious believers simply restate, in varying forms, their basic position, which is ‘I believe, therefore it’s true’.

Religious teachings evidence the power of evolution even in the realm of ideas. Religion offers many things to its leaders, and different but beguiling things to its (far more numerous) followers.

The leaders attain power, status, wealth. Witness the history of the Catholic Church,, consider the social and political power of the leaders of Islam.

The followers gain a sense of being special, of being singled out for salvation, of freedom from death, and a sense of belonging to a community in which their beliefs are valued.

And religions today devote enormous parts of their teachings to the establishment and maintenance of control. One way is to teach children that reason is not to be trusted. The invention of the concept of faith was brilliant: when accepted, it inoculates the victim against rational thought. Another is to teach that apostates will be punished….hence the burning of heretics both in real life (no longer practiced) and in ‘hell’, for christians, and the admonition that apostates must die, in Islam.

it is no surprise that Christianity and Islam are the two most successful variants of religion: they are the most aggressive in their indoctrination and the most punitive of those who stray from the community of belief.

Dialogue with believers will rarely accomplish anything. The believers lack the resources to see the bars of the mental cage around their minds for what they are….indeed, they think of those bars as protecting them, rather than imprisoning them….and they pity the people on the outside of the cage. Secure in their assurance of salvation, certain that faith is preferable to reason, they become, in most cases, incapable of critical self-analysis.

And, of course, they will read this post and shake their heads that an atheist could be so deluded…they ‘know’ they are right. That’s what faith does, and that’s why it is so powerful.

Again, you don’t need to invoke metaphysics, regular physics serves: energy can’t be created or destroyed, only converted. The energy from this particle is released, the universe begins, the interactions from then on are simple, mechanical processes.
The key difference here is that when I say ‘nothing’, I mean ‘nothing’. Not ‘nothing except it’s surrounded by a metaphysical realm in which eternal forms including intelligence exists’.
—You say that energy can’t be created ... how do you know?  How did it come to be?  If it was the uncaused cause, how do you explain the intelligence of man?  I suppose we must come to the next question ...—
Yet when a computer runs a mathematical equation no human could ever do, it doesn’t have a soul. So there’s an example of ‘unsouled’ matter working with abstractions (purely in abstractions, as it happens). If it’s possible for a computer to utilize abstractions without a soul, it’s possible for a brain to.
—Computers don’t solve problems the same way people do ... computers don’t know anything.  It is limited to its maker’s limitations (both the matter it is made of and the ingenuity of the programmer/builder).  A computer is not ALIVE, and, what’s more important, is not capable of living a rational life.  A soul is the unifying aspect of all living things.  It is in humans that the soul is eternal and immaterial since it is only in humans that rational thought is found.—
For me, it’s a question of variables, the same as with medical outcomes.
We have two versions of what might be happening:
1. We’re purely physical.
2. We’re physical with a metaphysical component.
Either way, you can take the metaphysical out of the equation with the same result. Damage the brain, it doesn’t matter whether (1) or (2) is true, the result is the same. The *physical* brain is necessary, you don’t need to act like there’s a soul.
—But here’s the difference: one explains the reality which we observe, namely the second one (although I disagree with your wording ... the body is just as metaphysical as the soul ... I would say that the soul is immaterial, not to be equivocated with metaphysical).  I suppose we should discuss whether the principles “something cannot give what it does not have”, and “act follows upon being” are reasonable to hold?  I would think the first was rather logical.  As for the second, it too seems undeniable, since things cannot do what they cannot do.—

“You say that energy can’t be created ... how do you know?”

It’s the law of conservation of energy, one of the more popular and straightforward laws of physics, known in some form since classical times. If it’s false, then thermodynamics, relativity and quantum mechanics are also false. For starters.

Your soul theory is interesting, let’s now see the empirical evidence.

“That’s what faith does, and that’s why it is so powerful.”

And the Catholic Church used to be absolutely adamant that faith was nice, but that it was all about the empirical evidence, that there was physical evidence of the divine, that there was irrefutable logic, that there was no other possible explanation, that there was empirical evidence of miracles and divine revelation. It’s only since better explanations have emerged that faith gained prominence, and Catholics have started complaining that their positions need special treatment because they’re not like everyday arguments.

I don’t fully understand the need to convert atheists or to make an argument for God.  I’d say The All Mighty makes a pretty good case for himself.

It seems like doing God’s will and spreading God’s word (rather than the word “God”) would be a better, less invasive approach.
You can lay out all the tenets of your faith, erect the very same road signs that successfully pointed you to God –lead the proverbial horse to the Catholic wellspring - yet he may not drink.

I know it’s unfortunate but conversations about “God” and “Faith” strike many atheists as brainwashed mumbo-jumbo.  Most of the atheists I know are scientists or are at least profoundly interested in science so speaking about “The Faith” is like trying to convince a mathematician by reading a poem. 

I believe the voice of God is undeniable and a person must hear it for him or herself, in his or her own time.

Lately, several of my atheist friends spend their Sundays volunteering at charities around town (women’s shelter/feeding the homeless), so although they’re not kneeling at the pew beside you in your Sunday best, I imagine God has reached their hearts – even if he speaks a different, private language to them. 

In my opinion faithlessness is akin to blindness or deafness.  If God wills it, the blind will see and the deaf will hear.

It’s the law of conservation of energy, one of the more popular and straightforward laws of physics, known in some form since classical times. If it’s false, then thermodynamics, relativity and quantum mechanics are also false. For starters.
—I quote an excerpt from Wikipedia:
“The law of conservation of energy is an empirical law of physics. It states that the total amount of energy in an isolated system remains constant over time (is said to be conserved over time). A consequence of this law is that energy can neither be created nor destroyed: it can only be transformed from one state to another. The only thing that can happen to energy in a closed system is that it can change form: for instance chemical energy can become kinetic energy.”
This is in a CLOSED (isolated) system ... the universe is not known (as in, it is an established fact) to be closed or isolated.  I’m not saying that it is or isn’t.  Scientists don’t even know for certain the mass or size of the universe enough to come to a conclusion here.  What is ASSUMED is a closed system. So the first law of thermodynamics makes an assumption, and if there is reason in the future that makes known whether the universe is opened or closed, thermodynamics will have to be adjusted accordingly.  But even if it is granted that energy is eternal, energy can’t account for the immaterial reality ... so it must not have existence as part of its essence, and so we flow into the next question on immateriality—

Your soul theory is interesting, let’s now see the empirical evidence.

—Empirical evidence?  If by this you simply mean evidence observed, then that is easy enough.  Humans are self-aware and are able to reason.  We can imagine.  These images are immaterial, and yet real.  This is evidence of a soul.—

@Steve
It’s only since better explanations have emerged that faith gained prominence, and Catholics have started complaining that their positions need special treatment because they’re not like everyday arguments.
—Really?  Weren’t you the one to tell me that my arguments were traditional?  These arguments that I am listing are, as you very well know, not original, and have been around for centuries (Aquinas takes a lot from St. Augustine, Plato, Aristotle, Averroes, etc.).—

“I believe the voice of God is undeniable and a person must hear it for him or herself, in his or her own time”

No one’s answered the point I made a little earlier. Jennifer’s case, going from atheism to Catholicism is notable because it is rare. Meanwhile, thirty million Americans say they are ‘ex Catholics’. It is pretty much a one way street ... in the other direction.

Those thirty million heard the voice at one point, but walked away. The big question has to be: ‘if the voice of God is “undeniable” why do so many people *who thought they heard it* come to decide they made a mistake?’.

“Really?  Weren’t you the one to tell me that my arguments were traditional?”

Two different arguments. Aquinas, like Anselm, wanted a *rational* proof. I know that Anselm hated the idea of irrational faith.

The first cause argument is a traditional one (it predates Judaism, let alone Christianity). It is not an argument from faith.

@Steve
No one’s answered the point I made a little earlier. Jennifer’s case, going from atheism to Catholicism is notable because it is rare. Meanwhile, thirty million Americans say they are ‘ex Catholics’. It is pretty much a one way street ... in the other direction.

Those thirty million heard the voice at one point, but walked away. The big question has to be: ‘if the voice of God is “undeniable” why do so many people *who thought they heard it* come to decide they made a mistake?’.

—- C’mon, Steve.  Really?  I’m not one to argue that something is true just because an overwhelmingly large number of people say so (nor, do I think, you do).  It is a weak argument at best.  But since you seem to want an answer in kind, do you know how many Catholics there are in the world?  Roughly one billion (about 1/6th of the world’s population).  Do you know how many people through-out history have believed in a god?  This far outweighs the small minority of true atheists.  So many peoples and cultures have converted to the Faith over the course of the centuries, to point at one instance in time, at one population in time, at one number (ignoring how many remained in the Faith), is very close-minded.—-

Two different arguments. Aquinas, like Anselm, wanted a *rational* proof. I know that Anselm hated the idea of irrational faith.

The first cause argument is a traditional one (it predates Judaism, let alone Christianity). It is not an argument from faith.
—Hmmm ... perhaps I misunderstood you then.  I thought you were accusing Christianity of being irrational and not attempting to be rational until relatively recent times.  So you do agree that we have attempted to be reasonable, at least?—

“the universe is not known (as in, it is an established fact) to be closed or isolated.”

The universe we’ve been talking about *has* to be. We’re talking about the very beginning of everything. There is nothing else at that point. There is therefore no ‘outside’. You say there’s some realm of forms beyond the universe - but that can’t, by definition, contain energy.

But, OK ... if energy is pouring into the universe from the Empyrean ... show us where that’s happening. Do that, you win this argument. Bonus points if you can show angels guarding the outlet.

“Humans are self-aware and are able to reason.  We can imagine.  These images are immaterial, and yet real.  This is evidence of a soul”

No, that’s evidence of two huge leaps and a circular argument.

The brain could be entirely material, extremely complex and capable of turning its ability to conceptualize things on itself. Even if it somehow picks up images from the Platonic realm (in which case ... show us the CAT scan where we see that happening, and if you can’t, why can’t you?), there’s no need to involve a soul in that. You might as well say that having the radio isn’t enough, the radio needs a soul before it can start picking up transmissions.

The universe we’ve been talking about *has* to be. We’re talking about the very beginning of everything. There is nothing else at that point.
—To be precise, there is NOTHING at that point ... no energy, no matter, no other existence besides (by definition) that thing which necessarily must exist because existence is what it is.  So it doesn’t even matter if the universe is opened or closed, as I said above, because energy is still a physical thing (that is, it is known through physical reality).  I don’t have to prove that the universe is opened or closed because it is an irrelevant point, as I’ve tried to make clear.  I just posed the question because the opinion on that is opened to debate even among the leading scientists of today.—

No, that’s evidence of two huge leaps and a circular argument.

—How is this a circular argument?  Please show me.  My argument goes that from the self-evident principle that act follows upon being, humans must be rational.  Given that we are rational, we must also have an immaterial side to us.  The activity of the soul (something immaterial) CANNOT, by definition, be observed in a physical realm save through something physical.  The soul acts through the body.  I am not a Platonist, so I don’t believe in a Platonic realm (this would better suit your philosophy of not knowing whether we live in reality or not and not caring—I assert that we do know reality and are living it).  There is need to involve a soul (by this I assume we mean human soul) because of the mere fact that we are alive.  All living things have souls.  Those living things which can act in a rational (immaterial) way must also have immaterial souls.  Defeat the philosophical principle that act follows upon being and I’ll admit to no soul.—

“I thought you were accusing Christianity of being irrational and not attempting to be rational until relatively recent times.”

Other way around. For a thousand years, Catholicism was confident it had all the right answers and so encouraged science. Yes, it enforced orthodoxy, but that was for the same reason - to keep people on the right path.

It’s only really at the beginning of the nineteenth century when that starts to change, and the middle of it before Pius IX decides to abandon any pretense of open inquiry in favor of dogma and suppression. He started out liberal, but doubles down on the irrational - makes up Papal Infallibility, makes up the Immaculate Conception, decries the modern world, throws his lot in with the reactionaries, issues Qui Pluribus.

A coincidence that, by then, science had disproved Genesis? Of course not. He had a choice - faith or reason. He picked faith. At the beginning of his reign, the idea they were opposites would have been absurd. From then on it’s been orthodoxy. Nowadays, if we ask a Catholic for evidence, we’re treated like we’ve made some ridiculous category error.

Reason, please, every time. Reason wins because reason works.

“So many peoples and cultures have converted to the Faith over the course of the centuries, to point at one instance in time, at one population in time, at one number (ignoring how many remained in the Faith), is very close-minded.”

Answer the question! If, once you’ve heard the voice of God, it’s *undeniable*, then how could *one* person have ever left the Faith? If you’ve made the leap of faith, how could you possibly leap back?

Oh, and:

http://sh1.webring.com/people/up/pharsea/Decline.html

A billion people alive now were *baptized* Catholic. But only a quarter of Catholics in the US ever attend church, a third have formally left the church. Those figures are actually heavily distorted because of immigration from Mexico - without that, it’s an even steeper decline.

As I say ... these people had faith, tasted the body of Christ, felt they’d heard the voice of God were almost certainly brought up in Catholic areas and taught at Catholic schools.

There are more Catholics than ever ... the world population is larger than ever, people are living longer. This is not a world of Jennifer’s renouncing atheism and seeing Catholicism as the answer, though, this is exactly the opposite.

This is straight line decline in the US. 74% of Catholics in the US went to church in 1958, 25% in 2000. Every year, consistently, more than 1% of Catholics stop going to church. It will be under 10% by the end of this decade, and a nominal number by 2030.

So, instead of being ‘undeniable’ and compelling, there’s a real chance that many of the people reading this will be around after practicing Catholics have all but disappeared from the US.

This isn’t some local phenomenon - outside Africa, the US is actually now one of the most *devout* Catholic countries.

“Those living things which can act in a rational (immaterial) way must also have immaterial souls.”

That’s the circular logic - if you have a soul, you’re alive; if you’re alive, you have a soul.

I don’t define ‘life’ as ‘that matter which has a ghost in it’, and telling me that it’s impossible to detect or describe that ghost by definition is not going to persuade me.

“I imagine God has reached their hearts – even if he speaks a different, private language to them.”

Shudder.

This is just not the way to understand atheists. We can be generous and loving and so on, independent of God. Please, when I donate to a charity, don’t dare to presume that it’s your god, or any of the many other gods people have believed in over the years, that motivated my giving. 

Just generally, don’t get locked into this ridiculous circular thinking, where anything good that happens can be credited to God. The man who has donated the most money to charity in history is an atheist (Bill Gates), the two largest humanitarian organizations are secular - (despite its name) the Red Cross and Unicef (the Catholic Church is third).

Meanwhile, the Catholic church gets massive tax breaks - billions of dollars a year that could be used to fund health care, libraries, environmental improvement, relieve poverty.

Despite what the Bible teaches, people are naturally nice, kind, co-operative, helpful, unselfish and giving. Atheists give without any expectation of, or desire for, any eternal reward. Unlike that wicked old fraud Mother Theresa, we won’t insist you share our beliefs before we treat you. Everyone only has this one, short life. It should be as happy, healthy, comfortable, dignified and fulfilling for everyone as it possibly can be.

Steve J and Alan G
Not only does using evolution as an explanation for love cheapen man and cheapen love, it cheapens life.

Arthur,

No one’s answered the point I made a little earlier. Jennifer’s case, going from atheism to Catholicism is notable because it is rare. Meanwhile, thirty million Americans say they are ‘ex Catholics’. It is pretty much a one way street ... in the other direction.
*****
I can’t remember if it was Lewis, Kreeft, Chesterton or whoever, but one of them said, that sinners are boring.  (I’m not saying anyone here is a sinner…I’m just commenting on what you, Arthur, said)  They’re all alike.  Like little copies of each other.  Totally predictable.  Saints on the other hand are so very interesting because each one is so unique and so different from each other and every one else.  And didn’t Chesterton say that only “A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.” ?
*****
Steve,
**
I watched 6 of the 8 episodes on youtube so far.  You’re right, he’s good.  (Ken Miller that is).  I gotta tell you, rather than make me doubt God, it really made me more in awe of Him than ever.  All I kept thinking was WOW! What a plan…
***
He really had me with the Human Chromosome #2.  Can’t argue with that!
I sometimes wonder if the vision Thomas Aquinas had was about what we know of science today.  I mean here he was, a genius for his time, thinking, thinking, always thinking…and then boom!  He has a vision of computers, and time/space theory, and evolution…I can just see him throwing up his hands and saying everything I’ve written is straw!  Not meaning that it was worthless, but that it was nothing compared to what was coming.  To what creation, the universe(s), life was REALLY all about. 
***
Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks.  I’ll watch the rest and then the Colbert interview and then maybe even get his book.  It was really nice of you to help me with that.

Steve,

The man who has donated the most money to charity in history is an atheist (Bill Gates), the two largest humanitarian organizations are secular - (despite its name) the Red Cross and Unicef (the Catholic Church is third).

I’m not doubting you…but I’ve always wanted to know where to get that information.  Is there some website that lists how much different charities give?  I’ve heard people say (usually Catholics…lol) say that the Catholic Church gives more than anyone else, and then I’ve heard what you said from other people.  I’ve always wanted to know where to go to get the “truth”.  And when you say the Catholic Church, is that the Church per se, or Catholic Relief Services, Catholic Charities, Catholic Hospitals etch all rolled into one?  I donate a lot to Heifer Foundation, and have always wanted to know how much good they actually do.  Someplace must have publish this info, no?

@Magda

This is a very subjective conversation. All I can say is that I do not think evolution cheapens life, love or humans. I feel proud to be so attached to this world, I am literally a part of it, derived from its very matter and descended from its beings. My history is extremely deep, potentially reaching back billions of years. The words ‘from nothing’ and ‘Spontaneous’ are thrown around by those who do not understand this deep connection. Evolution has strong historical ties, because beings are reliant on their parental heritage and the current state of the environment for survival. There is nothing cheap about this process, its connectedness or its explanation. God creating the world in 6 days literally ‘from nothing’ sounds far more ‘spontaneous’ and ‘cheap’ to me.

J - I don’t have time to read all the comments, so maybe someone replied to this already.  Your idea that regaining an amputated arm would be ‘healing’ is false.  One can only ‘heal’ what already exists.  If I have a lesion on my face, my face can be healed because I have a face to heal.  If I have no arm, that arm cannot be ‘healed.’  If I have a withered arm, a cancerous arm, a burnt arm, a cut arm - that arm can be healed.  But if I have no arm at all, there’s nothing to heal.

“I don’t have time to read all the comments, so maybe someone replied to this already.  Your idea that regaining an amputated arm would be ‘healing’ is false.”

So we’re all agreed ...

Luke 22:49-51

‘49 When Jesus’ followers saw what was going to happen, they said, “Lord, should we strike with our swords?” 50 And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear.  51 But Jesus answered, “No more of this!” And he touched the man’s ear and healed him.’

... this didn’t happen, then?

“Is there some website that lists how much different charities give?”

It’s possible to Google around - Forbes do an annual list of US charities, for example.

It’s complicated by definitions - churches are registered as charities for being churches. Art galleries and museums are charities. Which is why I was careful to say ‘humanitarian aid’.

And note that I’m not trying to say churches don’t do good work. Obviously churches donate vast amounts of money and resources, most of it without imposing conditions, and ask their followers to do likewise. Which is great. 

But atheists and secular organizations also do good work, and I was responding to the idea that God can take the credit for that, too.

Steve,

You know how you told me that evolution was just too vast of a topic to answer on a blog?  And that my questions were good, but the answers weren’t simple? 
***
I’m sure you would agree that whatever I ‘picked up’ from those videos was just the absolute bare bones.  And I wouldn’t disagree.  I can see that I would have to study for years, and intensively at that, to be able to say that I was “well versed” in the theory of evolution.  Even then, I would only have touched the tip of the iceberg.  No matter how much I knew, there would be more, more and more.  A lifetime wouldn’t be long enough.  The subject is just to big, and it branches off into other sciences, which I would also have to study…
***
The “Faith” is like that too.  You question things about the Church and our Faith in Her and God, and they are perfectly reasonable questions, just as mine were.  But like you, we are at a loss to answer some of them, because the topic is so wide and interconnected.  It’s hard to tell you what the soul is without getting into what a human is.  It’s hard to explain prayer without explaining suffering and sacrifice and suffering and sacrifice are hard to explain without getting into evil…I’m sure to you, some of our “beliefs” sound as strange to you as your assertion that we came from apes sounded to me.  It took six youtube videos just to answer that one question.
***
So if our answers seem trite, or incomplete, or vapid, try to remember how overwhelmed you felt when trying to explain evolution to me.  It wasn’t that YOU didn’t have a clear understanding, it’s that I didn’t have enough background for you to elaborate.
***
Obviously, this is not meant to convince you to trust us and become a believer…lol…I’m just asking that you understand that to you, our Faith seems “simple” and naive, but like evolution, it is built on layer upon layer of knowledge.  I looked at evolution and thought “Yeah, right, like I’m gonna believe I came from a monkey”.  You look at the Faith and think “Yeah, right, like I’m gonna believe some invisible guy created the earth in 6 days”.  Both of us, tho, would be guilty of reducing a very complicated structure to something silly and vacuous.  Only with an open mind, a willingness to go deeper, a commitment to really “hear” what the other side is saying, a determination not to prejudge and a realization that we only “think that we know” can we truly begin to understand what the other side is saying. 
***
Our Faith is not simply about a “Flying Spaghetti Monster” in the sky.  Each piece is built on a preceding piece and it really is quite reasonable, even if in the end you don’t “buy” it. 
***
In some ways God is quite simple, as He is Love and Love is a simple concept.  But the one thing that you and I can agree on, I am sure, is that while the concept of Love is simple, the reality is anything but…Love is a topic that could be discussed infinitely.  Asking us to define our Faith in a sentence or two, is like asking us to define Love the same way.  We could give you a basic idea, but the reality is something that would take volumes to communicate.  To someone who already believes in Love, a few words might suffice.  But imagine explaining Love to someone who a.) had never experienced it and b.) not having experienced it, refused to believe it exists.  Your work would be cut out for you, because every time you gave an example it would lead to more questions, which would require more explanations which would raise more questions.  Our belief might seem sophomoric to you, but descending from apes seemed pretty sophomoric to me.  Until I understood that it just wasn’t as simple as I thought it was.

Steve,

And note that I’m not trying to say churches don’t do good work. Obviously churches donate vast amounts of money and resources, most of it without imposing conditions, and ask their followers to do likewise. Which is great. 

No,no…I know you weren’t implying that.  I really have wondered where to get this info.  It has come up on my own blog, and in other debates before, and like I said, I have heard both claims made, but never seen either one backed up.  Just as you would never say that Faith based organizations aren’t charitable, I would never say that secular based organizations aren’t charitable.  It is human nature at it’s best, that we just seem compelled to help those less fortunate than ourselves.  “Something” (which of course we call God and you would call common decency) moves our hearts when we see others suffering…whether it comes from God or the gene pool, I think we can agree that one of the good things unique to humans is our ability to empathize.  Christians do not have the market cornered on that.

@mk

Hear Hear!

Lord Jesus Christ, for the sake of your sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and our brothers and sisters who in spite of the evidence refuse to believe.  Help our unbelief, and cause us to see You as you are - LOVE PERSONIFIED.

Lead all souls to heaven - especially those most in need of your mercy. 

St. Faustina, pray for us!

His noodley goodness, for the sake of tolerance, have mercy on us and our brothers and sisters who in spite of the evidence refuse to believe.  Help our unbelief, and cause us to see You as you are - PASTA PERSONIFIED.
Lead all souls to heaven - especially those most in need of your touch.
St. Piraticus, pray for us!

Really? I’m out for now. Preaching babble to the Atheists won’t win one metaphorical soul.

Well Alan, if you are unable to carry on a discussion without resorting to insults, perhaps it IS better if you bow out.  Whether you agree with Brother Pachomious or not, common decency demands that you refrain from outright insults, given his good intentions.
***
Furthermore, if a wiccan were to come on here and ask the Goddess to grant me my greatest desires, I would graciously take her gift as it was meant.  I might shelf it, I might not believe it was worth much, but I would realize that at bottom line her intentions were for my well being and greater good.  Her version of well being and mine might not be the same, but our desire for each others happiness is not that different from each other. 
***
It is a small person who would take someones well wishes and throw them back in the face of the giver.  It makes you, not Brother Pachomious look like the smaller person.  You claim to be the bigger person because you are more intelligent and not given to fantastical mythological beliefs, and then prove exactly the opposite by behaving like a petulant 3 year old. 
***
How’s this for an alternative response…Brother Pachomious, while I do not believe in this God of yours, I recognize that you are hoping only good things for me.  I’ll take those well wishes in the spirit in which they were meant, and I too hope that life brings you nothing but happiness.
***
I realize that it could appear condescending to pray that someone’s soul be saved, that it implies they have a soul and that it is in danger of being condemned by their dirty deeds, but don’t you also wish that we Catholics would get an ounce of sense and realize that we believe in fairy tales?  Is that not just as condescending as it implies we are idiots with the brains of slugs?  Yet I take no offense at these comments, because I realize that in your own way, you believe you are saving me from myself.  I take your comments in the context they are meant.  You would do well to do the same.  Atheists have a reputation for being snarky and mean spirited.  You’re doing nothing to change that opinion and doing much to verify it.  In trying to make Brother Pachomious look like a fool, I fear you have done just the opposite and made yourself look shallow and judgmental. 
***
Climbing down off my high horse now…

“Whether you agree with Brother Pachomious or not, common decency demands that you refrain from outright insults, given his good intentions.”

I agree it wasn’t helpful, but see Jennifer’s point above - there’s no point praying at us, because to atheists, those two posts are equally meaningful, equally ‘true’.

As for intention - well, without putting word’s in Alan’s mouth, I suspect it was to mock. But what was Brother Pachomius’s intention? Not to convert by persuasion. A showy demonstration of faith? To rally support from co-religionists? Was it a helpful contribution, either?

As for ‘common decency’ - this is one of the core things atheists talk about. But it means what it says: no *special* respect or tolerance for a belief because it is religious in nature or widely held. No special treatment for people who work for religions, as opposed to in the secular sector. Priests to pay taxes, to be subject to the law of the land and to have no special place in forming those laws. No one to claim they are being persecuted simply because they want to break the law.

We’re not *attacking* your belief, we’re treating it as we’d treat any idea. Seeing if it relates to what we see, if things behave as it predicts. And we can be playful about the things we believe, too. We can mock our own. Just as we can take things seriously.

As I said very early on, a lot of this is simply about evidence - and this is what the Flying Spaghetti Monster idea is parodying. If someone says ‘God is love’ ... well, how is that different from ‘The Flying Spaghetti Monster is love’? If someone asserts ‘all living things have a soul placed there by God’, how is that different from claiming the FSM does that?

It’s an *obviously* mocking response, and I can see why it gets people’s backs up. A better way of asking the question is ‘how do you know it’s God, and not Zeus?’. Richard Dawkins has phrased it slightly differently - ‘Catholics don’t believe in Zeus or Osiris or Thor or any of the thousands of gods that have been worshiped at some point, they are atheists, too, in that sense - I just disbelieve in one God more than they do’. 

If you can explain why you don’t believe in Zeus, you can understand why I’m an atheist. If you can imagine a follower of Zeus praying you make the appropriate sacrifices so you end up in the Elysian Fields, you can imagine what your prayers for us sound like to us.

I appreciate well-meaning sentiments and people thinking about my welfare, though.

@mk
“I think we can agree that one of the good things unique to humans is our ability to empathize.  Christians do not have the market cornered on that.”

I found your statements friendly and I took them that way, I even cheered them, but respectfully, Br. Pachomius’ comment is not the same.

“who in spite of the evidence refuse to believe”

This is not a friendly, respectful or ecumenical statement, it is condescending and assumes that atheists (and others) are ignoring evidence, which many Atheists throughout these blogs have argued we are not. Its a backhanded compliment at best and I will not respond positively. Let me illustrate:

For the sake of the world, I hope that you can see the insurmountable evidence against God and understand why I don’t believe.  Extinguish your delusions, and see the world as it is - MILLIONS OF YEARS OF EVOLUTION NOW IN DANGER.
Lead all minds to science and an understanding of climate change - especially those most in need of enlightenment.
Science, educate us!
(Green facts thrown in to illustrate what I see as an important problem)

I am all for a friendly dialogue but in the end I really just want my worldview respected and Br. Pachomius did not do this. If you don’t attempt to deny atheists rights or make false statements about atheists, there will be no problem. I don’t think that is unreasonable. Remember where these comments stem from, a failed attempt at diplomacy with atheists because of bad assumptions, Br. Pachomius shows us another example.

@Steve Jeffers

My point was that it was not a useful contribution, especially after mk and yourself had ended with such great posts (truthfully). I apologise if all I did was add to the conflict but I do think his statement is condescending.  I do not believe the statement was intended as friendly, if so, it was misdelivered.

mk: you post that your faith is, like evolutionary theory, built on layers of knowledge.

While I have no doubt that you are sincere, it is this type of argument that illustrates, to many atheists, the difference between believers and atheists.

Your ‘knowledge’ is, I strongly suspect, either entirely or mostly ‘revealed’ or ‘divined’ knowledge, not knowledge in the sense of knowledge derived from the application of the scientific method to observable phenomena.

Much of the ‘knowledge’ to which you refer will be found in the writings of pre-scientific authors. The earliest writers, in the Christian tradition, are literally unknown and unidentifiable. The New Testament is based on an after-the-fact selection and censorship process applied to texts that were themselves written many years after the events described therein, and by people who could not, due to that fact, have witnessed or participated in any of them. A Gospel according to a particular disciple, for example, cannot have been written by that disciple…who would have been long dead by the time the document that was to become the source document was written.

Later Christian thinkers were unaware of the as-yet undiscovered scientific method, and even the earliest ‘scientists’ were so immersed in the religious worldview of their times that many of them saw their work as exploring the means by which their God established and governed the world.

And they all accepted the various chosen gospels as, well, gospel! The fact that we use the term ‘gospel’ as indicative of complete truth is revealing….that usage stems from the teachings of the Catholic church that the gospels are utterly accurate. Anyone who has actually read them will know how silly this claim is, since they contain contradictions…they cannot all be true in all aspects…even if one accepted the implausible description of ‘miracles’.

Any convoluted, multi-layered intellectual construct based upon such an approach to truth is unlikely to lead to sustainable conclusions.

It was only gradually that the developing secular knowledge led increasingly large numbers of people to realize that god as an explanation for what we see around us (using ‘see’ in the broadest sense) is unnecessary.

Let me ask you this: can you point to any ‘knowledge’, forming part of the basis of your faith, that allows you to make a testable (in the sense of falsifiable) prediction about observable events?

Can you point to any ‘knowledge’ found in any religious text, underpinning your faith, that has led to an increased ability on the part of our species to manipulate the observable universe?

Quantum mechanics gives us, for example, the laser. Maxwell’s equations give us the radio and the television. Structural mechanics allow us to build bridges.

What does prayer do?

Who invented the telephone? A priest, by applying religious theory? or a scientist, applying the scientific method?

One could say the same about every advance in human knowledge.

The only recent broad-based test of the power of prayer was sponsored by religious believers, who endorsed and promoted the methodology, convinced that the experiment would prove the efficacy of prayer in healing those for whom others prayed.

That is, it was endorsed and promoted UNTIL the experiment showed that there was ZERO benefit from prayer…ironically, the only measurable outcome was that one ‘prayed-for’ group fared worse than the non-prayed for controls!

Of course, the religious believers revealed their innate character by retroactively criticizing the methodology as well as arguing that maybe god ignored the prayers because he resented being tested (what a pathetic, mean-spirited monster such a god must be!).

It really doesn’t matter how convoluted your theoretical structure of faith is, if nothing derived from it is testable. It is just mental masturbation: satisfying in some ways, but ultimately non-productive.

Atheists prefer, bye and large to engage with the real world. Yes, it can seem messy…..the real world has so many as-yet-unknown questions, while religion affords what appear to be answers…..when reason won’t yield the answer, we are told to ‘have faith’ or that the answer is ‘god’. But such an approach to understanding the world is meaningless. Waving the ‘god’ answer to an as-yet not understood question is like raising a ‘stop thinking’ flag. No matter how multi-layered your excuses may be; no matter how internally consistent the reasoning may appear to be, the sad truth is that the entire intellectual edifice is based upon an unproven and unprovable self-reinforcing substrate…..god is therefore god is.

I apologize if this seems condescending. It is however no more condescending than having to read fatuous comments about how religious believers will pray for us! And, I say with all respect, it is very, very difficult to engage with religious thinkers who may use the same words as do atheists but who seem so often to speak a different language. You use the word ‘knowledge’ just as I do. But I doubt that we mean the same thing.

Oh, one last thing. While to become a true expert in evolutionary theory may well take decades of study, any person of moderate intelligence can get a very good grasp of the basic concepts within at most a month. There are dozens, if not more, excellent books intended for the lay reader. Dawkins, of course, is the most widely cited, and as one who has read virtually all of his books of that nature, I can heartily recommend him.

There are differences of opinion within the scientific community, and the prevailing consensus may and will change as knowledge accumulates and theories are tested and debated, but that entire discussion strengthens, as well as refines, the theory. Laypeople such as myself need not understand all of the more arcane issues…which go to the detail, not the overall concept of random variation mediated by natural selection.

“Atheists have a reputation for being snarky and mean spirited.”

If we’re going to play the ‘have a reputation for’ game, what would you say Catholic priests have a reputation for, and is it better or worse than ‘internet snark’?

“But like you, we are at a loss to answer some of them, because the topic is so wide and interconnected.  It’s hard to tell you what the soul is without getting into what a human is.  It’s hard to explain prayer without explaining suffering and sacrifice and suffering and sacrifice are hard to explain without getting into evil…I’m sure to you, some of our “beliefs” sound as strange to you as your assertion that we came from apes sounded to me.”

I want to understand, I don’t think I will ever believe. I do find it ... frustrating? ... that I’m often told I can’t understand unless I believe. I think perhaps ‘suspicious’ is a better word than ‘frustrating’. 

What you won’t catch me doing is thinking that Catholicism is lightweight or unthought through. I understand that for many hundreds of years, many people a lot smarter than me sincerely explored these issues. That I can’t come in and go ‘hey, does it ever occur to you that bad things happen to good people, why is that?’ and blow your minds with my incredible new idea.

I think there are basically two sorts of ‘lifetime knowledge’ disciplines. People spend lifetimes studying avionics, or paleography, or even things like insurance law. These are elaborate systems, with jargon and conventions and so on. But there are also things like, say, astrology and homeopathy and so on, which are equally detailed, just as many books and courses to attend, they’d take the same lifetime to learn.

Now, I’m not dismissing Catholicism as homeopathy, and even if it were complete nonsense, it’s complete nonsense that has influenced a lot of art, history and philosophy and so on (we’re back to Zeus and what the ancient Greeks believed). I do have a real struggle trying to see what smart, modern people see in it.

It all comes back to evidence, in the end, for me. If you poke the universe with an idea that’s true, the universe responds - if you look through a telescope, you see astronomy, not astrology. I see a world that acts just like I’d expect it to if there wasn’t a God in it - as i say, that doesn’t make me sad: my world doesn’t have sins or Hell, I am not being constantly watched or judged. I don’t look at early Church history and see some eternal truth being uncovered, I see a lot of human beings cobbling something together very pragmatically. 

So the idea that I *have* to believe before I understand, that faith is a vital component of this. No. That’s not how anything else works. If physicists can work out ways to detect neutrinos, theologians should be able to point at souls. If astronomers can show us galaxies being born ten billion years ago, priests ought to be able to show God at work in a hospital.

As I say, people can be sincere and wrong. I hope I’m sincere, I hope I’m not wrong. I don’t think this is exactly unusual. What I like to think is that I can challenge myself, expose myself to the other point of view. I worry that ‘faith’ makes that harder, not easier.

“That is, it was endorsed and promoted UNTIL the experiment showed that there was ZERO benefit from prayer”

I’m married to a medical statistician. That study is, as far as I’m concerned, pretty much the perfect basis for a disproof of God - or at least a God who answers prayers.

The thing we all have to understand about medical statistics - this is a billion dollar industry. Doctors, hospital administrators, governments, drug companies, let alone patients - there’s a vast amount riding on the best treatments. Lives, and a great deal of money.

*Anything* that helps will be willingly embraced. If it’s *cheap*, that would be even better. If it’s *free* ... well, that’s just extraordinary.

So here’s the religious hypothesis: ‘if someone is sick, if a relative puts their hands together and says and thinks certain things, the patient’s medical outcome can improve’.

It doesn’t matter what the mechanism is, that’s the beauty of this. Perhaps it’s God listening to a prayer and sending an angel, perhaps it’s some placebo effect, perhaps it’s some weird entirely material process we can’t begin to describe. It doesn’t matter.

Something *free* can help.

Prayer and God ... all very emotive. Put it this way: say it was discovered that if someone was sick, their chances were improved just a tiny bit, if someone, *anyone*, clapped their hands while they were thinking about them.

What would hospitals do? Here’s the answer: they would encourage, at every level, people to clap their hands and think about their patients. Even if it made a difference in one in a million cases.

Hospitals have discovered that the very simplest things have huge benefits - you don’t see as many doctors with ties these days, or nurses with jewelry. Because those things can pick up viruses. The exact amount of light, the exact dosage of medicines, the exact times people are fed ... these are all carefully calculated.

Statisticians are paid to work out what actually makes a difference. Not what the anecdotes are, not what seems to work, not what’s always the way things have been done. They test, run double blind analysis, they check every variable, how those variables interact ... as I say, it’s *incredibly* detailed.

We know, beyond doubt, that given two identical patients with identical conditions, in the same hospital, prayer doesn’t ever make the slightest statistical difference.

Now, I know the theology. But it’s not explanation, it’s excuses. It’s nonsense about how God has a divine will and prayer doesn’t change that, just ensures it, and he saves some people but not others. But a Catholic, a Protestant, a Muslim, a non-believer, a serial killer ... it makes no difference - all other things being equal, they have statistically equal medical outcomes. Is it really all that ridiculous to think Catholics would have even a fractional advantage, if Catholicism is true?

The process is a very simple one: religious people pray in hospital because *in their terms* they want God to make things better than they otherwise would be. They want prayer to place them at an *advantage* over if they hadn’t prayed. That advantage simply doesn’t exist.

Does it have a psychologically soothing effect? Does the ritual give people some way to cope? Very possibly. But that’s not an argument for the existence of God, that’s an argument that Catholicism is a bit like Prozac. 

Prayer does not make a difference if you’re sick. Simple as that. And if it doesn’t work in hospitals, when people want (and use and expect) it most, then what use is it?

Alan,

For the sake of the world, I hope that you can see the insurmountable evidence against God and understand why I don’t believe.  Extinguish your delusions, and see the world as it is - MILLIONS OF YEARS OF EVOLUTION NOW IN DANGER.
Lead all minds to science and an understanding of climate change - especially those most in need of enlightenment.
Science, educate us!
**
But see, that was a perfectly acceptable response, as it respected the person while not respecting the idea.  Your first response was just mean, while this one was clever and not meant to cause hurt. 
**
Here you say, “Why can’t the world just be reasonable?”  But there you said, “Brother Pachomious, you’re an idiot!”
**
Noodley Goodness and Pasta Personified is as we all know a reference to the “Great Spaghetti Monster”...it’s meant to be demeaning.  Even if you perceived Brother Pachomius’ comment as rude, is that an excuse to be rude yourself?
**
I too think it is pointless to tell atheists that you are praying for them.  I don’t think it’s pointless to pray for them, mind you, but certainly telling them that you are can be misunderstood as you say, as a backhanded compliment, but someone has to take the high road, no?
**
I just hate to see everyone devolve into this kind of bickering, which only closes down communication and feeds the false beliefs that we have of each other.  I try to ignore most of these comments, or read between the lines and see what the person is really saying.
**
Being a Catholic, I recognize the prayer that Brother Pachomius printed, and I know that most of us do have a sincere desire to “show you something that we see”, but we are at a disadvantage as “what we see” cannot be “seen” with eyes.  Which of course, exactly why we don’t see eye to eye.
**
As soon as I hit the submit button, I realized that I should have just let it go…who am I after all to fight Brother Pachomius’ fights for him.  I just see this behavior so often, on both sides (protestants love referring to the C.C. as the !@#$% of babylon and the Eucharist as “that cracker”.  It’s meant to mock.  I don’t know how much of an emotional investment you have in science, so it’s hard for me to judge where your comments are coming from…but when you attack our Faith, attack our God, it feels the same as if you were attacking a family member.  God to us is a “Who” not an idea.  I know that sounds nuts to you, I really do, but calling Him the Flying Spaghetti Monster is like saying my father is pig or my mother is a !@#$%.  It’s not just attacking something we think, it’s attacking someone we love.  So while no one has the right to ask you to respect God, we do have the right to ask you to respect “us”.  Do you see?  Anyway, sorry I came down so hard.  I’m not immune to emotional responses, even tho for the most part my skin is pretty thick.  Truce?

Alan,

My point was that it was not a useful contribution, especially after mk and yourself had ended with such great posts (truthfully). I apologise if all I did was add to the conflict but I do think his statement is condescending.  I do not believe the statement was intended as friendly, if so, it was misdelivered.

That took a lot of integrity and guts.  Thank you.  And for the record, I totally see why his comment/prayer would appear condescending.

It is good to be on the ‘Steve Jeffers’ website again.
Neither of us is going to convert, no matter how much you debate. Perhaps it is time to go somewhere, have a strong coffee, and relax. The ancients tell us to “listen much and speak little.” Enjoy your coffee in the knowledge that our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ God is endlessly patient. Thanks.

>Neither of us is going to convert, no matter how much you debate. Perhaps it is time to go somewhere, have a strong coffee, and relax.<

I *am* doing this when I’m having a coffee and relaxing.

I’m not seeking to convert anyone, nor to be converted or heroically resist conversion. I’m someone who doesn’t believe, seeking accounts of why people believe. It is, as I’ve said, something that’s alien to me. I won’t convert, I would like to understand why something that leaves me so cold is something that other people sincerely and thoughtfully embrace. And I’ve heard some very interesting things, and people here have been very nice to me.

I’m sorry if that offends you, and I’m also sorry that your internet apparently has only this one page.

Steve,

A Gospel according to a particular disciple, for example, cannot have been written by that disciple…who would have been long dead by the time the document that was to become the source document was written.</i>
**
We have Paul’s letters and Paul knew Peter who knew Jesus.  And we believe that John knew Jesus personally. Plus we have other writings that didn’t make it into the Canon.  None of the Gospels mentions the fall of the Temple in 70AD, a HUGE event that would surely have been noted, and this leads us to believe that “Q” (the real author of Matthew or at least Matthews primary source) was written before 70AD.  That’s pretty early, considering Jesus died somewhere around 35 or 36 AD. 
**
<B>I want to understand, I don’t think I will ever believe. I do find it ... frustrating? ... that I’m often told I can’t understand unless I believe. I think perhaps ‘suspicious’ is a better word than ‘frustrating’. </i>
**
It always reminds me of those pictures they sell in the malls.  You know, the “Magic Eye” thingys?  You stare at a seemingly senseless, tho colorful, piece of abstract art and are told that if you do it “just right”, you’ll see a hidden picture emerge?  I have seen the “underneath” picture, but not for a long time.  I remember standing there and thinking, “Is this a hoax?” , “Are they all just pretending to see something?” and then feeling like an idiot because apparently everyone in the world except me could see this supposed stupid picture.  Then all of a sudden there it was!  And of course the guy next to me was sayin’  “Where?  Where?  I can’t see it!”, which of course made me feel all superior.  Except I was helpless to explain to him HOW I did it.  All I kept saying was “Keep Looking!  Do you see it?”...
**
Of course there is a difference as there really IS a picture hidden there which can be scientifically verified and with God you just have to take my word for it.  But the “Feeling” of frustration that you can’t see, at the moment, what everyone else keeps telling you is there…well, I imagine you feel much the same.
**
<B>And, I say with all respect, it is very, very difficult to engage with religious thinkers who may use the same words as do atheists but who seem so often to speak a different language. You use the word ‘knowledge’ just as I do. But I doubt that we mean the same thing.
**
I know what you’re saying, but I actually think we are using knowledge in the same way.  I don’t mean knowledge of God, I mean knowledge of Scriptures, knowledge of the Early Fathers, knowledge of why we do what we do, the nuances and intricacies.  You could understand the basics of Catholicism in a relatively short time also (my daughter in law has gone through a 6 month program and will be entering the Church at Easter, but even after 6 months she only has a rudimentary understanding of the “Catholic Faith”.)  You might for instance be able to name the seven sacraments quite easily, but volumes have been written on what a sacrament is, and on each sacrament individually.  It’s a long journey from “Sure, I can accept that there is a Supernatural Something” to “Homosexuality is intrinsically disordered”...While it is true that Abortion is wrong “because God said so”, the reason God said so is what you are really asking.  And the answer is much more complicated than simply “Because He is the one who made you”. (although that is also true). 
**
Even your statement that I might as well believe in Zeus for all the evidence I can show, requires a much more thoughtful answer than “because there is no proof that Zeus ever lived”.  Just as saying we came from apes is “true”, we must understand that the path that got us to that conclusion was long and winding and filled with dead ends.  We, both sides, simply want to cut to the chase and say “SHOW ME”.  We live in a age of sound bites, and want the quick answer.  But just as the quick answer doesn’t really suffice with science, it falls short in theology as well. So the question remains, are you willing to put in the time to find out?  Or do you just want short answers?
**
Obviously, every single bit of Catholic Theology is going to sound ridiculous unless you either believe or are willing to suspend disbelief for the sake of seeing it through our eyes.
**
I’ll let you in on a well known secret…even the most devout Catholic, even the staunchest believer, even those that are willing to die for their faith, have doubts.  We all have moments where we question our own sanity.  Maybe we are crazy.  Maybe there is nothing just as they claim.  Maybe I am the biggest dupe on the face of the earth!  We are just as human as you, and it is in our nature to demand proofs and tangible evidence.  All I can tell you is that something pulls us back…It’s as Peter said…“To whom shall we go Lord.  You have the words to Eternal Life”.  Once we began to believe, there was simply no going back. 
** 
The fact that we use the term ‘gospel’ as indicative of complete truth is revealing….that usage stems from the teachings of the Catholic church that the gospels are utterly accurate. Anyone who has actually read them will know how silly this claim is, since they contain contradictions…they cannot all be true in all aspects…even if one accepted the implausible description of ‘miracles’.
**
Oh goodness, no, we do not think that the Gospels are utterly accurate.  We believe that they were inspired.  That the “TRUTHS”, the metaphysical “TRUTHS” that they tell us were inspired, not the dates and facts, etc.  They aren’t really historical accounts.  More like journals.  I’m sure that when they were being written the authors had no idea that 2,000 years later they’d be on the best seller list!  There are parts that we accept as historically true, especially the parts that are related in all four Gospels, exactly the same way, but those are few and far between.  Three of the Gospels are what we all synoptic and John’s Gospel is more like a love poem than a account of what happened.  Fundamentalists believe that every single word is true, exactly as it is written.  That’s why they are called fundamentalists.  But Catholics don’t.  We understand that these were not textbooks, and shouldn’t be held to those standards.  We tend to take Jesus’ words to heart more than anything else.  Some of the details, like the 12 baskets left over after the loaves and fishes, were probably not accurate.  Geomancy was a science back then, and using a certain “number” was a way of saying something without saying it.  The number 12, 40, 3 etc, all had meanings that everyone of that time would have understood.  Were there twelve apostles?  Probably.  But we don’t even have an accurate account of what their names were.  But that isn’t really important to the story.  The heart of the story, if you know what I mean.

Steve and Counsel,
**
I just spent 3 hours writing that comment (not straight) in between dropping kids off at volleyball, helping another one with his science project, making dinner and getting ready to go to a mission.  I had to leave it at least 6 times only to return and have completely lost my train of thought, (not to mention I screwed up all the HTLM’s)...so imagine my dismay when I finally hit submit and went back up to read the next comment only to realize that someone named counsel (hello counsel) had written it and not Steve.  Either way, the points are valid, and address some of Steves questions as well…so sorry, and oops…and now back to our regularly scheduled programming….  ;)

Steve,

“Atheists have a reputation for being snarky and mean spirited.”

If we’re going to play the ‘have a reputation for’ game, what would you say Catholic priests have a reputation for, and is it better or worse than ‘internet snark’?
**
I don’t believe that atheists are snarky and mean spirited any more than I believe all cops are corrupt.  Reputations are one thing, truth is another.  I try to take everyone as they are and see where it leads.  I was just pointing out that people “Claim” atheists are mean spirited just as they claim they are immoral and evil.  I’m well aware of the reputations Christians have and do everything in my power not to feed it.  There are good atheists, good priest, good cops, good muslims, good Catholics and good pro choice people.  There are also bad atheists, bad priests, bad cops, bad muslims, bad Catholics and bad pro choice people.  Bottom line is that there are good people and bad people and it doesn’t make much difference what else they are.  I just hate to see anyone give fuel to a fire that many are all too happy to watch burn.  That says as much about those who believe everything they hear as it does about those who give them reason to believe it.

Steve,
I see a world that acts just like I’d expect it to if there wasn’t a God in it - as i say, that doesn’t make me sad: my world doesn’t have sins or Hell, I am not being constantly watched or judged. I don’t look at early Church history and see some eternal truth being uncovered, I see a lot of human beings cobbling something together very pragmatically. 
**
I think that is one of the misunderstandings that a lot of non believers have.  Yes, there are Christians who fear hell and view God as an ever present judge, just waiting for them to make a mistake. It’s why Luther left the church and came up with Once Saved always Saved.  But this is like saying you hate your dad because he controls all the money and watches every move you make…A true Christian, someone that is not just giving it lip service, has a relationship with God.  A loving relationship.  We work with Him, not “For” Him.  A kid mows the lawn out of love and respect for his dad, not because he fears punishment.  At least not once he starts to mature.  There may be times where the kid does or doesn’t do certain things because he might get in trouble, but even then, it’s because he loves his dad and doesn’t want to disappoint him.  And when the dad does ground him, it’s not because he is some distant, authoritarian dictator…it’s because he wants to protect his son, or teach his son…but it all comes from love.  If I believed that God was some Hitler type sadist, or even just a removed overseer, I wouldn’t want anything to do with Him either.  That was Socrates problem with the gods of the Greeks.  They were more flawed than the men who believed in them!  He decided that if these gods WERE real, he wanted nothing to do with them.  I feel the same way.

Br. Pachomius is referring to the Ocean of Mercy which is poured out on all humanity from the Heart of Jesus.  It is an authorized devotion based on revelations to a Polish Catholic nun.  It is a prayer said over and over by those who wish Mercy on all and wish all to accept God’s Mercy if not in this life, then at the moment of death, no matter what their beliefs, sins, etc.  If anyone were to read the Divine Mercy book written by St. Faustina, they would find that it tells of the merciful humble God who loves in a way only God can love on the cross forgiving sins.
“Eternal God, in whom Mercy is endless and the treasury of compassion inexhaustible, look kindly upon us and increase Your Mercy in us that in difficult moments we might not despair, nor become despondent, but with great confidence submit ourselves to your holy Will which is Love and Mercy Itself.” St. Faustina

Steve,

I don’t know what to say except that this is not who God is, to me, at least.  And I believe to most practicing Catholics (and I’m sure many Christians) who take their faith and their relationship with God seriously.  By that I mean, they spend time with Him in prayer everyday, frequent the sacraments, and strive to live a life in union with Him. 

+ Isn’t the atheistic version of how we got here just so much more beautiful, so much more elegant?
No, because it is just as beautiful as you describe it and imagine it to be, but because it was made from love, for love and not just some random act of happening, makes it all the more beautiful to me.

+  Isn’t a morality based on making the best of this one life, and leaving the world better for those that follow better than that the idea that it’s all about where you go afterwards? 

No, because at least Catholic teachings include making the best of this one life and becoming all that you can be and leaving the world better for those that follow, but it is also filled with HOPE of eternal life.  It’s hope that strengthens the soul to face struggles and crisis, which fall upon all humans, with peace and confidence.

+Isn’t it just more satisfying to talk about real things, like friends and art and nature than abstracts like sin and guilt and atonement? Isn’t being open better than tribalism?

To be honest, I’m not even sure what you are saying here.  Are you saying that you think think Catholics (and I am speaking as a Catholic in response to these for obvious reasons) don’t talk about friends, art, and nature and all we do is talk about sin and guilt atonement?  We already stated that the Church teaches God is love.  That is where the teaching is focused, not on sin.  Sin effects our relationship with God and we strive to eliminate sin as a means of perfecting ourselves, but our focus is growing in the love of God.  We also believe that we, humans, are all part of the Body of Christ and therefore all connected so that is why your salvation is very important to us.  Also, that relationship with God means that what is important to Him is important to us AND what is important to Him is that all human life He created spend eternity with Him.  That is one reason why we pray for others.

+If God really exists, what’s he going to value - that you were good to your friends and created more than you destroyed, or that you had some water splashed on your head by an old man who, deep down, you know is a bit creepy? Do you really think that if two people run a charity together that helps millions, and they live good lives, and one of them is a Catholic and the other is a Muslim that God will send one of them to Heaven and the other to Hell? Do you really think you could rest easy in Heaven, eat at God’s table, knowing that he sent most of your friends and family to eternal torment?

Here’s the thing, God certainly does value that you were good to your friends and created more than you destroyed.  Our relationship with God calls us to love and serve others.  Also, the Catholic Church doesn’t teach that God condemns us to hell.  We choose it with our free will by rejecting God.  Hell is simply eternity without the love of God by our own free choice.  To which your response is most likely,  YEAH!  However, we believe that everything that is good on this Earth and in humanity is of God since God is love.  So exclusion from God means one’s eternal soul is left with everything that is evil in this world, for all eternity.
Personally, I have always firmly believed in God’s Mercy and believe that very few souls choose hell.  I believe we all are capable of loving and serving our fellow man and most do and even though you may say you reject God, you embrace and live by many of God’s truths.  Therefore, when you die, you will recognize this and choose to spend eternity with God in Heaven.

+No one’s answered the point I made a little earlier. Jennifer’s case, going from atheism to Catholicism is notable because it is rare. Meanwhile, thirty million Americans say they are ‘ex Catholics’. It is pretty much a one way street ... in the other direction.

I can’t speak for those ex-Catholics. The ones I’ve personally spoken with either had a problem with either a human (priest, nun, parent) associated with the Catholic Church or never bothered to understand what the church actually teaches.  There may be people who have truly encountered Jesus and were truly practicing Catholics who left the church, but I think they are as rare as you say Jen’s situation is.  I’ve never met one so I can’t really say.

I know that like any relationship, my relationship with God requires time, my time and my effort and silence with Him.  That’s difficult in this busy, noisy world.  I choose it because a day lived with Him, for me, is SO much more peaceful and purposeful.  I didn’t have my “experience” of God until I was 26 so I know very well the difference between a life lived with Him and a life lived without Him.  There is no comparison.  There is no other way for me.

But I just read an article that there were a record number of people who entered the Catholic Church in England this year (4700).  Also, in own small town there were a record number of people (100) who are becoming Catholic on Easter Sunday.  Maybe this is just a coincidence, but could it be the church is beginning to grow?

I’m going to check out now.  I think MK and Arthur are doing a fabulous job of defending the faith.  I think that’s really what we are doing, not converting, but defending what is important to us.  Anyway, I’ll say good luck to you, Steve and Alan.  I will be praying for you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3pYRn5j7oI&feature=related

“I just hate to see everyone devolve into this kind of bickering, which only closes down communication and feeds the false beliefs that we have of each other.”

Agreed, It was a bad response, I am human (and quite a passionate one) and I let my emotions dictate my response, and it wouldn’t be the first time. Truce.

“I don’t know how much of an emotional investment you have in science, so it’s hard for me to judge where your comments are coming from…”

I was raised by two largely non-religous (not unusual in my country) but progressively minded Australians. My father is a Systems Analyst (come Social Worker) and lover of science. I was brought up seeing the universe as a wonderful and complex place and to understand why science is important. My mother is a Social Worker in child welfare, she relies heavily on evidence and science (as well as empathy) to make some of the hardest decisions any person has to make.

My emotional investment lies in my understanding of the benefits and advances that science has allowed, in my awe at the amazing story of this universe and the belief that we have a responsibility to future generations.

I study religion as a sociologist because I think that religion does have a big influence on our society and that it is important to understand what these effects are (I include Atheism as a reaction to religion, as a player in changing the current religious landscape). Sociology also often criticizes science, so I have not been sheltered from that.

Science is and has been a massive part of my life, but I am open to understanding religion (well, as much as any Atheist can I’m told). In the end I have never been ultimately swayed by the evidence presented and I wouldn’t have a clue which religion to recommend (though some do stick out to me as particularly bad choices). Thus I remain, an Atheist who thinks science is the best and most reliable source of knowledge.

“I think MK and Arthur are doing a fabulous job of defending the faith.  I think that’s really what we are doing, not converting, but defending what is important to us.”

As do I, but I think in light of this article and what I explained about myself, we are doing the same thing.

@Alan G Nixon: “I found your statements friendly and I took them that way, I even cheered them, but respectfully, Br. Pachomius’ comment is not the same. - “who in spite of the evidence refuse to believe” - This is not a friendly, respectful or ecumenical statement, it is condescending and assumes that atheists (and others) are ignoring evidence, which many Atheists throughout these blogs have argued we are not.”

Please forgive me, Alan if you were offended by what I wrote.  It was not at all my intention to offend or condescend.  I am as emotional as the next guy, and I dare say much more impatient with those who do not believe; it will take a lifetime to get it right.  Thank you for your patience and indulgence.

I can only attest to my personal experience of living within God’s unfathomable mercy, and it is that vein that I entered the discussion, admittedly much more boldly than I should have.

My good fortune is to be a monk in a Benedictine monastery, responding to God’s call to seek him in a balanced life of prayer and work (“ora et labora.”)  Just as I type these words, the bell tolls for Mass, so I must go.  Please take no offense if I pray for all reading this during Mass; I only want everyone to experience the joy, peace and love that continues to change my life.

Alan,

My sister lives in Australia….Western Australia.  I’ve never been but understand that the coasts are beautiful!
**
You’re right, you and Steve are doing much to foster a true understanding of what you believe (lol…or do not believe).  I think a difference between atheists and Catholics is that while you are in awe of science. it causes you to reject Faith, But we who love our Faith, are also in awe of science.  We don’t see it as an either/or, but as a whole.  Science is amazing.  When I think how far we have come in just 100 years! 
**
You stated that you wouldn’t even know which Faith to look at…
And Steve has suggested that he sees no difference between belief in Zeus, Spaghetti and the God of my own Faith.  I’d like to explain some of the reasoning behind “choosing” the God of the Christians.
**
Being reasonable people, you and I, there are really only a handful of Religions that qualify as worthy of belief.  Hinduism/Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, Wicca and Christianity.  The rest are either offshoots or so bizarre they aren’t worth looking at until you have a grasp on the major ones.  Personally, I view, (and have had other persons of those faiths say the same), Buddhism and Hinduism more as a Philosophy than a strict religion.  There are no set doctrines, no founders, no authority within the religion…there is no “afterlife”, and no One True God.  Buddhism is a reaction to Hinduism.  There are some beautiful “ideas” within these faiths.  The notion that we are all one and that to harm one is to harm all, is also part of the Christian Faith.  But no matter how hard you look, you won’t be able to find out WHY they believe as they do. There was nothing revealed to them.  God never spoke to them.  It is more of a human answer to human problems.  This might even appeal to you as a philosophy.  Peace, compassion, charity…who can argue with those sentiments?  But not only is there no scientific basis for something like reincarnation, I can’t even find a logical proof for their belief.
So I ruled that one out when I was searching.  The only thing it has going for it is that it predates all other religions. But that cannot be a reason in itself to embrace that faith.  Where did it originate?  Why do they believe as they do? 
**
I fancied myself a Wiccan for years. But this is even less of a religion than Buddhism.  Perhaps 3,000 years ago, paganism or Wicca made more sense but todays Wicca is more a feminist social movement than an actual belief system.  They have no real Texts, or leader…it’s basically a bunch of modern women (and men) that wish to focus on the feminine aspects of humanity and use a religion to do so.  Looking back I think it was more of “pretending” to believe in something, like children play acting.  Again, the most important reason I “threw it out” was that there was no reason to accept it…no revelation, no founder, no rulebook, no logical proofs…
**
Which leaves us with the three Abrahamic religions.  Judaism, Islam and Christianity.  Judaism isn’t really out, as Christianity is simply Judaism followed to it’s natural conclusion.  Christianity didn’t abolish Judaism, but fulfilled it.  In a way, I am a Jew.  A Jew who continued to believe that God was still revealing Himself and that to be a Jew was to follow God wherever He took us…and where He took us, was “Christianity”.  Islam, on the other hand, is one man’s word, one man’s revelation.  NO ONE else saw or heard what Muhammad claims to have seen and heard.  Unlike Christianity which had multitudes of eyewitnesses to the real presence of God on earth, Islam has only one.  And that wasn’t even God Himself, but an angel.  Same with the Mormons.  I would not be willing to stake my soul on the words of one man, especially when those words directly contradict what thousands of people saw and heard centuries before him.  Why would God, my God, spend 5 thousand years bringing up a people, only to suddenly say “Forget everything I have taught you so far and now believe this…”.  Crazy talk! 
**
Which of course brings us to Christianity.  What makes it different?  Well, you have heard Magda say that God IS Love.  But what the heck does that mean?  We have to go back in history and see why this God was so different.  The pagan Gods of Greek and Rome, (as well as Mayans, Incas and Aztecs) were less like Gods, than like flawed super people.  And what they demanded from us was not love, but worship in the form of material things.  They asked us to sacrifice our selves and our loved ones to them.  We offered our babies to Moloch, and our daughters to Baal…they demanded blood, our blood, to satisfy their egos.  If we gave them our loved ones, they gave us rain.  If we slaughtered our children, they took away disease.  We had no relationship with them.  They were UP there and we were DOWN here. 
**
Then along comes a God who starts talking to us as if we were His “family”.  He likens us to His bride.  He talks of love, and commitment…promises and covenant.  Do you know that a covenant is different than a contract?  A contract is an exchange of goods or services, but a covenant is an exchange of persons.  Marriage is a covenant.  I give “myself” to another person.  This God, for the first time, asked us to enter into a “COVENANT” with Him.  He wanted to give HIMSELF to us…and He didn’t ask that we give Him our children…He didn’t ask that we offer our children up to Him in sacrifice.  Rather, He offered His.  In exchange for our Love, He wouldn’t bring us rain, or crops, but would give us Himself.  This was unheard of!  It changed the very way we looked at the world.  In it’s own way, it was as huge a breakthrough as the Polio Vaccine or the discovery of electricity.  Never before had the idea of Peace for the sake of Peace, Love for the sake of Love, been entertained by man.  All of a sudden we are asked to look at each other as if we were brothers and sisters…
**
Today when you hear cries of “NO WAR”, “FEED THE HUNGRY”, “HELP THE POOR”, it is because of this change in thinking.  When Jesus healed the sick, they were rejects of society.  There were no hospitals, no orphanages, no food banks.  These are all Christian concepts…brought about because Christianity ushered in a whole new way of thinking.  We are all in this together and our number one job in life, our PURPOSE in life, is to look after one another.  To LOVE one another.  Not to gain anything, but because this was our purpose for being created.  This is what we were created “FOR”.
**
Now that is not a logical proof, (that’s a whole different discussion) but it is why I chose this God as opposed to the others.  Given a choice between believing in a God who is distant, remote, uncaring…and a God who gave Himself to us, asking nothing in return except that we love Him and one another…wow.  That’s the only God, that to me, is worth my time or worthy of my belief.  Certainly not a reason to believe in God, but if choosing WHICH God to believe in, then it becomes easy to see why this God is so appealing.

One more intervention, for a monk must remain hidden from the world, and I am leaving the cloister without permission by posting here. (As I said - it will take a lifetime to get it right and will have to make satisfaction for posting without permission). 
- - -
First to mk: thanks for the great defense of my intentions yesterday morning - it was much better than I would have been able to do.  You have taught me much!
- - -
To those who do not yet believe in God, please take no offense; I merely share the following as a witness to the reality one might find when visiting a monastery: - - - At Mass, we chanted the following words during our recption of the Eucharist:  “The Son came not to be served to but to serve. He gave His life as a ransom for many. / How can I repay the Lord for his goodness to me? The cup of salvation I will raise; I will call on the Lord’s name.”
- - -
One closing thought: “God hides himself in extreme poverty so that our response to Him is in complete freedom.  If He sees we are not poor enough, He waits.”
- - -
For those reading who pray - please pray that my brothers and I might be made worthy of the promises of Christ.  For those who do not yet believe, I hope that you might someday come to know the Love that sought me out and continues to change my life.
- - -
St. Benedict and St. Faustina, pray for us!

@mk
“You stated that you wouldn’t even know which Faith to look at…”

Not a big deal, but just to clarify, I said I wouldn’t know which one to recommend, and that is because like yourself, I have done an evaluation. The difference is that my evaluation puts Christianity on equal par with a number of other revelations. The truth is it isn’t even number 1 on the list for me, because I think certain elements stop it being useful for this critical period in history (Climate Change). I do not, however, see any religion as worthy of worship. 

When viewed in a big and multinational historical perspective Christianity can be seen as the fruition of a common set of beliefs around compassion (‘God’ is love, do unto others) that were espoused by philosophers world wide during what some call the axial age. Christianity is not the first to preach these ideas(derived from the Jewish revelation such as the covenant). Most of the religions created during this period still exist and have evolved deep traditions just as Christianity has, so it cannot claim to be the originator of compassionate attitudes (No war etc). Your view is very Euro- and Christian-centric.

Confucianism and Taoismin in China; Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism in India; Zoroastrianism in Persia;Judaism in Canaan; sophism and other classical philosophy in Greece.

This is the short list of creeds that began the age of compassion in religion. Greek philosophies contributed much to monotheism by criticizing polytheism and the ‘ungodly’ actions you discussed in relation to these pantheons.

I see a social change in these big moves in religion and I don’t think any one offers a true vision of the world, just a useful vision for a period of time. A look at the history and evolution of the Christian Churche(s) makes this pretty clear to me. A comparative study across religions makes it almost certain.

I’d like to write more but I’m on limited time tonight.

Thank you for your thoughts, I do appreciate the effort.

Why do so many religious folks talk about Jesus taught you to love your neighbor, than when the OT is brought up, these same people state Jesus said to ignore the OT, then why are there conservative Christians in US Congress who want to spend almost $100 million, the cost, to put the 10 Commandments on ALL federal building in the country, which comes from the OT, and these are the same people that state they want government out of their personal lives, but want to make it illegal to be gay, support the killing of gays, and treat woman like baby makers, all the while, the most religious states, usually “red” in the USA, get more money from the federal government, have less education, more unwanted presidencies, while being the loudest about how spreading the wealth. What I find is, the more religious a state, organization, corporation or person mixes their religion with politics from the “right”, making them “Conservative Christians”. the more hypocritical they are, the more they bold face lie, and survive on unregulated capitalism which leads to “Profits before People” and NOT “We the People”. In other words, these people are the least American than all people.

Alan,

The truth is it isn’t even number 1 on the list for me, because I think certain elements stop it being useful for this critical period in history (Climate Change).
**
I’m pretty sure that (without actually embracing climate change per se) the Church is all over environmental issues.  They also came out saying that the Iraq war was an unjust one.
**
As for those other religions preaching compassion, yes, they did.  But they also treated women, the poor, servants etc as lower class citizens.  Those rules applied to the elite alone.  Even in the case of the Greeks. Virtue was sought, but only for the top dogs.  It was Christianity that refused to differentiate due to race, color, creed, status or belief.  All were welcome, all were loved, all were equal.  Note, tho that I am not speaking “in practice” for surely there were many, many time periods where Christians were anything but Christ like.  Add to that the lack of a founder or a reason to believe in their gods as well as their theories and well, I’m left with secular humanism with a few gods thrown in for good measure.  I also noted that I thought Buddhism and others would appeal to you, because the “god/belief” was not important as the social theory.  And I left out some of the religions you mentioned because they were, as I said, offshoots of other religions. 
**
Most of the religions created during this period still exist and have evolved deep traditions just as Christianity has, so it cannot claim to be the originator of compassionate attitudes (
**
It’s not just the compassionate attitudes, it’s that a God was instigating them.  For the first time there was a God who demanded love for each other and not just idolization of Him.  It was a game changer. If you believe that I do, that we were designed to love one another, to be compassionate to one another, then it would stand to reason that people would do so.  But now we had a God that was confirming this and claiming that He was the one that designed us this way.  That’s what was different. 
**
Sorry I misquoted you.  Like you, this has been a nutty week and I’m trying to keep up in between tasks…I’ll look forward to hearing from you again and I too have enjoyed this conversation.  You are right about one thing, it is hard to think like and Easterner when I have been so heavily influenced by the West.  It would probably do me good to look more closely at the Eastern Rite of the Catholic Church as they are probably less “Western” in their thought process.  It might help me to understand how to step outside of my “comfort” zone.

Corey,
Lol…it’s hard to know where to begin answering your questions as there are so many…if you’re really going to stick around, I’d love to look more closely at what you are asking.  Some of what you are saying, at first glance, appears to have merit, some seems like misunderstanding of what is really being done by the “right”...let me know if you really want to talk.

I am a ‘cradle atheist’ who converted to Roman Catholicism at 27.  I also grew up in America’s ‘Bible belt,’ so my experience of Christians was mostly from the Baptist sector, and finding out that I was atheist, I was promptly told that my family and I were all going to hell by the other seven-year-olds at my elementary school.

I was interested to read this artcle and glad to see it was also by a fellow former-atheist—-I agree with the points and just want to highlight one. 

‘To know love is to know God’ (and you can switch that around, it will still be equally true)

1.  Atheists don’t want to hear your words, they want to see God revealed in your actions.

2.  Atheists are not incomplete because they lack religion.  Their interior desire is not for religiosity but for the living God.  If they are presented with the routine and ‘religiosity’ of your faith, it will merely turn them away from something they regard as mindless and hypocritical.

3. Point 2, please say it again and again, the Bible is not a persuasive reference point to someone who does not believe in it anyways!  I didn’t know anything about the Bible until I began reading it, of my own volition, in my early 20s. 

The best way to speak about the Bible is not to do so with words, but let the light of Christ shine in your own life and manner, in the love which you give to others, and atheists will come, wondering at what the source of that light is. 

We all have our own ‘Damascus moment,’ but for some this moment lasts a lifetime.  Do not feel hopeless for those who are doing their best to search for truth.  Christ can be known very well in the conscience before He is ever known in either mind or heart.

Love is the most valuable evangelical tool.

mk

I appreciate the effort you have made to explain your position here, and I respect your obvious intelligence, courtesy and sincerity.

But: your posting confirms, in many way, my basic tenet in these discussions. Your ‘knowledge’ is a structure grafted onto or built upon an edifice, which edifice is comprised of statements attributed to pre-scientific thinkers who are describing events in a metaphorical manner.

All of the enormous effort that has been made, over the centuries, to accommodate the doctrines of the church to observable reality, seems to me to be a waste of intellect. Now, in the early days it may have made sense, from a rational perspective. When no-one possessed the intellectual (and material) tools to actually investigate nature in an objective sense, belief in gods as explanations had considerable merit. But more recently, the efforts truly do seem increasingly pathetic.

Take for example your response to my post about ‘gospel truth’. I understand and accept that only ‘fundamentalists’ now claim that the scriptures are inerrant…the Catholic and other sophisticated churches teach that they are not to be taken literally.

But of course, that approach is a fairly recent innovation. Ask Bruno or Galileo about the teachings of the Catholic Church in their time. Galileo almost died because he wrote a Dialogue in which the (clearly) wiser of the participants explained why the heliocentric theory was incorrect. Even tho he added, in an effort to shield himself from the wrath of the Church, a disclaimer, he was nevertheless summonsed before the Inquisition and forced to recant. The basis of this attack on him was that his theory (the copernican theory) was contrary to scripture and thus had to be false….no matter what the evidence of physical reality was. Bruno was not so fortunate…he was burned at the stake for the crime of contradicting scripture.

It appears to me, and while I am a layperson, I have read a great deal of history, that the current position of the non-fundamentalist churches is a reaction to the unavoidable reality that the scientific method has led to an understanding of the universe that is irreconcilable with the former doctrine of the church. Efforts to proscribe those books that demonstrated that reality (literally by prohibiting Catholics, for example, from reading certain books) failed. So the church, in order to maintain its power over its congregations, decided that it had to abandon centuries of doctrine on the utter truth of scripture and now pretend that it was always metaphorical and allegorical.

So answer me this: Were the Catholics who taught the inerrancy of scripture wrong? Were those who were closest in time to the life of your christ figure less informed than you and the current leaders as to what the gospels meant? If so, why did your god permit the brutal persecution and slaughter of those ‘christians’ who interpreted the gospels in a manner different from the vatican? Any effort to answer this by an appeal to the ineffable reasoning of this divine being is a non-answer…purely circular in logic, so I would hope you wouldn’t resort to such a cheap and meaningless excuse.

You see, to those of us who are not believers, the (relatively) recent assertions that the scriptures and other doctrinal sources are not to be taken literally smacks of desperation. It also smacks of Lewis Carrol. Humpty-Dumpty would definitely approve…...the scriptures mean whatever the current intellectual environment requires that they mean in order to maintain control of our congregations!

The irony of this is that it is almost invariably the Church that asserts that atheism leads to moral relativism…when in truth the church is constantly, albeit slowly, amending its teachings every time secular reasoning pokes another unavoidable hole in its current position.

For all the intellectual gymnastics that make up modern theology, I see neither you nor any other believer has addressed the point made by me and by , amongst others, Steve, about how religious beliefs can be shown to cause observable changes in the universe.

We know, beyond dispute, that double blind tests of the efficacy of prayer yield null results. We know that no prayer has led to any testable physical change in the universe. The effect of religious belief, in terms of the observable, testable universe is, so far….....zero! In other words, as far as we can tell via objective, measurable testing, the universe operates precisely as we would expect it to operate if there were no god.

So why should we assume the existence of a god? William of Ocham, altho a believer, supplied an excellent answer to that question.

Of course, that last point addresses the concept of any god or gods. A fortiori, why should we believe in ‘your’ god if the entire concept of godhood is so unnecessary?

It seems to me that the answer of most religious believers, as to why they believe, will (if they are honest and able to see themselves clearly) contain some elements of:

I believe because:

a) centuries ago a number of people wrote letters and what we now say are allegorical tales that describe claims made by a charismatic leader of a small group of people, at a time when such leaders and groups were very common. I accept the interpretations I have been told to accept.

b) it fills a void in me and/or allows me to feel as if there is a purpose to my life

c) it offers me a guide to how to live my life in what I see as a moral way

d) it removes or reduces my fear of death by promising me a wonderful afterlife

e) it makes me feel special….I am going to be saved and so many are not…I can feel sorry for them and thus feel better about myself.

f) probably the most important for most: I was indoctrinated in this belief while my intellect was in its formative and most impressionable state, and I can’t even see the bars on my cage.

g) I and we don’t have any other explanation for the ultimate origins of the universe….and our minds are such that we always yearn for explanations…..(re this one, please google ‘the god of the gaps’). Since science can’t (yet) answer this, let’s call the cause ‘god’. of course, this begs the question as to why this god should be the christian god rather than Allah or the FSM….but…hey…that’s where the intellectual rationalizations come in.

Now, I don’t for a moment mean to assert that any one or more of the above factors apply to all believers, and I definitely wouldn’t presume to say which, if any, apply to you personally. I am sure that there are other factors at play for many, and perhaps most believers.

It is because of my respect for the manner in which you have engaged in this discussion that I set out my thoughts in such detail. I apologize if my use of language makes my words seem (or be) condescending or insulting…I mean only to attempt to make my thoughts clear, with a view to learning where I have misunderstood.

Thank you, everyone. Lots to digest, and I’m in the middle of a busy day. I’ll work through this and come up with a response. I’m trying very hard not to just do ‘gotchas’ as replies, but this one leaped out:

“There were no hospitals, no orphanages, no food banks.  These are all Christian concepts”

Plato said four hundred years before Christ: ‘Orphans should be placed under the care of public guardians. Men should have a fear of the loneliness of orphans and of the souls of their departed parents. A man should love the unfortunate orphan of whom he is guardian as if he were his own child’.

There were hospitals in ancient India, Greece, Egypt and Rome - usually temples to specific ‘healer’ gods, but hospitals with wards, theaters and trained doctors and nurses.

The Christian church definitely placed an emphasis on healing, and many of Jesus’ miracles involved healing. But to say Christians came up with orphanages and hospitals simply isn’t true.

As for modern Catholics doing volunteer work, charitable work, work with the poor, education. Absolutely. It’s good stuff. My question, though, is, as an atheist, ‘why not just do that, then?’. Clearly, in most Western countries now (the US being a big exception), this sort of provision is secular and run by the state. The majority of people in the UK (65%) aren’t religious - yet they have cradle to the grave, free at point of delivery, health care delivered solely on the basis of need. It seems ... counterintuitive to credit the UK’s NHS to the Catholic God.

My question, basically, is ‘why can’t we have a “being nice to everyone” society?’. Why frame it in cosmic terms, saying it’s underwritten by the creator of the universe? Why credit God with human actions, when clearly great acts of kindness are possible from people who specifically deny being religious?

One of the more telling questions atheists get a lot is ‘what’s stopping you from murdering everyone?’. Well ... I don’t want to live in a society where people go around murdering. Do unto others. What always worries me is the implication that if somehow we proved God didn’t exist, every Catholic would turn into a crazed serial killer. We live in a world with lots of ex-Catholics in it, I imagine that a statistically insignificant number of them have become psychotic killers.

This is a reverse of that - you’re clearly not being nice to orphans just because you think God wants you to. So ... why credit God at all? Why not just be nice, and cut out the supernatural stuff?

“For the first time there was a God who demanded love for each other and not just idolization of Him.”

And again ... it’s not historically accurate to say Christianity comes from nowhere and is the first philosophical movement to stress these things.

Look up Jaspers and his identification of the Axial Age - around 500BC, across the known world, a whole group of thinkers started talking in those sort of terms.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Axial_period

Whatever the truth of the divinity of Jesus - we’re not going to agree on that one - it’s undeniable true (and the Vatican says) that for at least a hundred years before, and for at least a hundred years afterwards, there were many, many Jewish preachers who said the same sort of things. Jesus was part of a *pre-existing* tradition. Very little of what he said was brand new - and it’s clear that the people compiling the books of the Bible attributed things *from that tradition* to Jesus.

This does not make what he says *wrong*, but very little of what he says is *new*. The Golden Rule, for example, is at least five hundred years older than Jesus.

If you were looking for the first religion that preached that God was love and instead of idols you should think about good deeds and what it takes to get your eternal soul as close as possible to the godhead, you should probably have gone for Jainism.

Way back in 1883 Edwin Abbott wrote ‘Flatland’.  His book describes contiguous geometrical worlds, and Abbott went no further.  He had made it obvious where God lives and how God’s world is greater and adjacent to ours.  ‘Flatland’ is taught in many colleges.  The sociology profs use it to show how Victorians demeaned women.  Abbott was spoofing women, just as the Roman Senator commented on his mother-in-law and as guys today tell ‘blond’ jokes in the bar.  But sociology profs are great scientists, somehow ignoring Abbot’s clearly-made point.

  Recently the book ‘Techie Worlds’ looked at the ‘impossible’ teachings of Jesus in Abbott’s context of the adjacent, greater worlds described by ‘Flatland’.  ‘Techie Worlds’ is a strange book, avoiding religious jargon in favor of mechanistic logic expressed in words used by auto mechanics and engineers.  Jesus’ teachings, quite impossible if there is ‘only our physical world’ can mechanistically be quite possible in Abbot’s kinds of worlds.
  But don’t confuse atheists with the facts.  They really don’t want to know them except to spend a lot of time refuting them.  ‘Techie Worlds’ was submitted for technical evaluation of its ideas both to atheists and to learned Christians.  ‘Techie Worlds’ sees those higher worlds much different and unlike traditional Christian descriptions, even though it is in accord with the teachings of theologians.  As a reader reflects on ‘Techie Worlds’, he sees that atheists contend ‘there is only our material world’.  But this guy who lived two thousand years ago said strange things that are consistent and logical in greater worlds.  He also said He would let deserving men live in His greater worlds with him.
  As Abbott clearly pointed out, men cannot probe into the higher world.  Its existence/non-existence cannot be proved by science.  The choices become quite clear to logical people.  Pascal spoke about those choices.  But jabbering ‘intellectuals’ reject Pascal’s easy logic.  ‘Techie Worlds’ (available from Amazon) shows the wisdom of opting for ‘higher’ worlds with their integrity and rewards.

George Richter
Grand Rapids, MN
eng2gbr@aol.com

Steve,
Look up Jaspers and his identification of the Axial Age - around 500BC, across the known world, a whole group of thinkers started talking in those sort of terms.
**
I found this on wiki also:
**

Jainism rejects the idea of any creator, mentor or destroyer God. According to Jainism, any enlightened human being who has achieved the state of godliness is considered to be a God. There could be many Gods but the quality or state or consciousness of godliness is only one. Thus, Mahavira was God but he was not the only God, there were many other Gods too. However, the quality of godliness is one and the same in all of them. Thus, Jainism is polytheist, monotheist, nontheist and atheist all at the same time

**
This is what I was trying to say.  MEN have had a one version of or another of the Golden Rule for as far back as we can go, but where is a GOD that demanded it be followed?  Obviously, I believe in Natural Law (Objective Moral Law) which would mean that all men at all times could know that treating each other well was to their benefit.  That’s not what made Christianity unique.  It is that a GOD was not insisting that we follow this Moral Law. 
**
Earlier, somewhere, I said that a religion had to be based on the Truth.  Truth could not be based on the religion.  That’s really important.  Christianity does not say “it is right to treat others well because we say so”  It says “we say it is so, because it is right”  We did not create morality, we recognized it and now had a God who also recognized it.  I agree that the ancient Greek and Roman gods also touted virtue, but they didn’t practice it, and the Greeks and Romans still treated people differently based on status, sex, etc.  It is also true that for a time in the middle ages the Catholic Church was not quite living out the Christian Teaching of treat one another as He treated us…to be sure, men had managed to mess up yet again.  But it is the “Teaching” that we point to.  Not the men who corrupted that teaching. 
**
It’s also important to know that this is in no way an argument for why someone should believe in God.  It presupposes a belief and then aims to clarify why some would adopt this particular God to believe in.
**
As for hospitals…

History of Hospitals (from Encyc Britannica online)
As early as 4000 BC religions identified certain of their deities with healing. The temples of Saturn, and later of Asclepius in Asia Minor, were recognized as healing centres. Brahmanic hospitals were established in Sri Lanka as early as 431 BC, and King Asoka established a chain of hospitals in Hindustan about 230 BC. Around 100 BC the Romans established hospitals (valetudinaria) for the treatment of their sick and injured soldiers; their care was important because it was upon the integrity of the legions that the power of Rome was based.

It can be said, however, that the modern concept of a hospital dates from AD 331 when Constantine , having been converted to Christianity , abolished all pagan hospitals and thus created the opportunity for a new start. Until that time disease had isolated the sufferer from the community. The Christian tradition emphasized the close relationship of the sufferer to his fellow man, upon whom rested the obligation for care. Illness thus became a matter for the Christian church.

**
http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/history/hospital_history.html
**
It is precisely this idea that we are not “different” but all the same that I am getting at.  We don’t leave our poor and sick in the street to die.  We don’t treat them as unclean.  Or unholy.  We don’t ship them off so that we don’t have to look at them.  They are still part of us.  That is what was different about Christianity.
**

Steve,
88

The first orphanages, called “orphanotrophia,” were founded in the 1st century amid various alternative means of orphan support. Jewish law, for instance, prescribed care for the widow and the orphan, and Athenian law supported all orphans of those killed in military service until the age of eighteen.

**
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphanage
**
Again, it’s the “no stipulation” for who the orphan was that is unique.  Not the orphans of military personnel, not the children of particular denominations, but any orphans. 
**
Now if there was a previous “God” that sacrificed Himself, and demanded that we in turn sacrifice of ourselves for others, not Him,  I stand corrected.  I’m just not aware of one.

Steve,
**
One of the more telling questions atheists get a lot is ‘what’s stopping you from murdering everyone?’. Well ... I don’t want to live in a society where people go around murdering. Do unto others. What always worries me is the implication that if somehow we proved God didn’t exist, every Catholic would turn into a crazed serial killer
**
I’ve always found that to be a bit silly, myself.  I mean, if you believe in Natural Law, an innate sense of what is right and what is wrong, and I do, then it is a built in mechanism that keeps us from killing one another.  I think there is some merit to this point when it comes to other things, like contraception or homosexuality..You could make the argument that without a belief in God these things would not seem “wrong”.  Precisely because you don’t believe in God.  But murder, theft, rape, hatred, violence…no.  Avoiding these things is just, imo, who we are.  Part of what makes us human.  Heck, even animals don’t go around just willy nilly killing, raping and pillaging one another.

>Recently the book ‘Techie Worlds’ looked at the ‘impossible’ teachings of Jesus in Abbott’s context of the adjacent, greater worlds described by ‘Flatland’.  ‘Techie Worlds’ is a strange book, avoiding religious jargon in favor of mechanistic logic expressed in words used by auto mechanics and engineers.<

Hey, George Richter - by an amazing coincidence, that book you’re recommending in the third person was written by someone with the same name as you.

There are two reviews: a one star review, then a five star review from someone from Minnesota - like you, another odd coincidence, eh? 

>Way back in 1883<

1884

> Edwin Abbott wrote ‘Flatland’. His book describes contiguous geometrical worlds, and Abbott went no further. <

Except in The Spirit on the Waters, which has a whole chapter explaining the religious allegory in the book.

>As Abbott clearly pointed out, men cannot probe into the higher world ...<

No.

Sorry, but I’ve read The Spirit on the Waters and The Kernel and the Husk, and you’ve clearly not got as far as the introductions. He says the *exact* opposite. He said we *can* probe the higher world, but ultimately there’s very little value in doing so. A being from a fourth dimension would have great powers, ones we would call ‘miraculous’, but that would not give that being any greater *moral* insight or worth.

He said that constant appeals to the miraculous would only alienate people of a rational era from religious belief. He saw that happening in the age of Darwin (and Huxley). He denied virtually all the Biblical miracles, except healing miracles, on the grounds that learning there’s an entity that can make a burning bush talk has absolutely nothing to say about how *good* that entity is.

He was particularly scathing of Catholics, literally thought Cardinal Newman had gone mad when he converted from Anglicanism, and wrote a whole book on the subject.

“But don’t confuse atheists with the facts.  They really don’t want to know them except to spend a lot of time refuting them.”

Heh.

Read the damn books, for free, now. They are one click away. Then come back here and be man enough to admit you’re not just wrong, you’re the opposite of right:

http://books.google.com/books?id=KQ4ZAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+kernel+and+the+husk&source=bl&ots=gSssY5iz3q&sig=uI8WTC6s2IaQNYddTXkNhnE0wiY&hl=en&ei=CayLTd6aF4nDgQeUzsTSDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f;=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=BXMrAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=spirit+on+the+waters+abbott&source=bl&ots=m1Zz-0rkvZ&sig=2naJBzz8afTGkE7GUQ7mYnzN1p4&hl=en&ei=L7GLTfmzA7Cy0QGIybTqDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f;=false

mk

I infer from your last post that you believe that homosexuality is ‘wrong’, as is contraception. I am embarrassed to confess that I had thought I was engaged in a discussion with someone I could respect, even while disagreeing with him. However, if you are in fact a anti-gay bigot, then I have zero respect for you as a human being.

I was fortunate enough, and I suspect you were as well, since most humans are, to be born ‘wired’ in such a way as to find humans of the opposite gender to be attractive. I know some people who are gay….and while none of them are close friends, I like and respect most of them. I am also certain, not merely from knowing them but also from what reading I have done on the subject, that none of them ‘chose’ to be homosexual.

Indeed, a number of them only came out as mature adults, and I can only imagine what their lives must have been like, pretending to be someone they were not, in order to avoid the antipathy that gay people are still all too often subjected to.

Anyone who is so bigoted as to think that a natural, innate sexual orientation is ‘wrong’ is not worthy of any degree of respect. Have you no compassion?????? And don’t give me any sanctimonious crap about hating the sin while loving the sinner, or about it’s not the being gay that is ‘wrong’, it is the act of gay sex that is wrong. What kind of god would make some people gay, for no apparent reason, and then say to them: my followers shall hate and persecute you if you engage in the acts for which I have programmed you? Why not make everyone straight? I mean..why not? What did the gay people do do deserve a gay soul?

I could go on at length, but what’s the point? Bigots very rarely change their repulsive spots.

Maybe I misunderstood you…. I truly hope I did.

Note I have left out your reference to contraception….which is another utterly idiotic position of the Catholic Church. Anyone with an ounce of understanding of human physiology and psychology would know that abstinence doesn’t work (in the US, there is a direct and positive correlation between the States with the highest religious support, and the least sex education on the one hand, and the highest rate of teenage pregnancies on the other), nor does coitus interruptus….and in case you hadn’t noticed, the injunction to go forth and multiply threatens to cause a malthusian catastrophe even if we manage to get global warming under control.

Wow.

>Now if there was a previous “God” that sacrificed Himself, and demanded that we in turn sacrifice of ourselves for others, not Him,  I stand corrected.  I’m just not aware of one.<

The obvious one is the Aztec Legend of the Five Suns - all the gods of the fourth age sacrificed themselves to get the Sun moving. Humans were created from their cremated remains. To keep the Sun moving and ensure the continued survival of the world there had to be human sacrifices.

A lot of the stuff is pretty obvious natural symbolism - the cyclical nature of the seasons, the rising and the setting Sun. When early Christianity absorbs the Sol Invictus iconography, it adopts a lot of the same sort of symbols. 

Again, it doesn’t mean it’s *false*, but it’s certainly not new or unique.

Steve,
**
However, if you are in fact a anti-gay bigot, then I have zero respect for you as a human being.
**
Surely you know the Catholic Teaching on Homosexuality.  You can’t be surprised by my comment.  No.  I am not a homosexual bigot, at least not the way I understand the word.  I think, which is obvious, that there is an order and design to the world.  (I understand that you don’t, which is why I included homosexuality and contraception as two areas where Natural Law would not be enough to deem these particular behaviors, and I stress the word behavior, as morally wrong in your eyes.  If I didn’t believe in a God, and that He designed each of us to have a specific “purpose” then I would not see homosexuality as morally unacceptable either.  However, given my understanding of humanity, and the role of men and woman,  I see it as disordered, out of the order of things as they were meant to be.  I also, and the Church feels the same way, do not believe that homosexual PEOPLE are immoral.  I believe that homosexual “actions” are immoral.  I would not, however, wish to involve the government or make laws prohibiting, or in any way try to dictate how a homosexual should live his life.  (Marriage is a different issue, and has more to do with a Catholic view of marriage and what it is, than it does a particular judgment on homosexual behavior…In other words, I am against homosexual marriage not because of what homosexuals “are” but because of what I think marriage “is”.) I think it is wrong for a government to forbid civil unions.  Two people that share a life, whoever they are, should have the benefits that any other people get by combining households.  Insurance, tax breaks, etc.  I am only opposed to calling it “marriage”.  I have met gay men who feel the same. 
**
I have a few gay friends who know how I feel and we have managed to get past it.  Personally, I don’t view homosexual “behavior” as any more or less immoral than my own sons sleeping with their girlfriends sans marriage.  I would even go so far as to say that I view my one son’s behavior (not married, living with his girlfriend, have a child) as MORE immoral than a homosexual couple living together because they have brought a third party into the mix.
**
So no.  I am not a homophobe, I abhor the Westboro Church and their stance on homosexuality.  I detest the fact that there are people who would treat someone hurtfully or cruelly based on their sexual orientation.  It’s simply not my business, unless it is made my business (Gay Pride Parades, teaching young children that homosexuality is an equal option to marriage…but then, as you recall, I don’t think public schools have any business at all involving themselves in the sexual aspects of our childrens lives).  Even the Gay Pride parade only bothers me on a rudimentary level, as I believe it falls into the right to free expression…I just find it tasteless and crass.  More a personal opinion than a moral one.

Steve,
The obvious one is the Aztec Legend of the Five Suns - all the gods of the fourth age sacrificed themselves to get the Sun moving. Humans were created from their cremated remains. To keep the Sun moving and ensure the continued survival of the world there had to be human sacrifices.

A lot of the stuff is pretty obvious natural symbolism - the cyclical nature of the seasons, the rising and the setting Sun. When early Christianity absorbs the Sol Invictus iconography, it adopts a lot of the same sort of symbols. 
**
That is a very sweet story…at least up until the gods then required human sacrifices in return.  So while I stand corrected that no God had sacrificed Himself before, I wonder what these gods motivation was.  Was it “love” for those people?  And it still stands that they then required human sacrifices to appease them, which is something our God has never done.
**
It’s the combination of all of these…the sacrificing of Himself, doing it in the name of Love, Claiming that He IS Love, demanding that we Love one another, and asking nothing in return except that we Love Him back…all of these together paint the picture of a God that had never been seen before.

mk

Thanks for your post. I accept all that you told me and was relieved, in a sense to read it.

However, I remain puzzled, as I so often am, by the blantant contradictions in the thought processes of Catholics.

On the one hand, you consider homosexuality and contraception as ‘wrong’ because your doctrine tells you to. On the other, you feel that Gay Pride marches are ok, because ‘it falls into the right of free expression’.

The Catholic Church has historically been one of the greatest forces for and of censorship in the history of the world. How is it possible to subscribe to the tenets of this restrictive faith and still even recognize the right of free speech? Even today the Vatican abhors openness.

Do you believe that the holy church was wrong to suppress free speech as it has done so viciously over the years?

Do you believe the holy church is right to condemn sex education in areas of the world ravaged by AIDS?

Do you believe the holy church is right to prohibit local dioceses from reporting known priestly pedophiles to the secular authorities?

Do you believe in the doctrine of papal infallibility?

When one considers the mental contortions that an educated, compassionate person must go through to believe in the teachings of the Catholic Church, it is a wonder we don’t find millions of Catholics dead from their heads exploding from the inside:)

Do you believe that it is right for the church to withdraw funding and recognition from a hospital that performed an abortion in order to save the mother’s life? In other words does your religion require that you make both the non-viable fetus and the mother die in order to comply with the teachings of your wonderful church?

So many religionists refer to the puerile Pascal’s wager (a moment’s thought should convince anyone of it’s silliness), but in the case of the pregnant woman whose life could be saved only by aborting a doomed fetus, try the flip side. What if there is no heaven? What if this life is all we (and her husband and family) have? Isn’t that enough to render this life precious beyond measure?

Quick clarification—the reason why the Church is opposed to gay marriage is because Her definition of marriage is that it is an institution for the purpose of begetting and educating children. The unity flows from this. Within a homosexual relationship there is not the possibility of the procreation of children, and therefore, says the Church, the union of homosexuals is an entirely different institution. (Whether it’s sinful or not doesn’t even come into this consideration, unless I’m entirely off-base.)

Anyway, I’ve been following this discussion for the past few days, and suffice it to say that it is an entertaining and edifying read. On both sides of the discussion there have been strong and respectful arguments. Being a liberal arts major all the philosophy being thrown and used in a concrete way is illuminating. Keep it up—I’d join in but I think that mk and Arthur speak my words better than I do.

Another quick clarification—the soul’s faculty of the will is the faculty by which man chooses the good. Any choice one makes is made because it’s perceived as better than the alternative. However, it’s free, as we believe that God has granted us such a will that we may freely choose him (as love forced is not love at all). Of course, if there is a choice, then it’s implied that there are two possibilities. Our choices, though free, have consequences; when it comes to matters of morality, those consequences (so our line of reasoning goes) can be eternal. That is to say, one can choose to be with God both on earth and after death (freely) through one’s actions here on earth, or one can choose to be separated from God both on earth and after death (freely) through their actions. That is why Catholicism can simultaneously uphold the freedom of choice and that the selfsame choices can be evil. I hope that makes sense.

Hey Sam,
**
Feel free to join in any time.  Yes, that is the point I was attempting to make…that it is not the homosexuality that causes us to deny marriage to gay couples but our understanding of marriage itself.  The sexual act, done in the context of such a marriage is of dual purposes…1.) to unite the couple in a mystical as well as a physical way..to bring as close to the way it was “in the beginning” as possible, and 2.) to create new life out of this pure expression of love.  This simply cannot be accomplished in a homosexual union, not because the two parties don’t care deeply for each other, but because their bodies were designed to create life.
**
I am pro life also, and am absolutely sickened by the concept of elective abortion, but I am emphatically not sickened by people who are pro choice.  Okay, truth be told, I struggle with my feelings towards doctors who perform abortions.  That is one case where I find it difficult to separate the action from the person, but there the fault lies with me.  I’m workin’ on it.

obviously that was meant to read were NOT designed to create life.

“That is a very sweet story…at least up until the gods then required human sacrifices in return.”

Very quickly: it’s a very ancient belief that the sacrifice of a living thing releases energy, that this energy can be invested elsewhere. Very, very early man sacrificed animals (and in some case, people) before planting crops believing that the life would soak into the soil and emerge as crops. Under that system, a person had more energy / a more valuable soul than an animal, a bull more than a dove and so on. We see animal sacrifices in the Old Testament, and the harvest festival tradition of reserving the first of the harvest for God is a vestige of that.

There are also vestiges of it in the idea of Adam’s sins needing Jesus to die to pay them off. The idea of martyrs dying for their faith is still admired, and that’s basically what we think the Aztec Perfect Victims were (they weren’t dragged to the altar, they went willingly - they spent some time - a year? - living in luxury beforehand, while their sins were ritually purged, you want to sacrifice the purest souls). So, while I’m not saying we should adopt it now, it’s not a *completely* alien idea to Christians. 

If you *knew* that our entire civilization would come to an end unless one person was sacrificed on the equinox, would you do it? Because that’s what the Aztecs thought they knew.

(Shortly after the Conquistadors ended the practice, Aztec civilization *did* collapse, of course).

@Steve Jeffers Lawling at that last comment.
Also, Catholicism is an unabashed plagiarizer of pagan customs. I’m sure you’re aware of that, though. :) Concerning Aztec sacrifice, I’m sure their hearts were in the right place ;) It’s simply that they tended to excess in the ritual. Further, there is a difference, I think, between the Perfect Victims and martyrs…the former chose to die, unless I’m mistaken, while the latter, though not choosing death, certainly accepted it. (That is also, coincidentally, part of the difference between Christian and Islamist martyrs…)
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@counsel This idea of the nature of marriage and sex, namely that it is both procreative and unitive, is also the reason that the Church stands against contraception, which eliminates (or at least is intended to eliminate) the possibility of begetting children. (Not that a marriage *must* be procreative—which is to say that the marriages of those who are infertile are perfectly valid. To say that marriage is procreative is to say that those who enter into it must be open to the possibility of begetting children—which contraception prevents.) I don’t know if I can do justice to the rest of your questions…but you won’t find me wagering at Pascal’s game.
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@mk I appreciate your welcome!

@mk
Just adding some info on the first part of you statement (limited time again):
“Now if there was a previous “God” that sacrificed Himself”

The figure who sacrifices himself (usually metaphorically in some kind of ritual) for the spiritual cleansing of the community was extremely common in human history. He had many names, but the name Shaman is the one often used. I will do them no justice in this short text, but the rituals often involved death and rebirth, a spiritual journey to save (a) soul(s) from sickness or damnation. See Mircea Eliade - Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy for extensive and numerous descriptions of these myths from a number of countries: 

“he is believed to cure, like all doctors, and to perform miracles of the fakir type, like all magicians [...] But beyond this, he is a psychopomp (healer/capturer of souls), and he may also be a priest, mystic, and poet.(p. 4)”

Counsel,
**
Do you believe that the holy church was wrong to suppress free speech as it has done so viciously over the years?

Do you believe in the doctrine of papal infallibility?
**
Whew!  That’s a lot of accusations!  :)
**
First one…I believe the Church did a lot of things wrong in the past.  Because the Church as an institution is made up of men.  If men were perfect we wouldn’t have needed a church.  Every single institution that has roles of authority or power connected to it, will become corrupt in some way.  However, the Church (her teachings, her doctrine) has never been corrupt and has remained virtually unchanged since Jesus walked the earth.  Customs have changed, figures of head have changed…but what we believe in has not changed.  You have to look to the teachings to know whether or not what a particular priest, bishop or group of priests has done is wrong. 
**
As for suppressing free speech…you’d have to be more specific. What time period are you referring to?  Now?  The Middle Ages?

**
I believe the Church has the right to condemn anything she feels is immoral.  But that just goes back to free speech.  It would be hypocritical to tell one group of people that sex outside of marriage is wrong, contraception is wrong and abortion is wrong, and then turn around and tell another group that it was perfectly okay.  Has she physically stopped countries from teaching sex ed, or has she just spoken about it?  Is she confiscating condoms, or expressing an alternative to them?  The Churches job is to speak out against injustice in the world, to feed the poor, to shepherd her flock, to teach morality…These things I believe she has the right to do.  She is not a political force (nor should she be) and has no right to enact or enforce civil laws.  If she did/does that, then I would say she was wrong.  But I am unaware of where, in this century, now, she is doing that.  But if she is simply speaking out, then I think she is well within her rights.  I guess I need to know what you mean by “condemn”. 
**
Yes, of course I believe in Papal Infallibility.  But He only speaks infallibly on matters of doctrine and morals.  I believe there have been only two “infallible” (Or Ex Cathedra..from the chair) statements in the last 150 years.  That Mary was conceived, herself, without sin.  And that Mary was assumed into heaven, body and soul.  Anything else that comes from the Pope is not considered infallible.  He can make mistakes as easily and often as anyone.  Still, when a Pope writes a bull or encyclical, we listen.  It may not be infallible, but it is important and worth listening to. 
**
The Church speaks out vocally on so many issues that it can get confusing for the secular world to understand what she is really saying.
Abortion, homosexuality and contraception are the issues of today as far as the secular world and the Catholic Church butting heads.  Catholics belong to the Church, yes, but they also belong to the countries that they reside in.  Abortion, in our eyes should be illegal.  On the one hand it is immoral and a matter of Church Teaching, so as Catholics, we are obviously opposed to it.  But as citizens of a country, we also believe that it is a criminal act.  I have every right to vote, and elect officials who will vote, to make it an illegal act.  My Catholic Church might back me up, but it is as a citizen, not a Catholic, that I obtain the right to take action.  I believe that the unborn child is a human being from the moment of conception and is protected under the Constitution, not the Catechism, to his right to Life.  Homosexuality,(behavior, always behavior) on the other hand, is immoral but not criminal.  No innocent person is being harmed.  If sexual activity is taking place between two (or more) consenting adults, I might not like it, but I do not have the right as a citizen or a Catholic to try to criminalize it.  When I said I had “no problem” with the Gay Pride Parade, I didn’t mean I approve of it.  I think it is immoral and unseemly.  But not criminal.  The country I live in ensures my right to free speech and I am beholden to the laws of the land in which I live.  I wouldn’t want it any other way.  That right to free speech also lets me stand outside of abortion clinics, worship as I see fit and comment on this blog.  Unfortunately, it also allows Nazis to march in Skokie.
Contraception is trickier.  Some contraceptives (the I.U.D. and we believe, the Pill) can be abortificient as well as preventing pregnancy.  So again, in protecting the life of the unborn, I would feel within my rights to try to ban certain modes of contraception.  But condoms do not “kill” unborn children.  There is a case to be made that condoms can give their users a false sense of security, believing that by wearing one they are completely protected from STD’s.  This is not true, so the Church might speak out against them, as protection for the people who are using them.  Sex is, and has always been a business.  Promoting condom use, especially when the condoms are poorly made, can result in more pregnancies and more STD’S which can lead to abortions and doctors visits, which then line the pockets of organizations like Planned Parenthood.  It’s hard to know how much of the condemn/birth control/abortion industry is driven by dollar signs.  I suspect a great deal.  I could be wrong.  While Family Planning practices might be getting rich, they are also answering a demand and that is what a capitalist society does. 
**
So to recap…Abortion is a legal matter not just a moral one, contraception can be both depending on the method used, and homosexuality for the most part is between the parties that practice it.  The Church is free to speak on all three issues, but should only promote legal action on the first and sometimes the second.  And then she should do so as secular members of society and not as the “Church”.
**
Do you believe the holy church is right to prohibit local dioceses from reporting known priestly pedophiles to the secular authorities?
**
NO. NO. NO!  This was outright wrong and one of the few times I was ashamed to call myself Catholic.  The whole “pedophile” thing was extremely complicated.  It wasn’t true pedophilia to begin with.  Our Church went through a very bad period in the 70’s and 80’s.  Homosexuality was rampant in the seminaries.  Many of these priests, no, most of these offending priests, were homosexual.  Now please, please, please understand what I am about to say.  Just as not all Muslims are terrorists, but most terrorists today are Muslim, not all homosexuals like young boys, but most of the priests who molested those boys were homosexual.  It has been estimated that 75% of the priests that were ordained in the 70’s and 80’s were gay.  Is that true?  I think it is high, but it is not totally off the mark.  Pedophiles always gravitate to jobs that allow them easy access to children. Boy Scouts, coaches, teachers…
**
Now, I am NOT saying that homosexuals molest children.  Any more than I am saying Scout Leaders, teachers or coaches molest children.  I am not, not, not!  What I am saying, is that there was a lot of behavior going on behind closed doors in the church, and NOBODY wanted to get caught.  One group was covering for the other because to expose one group was to expose them all.  This was WRONG.  But so much was wrong with the whole scenario it is hard to know where to begin.
**
Do homosexuals have an affinity for young boys simply because they are homosexual.  NO! Of course not.  But these men DID prefer boys, and boys are of the same sex.  90% of those pedophile acts were committed against boys.  Not girls.  And most of those boys were between the ages of 14 and 17…not true pedophilia.  So the Church was wrong, wrong, wrong on a number of levels.  Priests who were actively homosexual were wrong as they had no business being priests.  Priests who were molesting young boys were criminal in the eyes of the secular world as well as the Church.  Priests and bishops who covered up for them, either out of fear of being exposed themselves as homosexuals, or in a misguided attempt to protect the church from scandal were WRONG!  Not sort of wrong, not a little wrong…but outright WRONG!  If you were ever going to believe in a afterlife and punishment for wrongdoing, this is an instance where you might want to think about it.  All I can say is that “they will get theirs”.  Maybe not in this life, but surely in the next.  No child, EVER, should go unprotected because the Church is too cowardly to protect them.  There was NO GOOD REASON for what the Church did and many, many Catholics were irreparably harmed by these action (or inactions).  The whole thing makes me sick. 
**
That said, my Faith is in God, in the Churches Teachings, not in the men who “run it”.  I wouldn’t be much of a Catholic if I deserted her due to the deplorable actions of certain of her members.  Even if those members were in places of authority.  The pope and good bishops everywhere are finally speaking out and saying much of what I am saying.  Too little, too late, to be sure, but at least we are accepting responsibility for our actions and attempting to correct what we can.  All I can say is that the whole thing just broke my heart.
**

Steve,
**
I understand what you are saying about these people “willingly” offering themselves.  Again, I am emphasizing that a God, made man, came to earth and offered Himself for us…not a shaman, not a priest, not men…but a God, and then in return asked for nothing but Love.  It is the God doing the sacrificing that I am emphasizing.  Also, I am not so sure how many of those victims were willing.  I’m pretty sure that infants and children were offered up as innocence lent value to the victim and I doubt very much if infants and children understood what they were doing or what was being done to them…
**
I wish I could remember where I read/saw it, but I believe today, these types of rituals still go on.  It was in some African country that a five or six year old was buried alive as a matter of course, to appease the gods…gosh I wish I could remember where I read that.  I think I blogged on the story and could find it if you really wanted me to. 
**
The point is that these were PEOPLE who decided that this is what their gods wanted or demanded.  Their GOD did not tell them that this is what he/they wanted.  Our God forbid such sacrifices.  Instead He offered Himself, for exactly the reasons you listed.  Blood was considered the life force.  Blood was always used in covenental rituals.  But where, except in Christianity, was it God’s blood that was spilled?

Alan,
**
My answer to Steve answers your comments also…

“The point is that these were PEOPLE who decided that this is what their gods wanted or demanded.  Their GOD did not tell them that this is what he/they wanted.  Our God forbid such sacrifices.”

First of all - my point isn’t to make some case for tolerating or excusing human sacrifice. My broader point is that people tend to do what they think is right, and the Aztecs, wrongly, thought their gods wanted and needed this to be done. They were doing it *to* be good, not because they were wicked.

Now, I believe very strongly that it was people who decided what the Christian God wanted, too. And that they made a lot of good calls, and as part of that process did a lot of good work. If you look at the origins of Christian belief, all the elements existed before. The *combination* of elements, and many of the things that were missing, made for a good strategy. It’s a question of emphasis and clarification rather than something entirely new appearing in the world one day, fully formed.

Steve,
It’s a question of emphasis and clarification rather than something entirely new appearing in the world one day, fully formed.
**
Yes, I’ll give you that.  Keep in mind tho, that we believe Jesus was God incarnated, so when He spoke, God spoke.  When I say that here was a God willing to shed His own blood, a God that TOLD us that we were to love each other, including our enemies…well, to us, God did speak to us directly. 
**
I was listening to a Catholic Radio station and the host said something really interesting.  He was talking about a book written by a man named “Stark” called the “Rise of Christianity”.  It’s a sociological book, on the people at the time of Jesus.  He estimated that in a world with 6 or 7 million Jews in the year 40ad, there were probably only 1,000 Christians.  It made me think of how you were saying that the authors of Scripture didn’t know Jesus and who knows where they got their information.  If what the author of the book says is true, this was a very small, close knit group until the year 200 or so.  Even if they didn’t “know” Jesus personally, they would have known each other and some of that group would have been eyewitnesses to Jesus in the flesh.  Anyway, I just found it all very interesting.  I always think of this massive Christian movement with thousands up on thousands of Christians, and apparently, it wasn’t.
**
Also, I was not trying to prove anything with my comments about our God sacrificing Himself.  That was just my own personal opinion on why I rejected the other religions of the world and accepted Catholicism.  If I was going to believe in a God, this is the one that made the most sense to me…

mk

Thank you for your impassioned response….my once wavering respect for you has been restored.

However (and I suspect you knew that there was going to be a ‘however’) I remain unpersuaded.

As I understand your basic position it is that while humans are fallible and prone to mistakes, the church itself is perfect, at least in principle. The humans who administer and represent it may get it wrong, but that doesn’t alter the perfection of the church and its doctrines.

I have, several times, asserted that the arguments of believers, whether they be for the existence of their god or, as in this case, the correctness of their church, is ultimately based on a proposition that by definition cannot be falsified: I believe in (fill in the name of the god or gods in question) therefore god exists. The lack of any objective indicator that the god actually exists doesn’t enter into the equation.

To atheists, there is no such thing as ‘the Church’, in the sense of an entity having its origins, meanings and purposes independent of the humans who founded it, or who have administered it through the ages. A Church is a human concept in much the same way as a god is a human concept, altho in my view the rationales for their existences are not identical.

A god is a means of answering questions that appear to be largely if not completely universal…all societies, as far as I know, seek some kind of explanation for the origin of the world. The current dominant religions would seem to have incorporated, with modifications, the creation myths of earlier times, much as the Catholic Church adopted, and changed the names and ostensible purposes of, holy-days and festivals celebrated by the peoples the church was trying to assimilate.

So my suspicion is that the earliest versions of our ancestors to be capable of such thinking developed creation myths, and gods and spirits to explain the otherwise inexplicable.

But then, it seems to me, we began to evolve the ‘church’. Perhaps the earliest forms were nothing more than shamans, whose learning allowed them to predict some events and to perhaps alter the course of some diseases, etc. They could do this by careful study, handed down to their apprentices, of the natural cycles of the world or perhaps the disease curing properties of various plants.

It would be natural, and I understand anthropology supports this, for the shamans to become allied with the leaders of the clan, tribe, nation etc. Temporal power is a natural ally with religious power, and the history of the Catholic Church demonstrates that. Of course, any such relationship will suffer from tensions as one side tries to maximize its power, but on the whole it has proven to be a very successful symbiotic association: heck, even today it is considered impossible for an atheist or a non-Christian to be elected to the Presidency of the US.

In this view, the Church becomes an instrument of power….power held by those at the top of the church but also, especially in earlier days, by members of the clergy at every level.

One thousand years ago, the village priest would have enjoyed a close, symbiotic relationship with the local lord or squire. The priest enjoyed a relatively privileged existence, by virtue of the tithe, while the Lord enjoyed security in his position because the Church taught that there was no social mobility and that the peasants’ rewards lay in the hereafter.

At the higher levels, both secular and religious, the symbiotic relationship governed, amongst other matters, who could be King. Henri IV of France is reported to have said that Paris is worth a mass….now, the story may be inaccurate, but the fact that it has remained as a saying to this date reveals the underlying accuracy of the sentiment.

So from my point of view, trying to argue that the Church is something other than a human institution, with human objectives, requires deliberate ignorance of reality. Yes, it’s a nice conceit….and it is an easy ‘out’ from dealing with the criticisms of the conduct that characterizes virtually all religions….blame the humans, not the institution. But it is silly. The church is a human construct for human purposes.

You cannot get around that in any way other than recourse to faith, which of course requires the ignoring of reason and evidence. The initial doctrines, and the initial understanding of the ‘facts’ underlying the Church all come in one form or another from one or more humans.

Ultimately, even if we accept that Paul got it ‘right’ in relaying what he said, and that the gospels were largely correct, it boils down to accepting the unsubstantiated claim by one out of many cult leaders, who said that he was the Messiah long predicted by the Jewish Church.

Anyone acting in a similar fashion now would either become fabulously wealthy and have his own television network or would be so heavily medicated as to be largely non-functional.

So forgive me, but your answers remain circular. I have, in fact, never seem nor heard of any justification for religion that offers any means of testing the objective reality of the concept. Thus, as one famous mathematician (Laplace) once observed to Napolean…I have no need of that hypothesis. Lagrange, another leading natural scientist/mathematician responded that the god hypothesis explained many things. That was a relatively early invocation of the god of the gaps rationale for god, and was then, as now, of no real utility at all.

“I always think of this massive Christian movement with thousands up on thousands of Christians, and apparently, it wasn’t.”

I read I book last year ... I think it was Wright’s The Evolution of God ... that talked about this in a lot of detail. Very detailed stuff about the compilation of the Bible - the later gospels correct mistakes and add stuff that counters objections people had, mainly to do with prophecies about the Messiah that Jesus doesn’t fulfill. And then the various Letters later do the same sort of things - they’re almost a FAQ, they’re answering questions like ‘well, how come the people in Jesus’ home town who remember him didn’t think he was anything special?’ and things like that.

This is not me criticizing - I don’t believe in the divinity of Christ, but I certainly do find it impressive that he persuaded this small group of people, people who were *desperate* to keep that message alive and get it to others. I do think it’s interesting that so many people who heard Jesus speak *weren’t* instantly converted - I’m not being snide or trying to score a point. In many ways I find that much more comforting, it’s not a case of Jesus hypnotizing people, or whatever. History teaches us to be wary of a man who can get a crowd to do exactly what he wants.

The spread of Christianity, the networking and appeals to local audiences and all that ... I find that really inspiring and fascinating. Much of *what* Jesus wants me to do, I think, is wonderful (not all!). It’s *why* that I’m not buying.

The idea that men spread the gospels and built the cathedrals, painted the pictures and built those hospitals is far more inspiring to me than the idea the holy spirit did it through them. That people did that gives me great hope for the future, quite independently of any questions of God’s existence.

Counsel,
**
I would have been shocked (and truthfully a little disappointed) if you had suddenly cried “EUREKA! I BELIEVE” after reading my personal views of why I am a Catholic!  ;)
**
I’m honestly not trying to convert anyone here.  I couldn’t even if I wanted to.  I can defend what I believe and explain it to the best of my ability, but the conversion of souls is, to coin a phrase used by our president, above my pay grade.  Faith is a gift, and it is not in my power to give it.  As we understand it, it is not in your power to “take” it.  Steve commented earlier that it is frustrating to him to be told that he has to “believe” in order to “understand”.  But that’s not quite what we are saying.  Belief, in our language, does not mean an intellectual assent.  You don’t just say, “Okay, I’ll believe”.  You suspend disbelief, ask for the gift of Faith, and if and when it is given, you “receive” it.  It is one of the Theological virtues and not ours to give. 
**
As for the Church being man made…I understand why you see it that way.  To me, it was God who instituted the Church.  The Church is not a building or a set of rules.  It is a living, breathing thing.  It is a body of flawed and broken individuals who are trying their best to maintain a relationship with God.  It is shepherded by another group of flawed and broken individuals who are doing their best (most, anyway) to protect, guide and defend her.  It is a mystical body, not a building, not bricks and mortar, not a government and not corporation.  Christ is it’s head, we are it’s body.  It exists in the physical world because we are physical creatures, but it also exists in the supernatural world.  It is not part of the scientific world and therefore cannot be judged or justified by science.  You are the ones that demand proof.  We don’t.  And that’s okay.  You desperately want us to fill this need you have to “show” you in empirical ways that the Church is true, is real.  But that is simply not our job.  You might find it foolish for us to believe in something that we cannot see, cannot touch, cannot prove.  That is your prerogative.  But insisting that we fill this need of yours,  this demand that we prove to you that we are not all idiots living on dreams and wishes…well, that’s just not gonna happen.  We cannot prove it to you.  It cannot be done.  When we tell you that we can’t prove it to you to your satisfaction you grumble and imply that we need psychiatric help.  I can give you reasons, sound logical reasons for what we believe, but you dismiss them.  I look at the world and I see a butterfly wings, , I hold a baby in my arms, I stare into an old persons eyes, I see billions of stars, I see the ocean…and I sense that there is something there…something that I cannot see, but sense.  I “feel” it, not as I feel emotions, but as I feel something is right, or something is wrong…some part of me that I can’t explain.  I experience something, something real, something deep, something mysterious.  Those may all sound like the ravings of a lunatic or a person who desperately wants to have answers that she cannot find elsewhere, but I can only tell you what I, MK, feel. 
**
I cannot tell you why I love my husband or prove to you that I do, or that Love even exists.  I cannot tell you why something isn’t “fair” or why something is “beautiful”.  I cannot prove to you that fairness or beauty exist.  But when I see a child left out of a game, or man sleeping on the street I know that I am looking at injustice.  When I see a painting by Bouguereau or a sunrise in the Smokey Mountains, I know that I am experiencing beauty.  When I see the first crocus in spring or smell lilacs I feel hope.  Are these experiences real?  Are they illusions?  Are hope, justice and love real?  Are they illusions?  I don’t know.  They are real to me.
**
I believe in God.  I believe He created this world.  I believe He created us.  I believe that somewhere along the line we screwed up royally and He has been working ever since to get us back to the place where we began.  I believe we fight Him every step of the way.  I believe He incarnated Himself, came to us, allowed Himself to be killed for us and has given us a path home.  I can’t prove it and I shouldn’t have to.  To say it’s a matter of Faith is not a cop out.  It’s the Truth as I know it.  I have books like Isaiah that prophecy the coming of the Messiah.  I have a man who claimed to be that Messiah.  I have eyewitness accounts to miracles.  I have a church that by all accounts should not have survived the first century yet is still here.  I have what I know in my heart, I have my own experience, I have thousands of Saints who have had similar experiences and millions of people who see what I see.  I have been offered nothing better to believe in, and see no reason to stop believing.  I know that is not enough for you, but it is enough for me.  I wish I could give you photographs and documents and graphs and blood tests.  But I can’t.  I’m sorry.
**
On the other hand, there are certain miraculous events that have taken place over the years and there you might find some “hard” evidence of something out of the ordinary.  Not Jesus face in a taco, but Fatima, and Lourdes, and Guadalupe and Eucharistic Miracles that have occurred over the centuries.  I don’t expect they will do much for you.  I’m sure you’ll have some rational explanation for each of them, but at least they have some scientific evidence associated with them.

mk
You are proof that there is a God.

Amen, Magda.  Amen

I offered up things today for you, MK, to support you.  You have such a beautiful way of explaining the faith.  This last post brought tears to my eyes. 

Thank you for your yes to God.  You have certainly witnessed to me.

Oh Magda and Erin…I was feeling so down.  I so desperately want to give these guys what they want.  I really do.  I want to wrap the proof up in happy paper, stick on a shiny bow and say here…here is what you are asking for!  Proof!  But I’m just a 52 year old mother of 6, living in a world that is confusing and sad and every day I hear one more thing that just breaks my heart.  Intellectual debate will only carry you so far, and honestly, I’ve only had one basic philosophy class.  These guys are SMART!  Really smart.  They are so challenging.  I’ve have to think, think, think.  There is just so much to cover.  And the Church herself hasn’t exactly helped over the years…lol.  I mean seriously, it’s hard to defend some of the things that have been done in her name by the very people that are supposed to be protecting her.  But as I love my husband flaws and all, I love my Church, flaws and all. 
**
When I heard that you had offered things up for me today Erin, I started to cry.  I offer things up for people all the time.  People right here on this blog, people that others have written off, people that hate the church.  I honestly don’t think I’ve ever had a stranger tell me that they had offered up a prayer or a suffering for me and my efforts.  I forget that other people are watching.  You have given me so much hope…
**
I suppose all of this sounds pithy and maudlin to those who don’t feel what we feel.  I can’t help that.  Once you’ve danced with the King everything else just seems unimportant.  I was not always a believer.  I was as far from “Holy” as a person could get.  I could probably have taught Fr. Corapi a thing or to on how to live the “good life”.  But for some reason, when I wasn’t looking…bam…that gift of Faith came raining down and I never even saw it coming.  It was the last thing I was looking for and the first thing I would have run from.  But as I said earlier…once you’ve seen, where is there left to go?

Steve,
That people did that gives me great hope for the future, quite independently of any questions of God’s existence
**
It strikes me that you and I are not so different.  Perhaps for now, it is enough that you embrace the good in humanity and hope to bring it out in those you meet.  What do I know?  The whole thing is a journey.  No Catholic can say “I am saved.  I am Holy.  I am finished”.  Conversion is a process.  It is ongoing and sometimes the changes are imperceptible.  What I am today is not what I will be tomorrow.  I fall, I get back up.  I fail, I try again.  Today I believe, I pray that tomorrow I will also believe.  I am no better and no worse than you or any other Catholic.  We don’t have all the answers.  The only difference between us really, is that I am willing to believe in what I cannot verify.  But we both believe in kindness, and Truth, and Mercy and people.  Who knows where I will be tomorrow in my journey.  Who knows where you will be.  The only thing I can say is that if you ever want to really know what we are talking about, you will have to take that baby step…you will have to suspend your unbelief and ask for that gift.  And then wait.  It could take minutes, it could take years…or… if you are right, it might never happen. You could continue trying to be the best man you can possibly be, help your neighbors, speak out for what is right and hope for the best.  Perhaps that is your road.  Who am I to tell you how to “get there”.  I’m rootin’ for you whatever path you take.  But seriously.  You’ve got to stop being so cerebral.  Facts are good.  Science is amazing.  But don’t lock yourself in.  Open a window.  Take a chance.  Believe in something, anything, that you can’t prove.  If for no other reason, do it just for the fun of it.  You might surprise yourself.

That was a relatively early invocation of the god of the gaps rationale for god, and was then, as now, of no real utility at all.
**
Oh Counsel, you crack me up. I’m trying.  I really am, but “no utility at all”?  We’re talking about God here.  Not some hypothesis or theorem.  If there is a God, and it is the God that I attest to, then demanding I prove Him as if He were some axiom or formula…well, it just makes me giggle.  I’m sure it brings a smile to His face also.  You have to understand that we don’t think in terms of “utility” and “practicality” when we speak of God.  As they say in Narnia “He’s not a tame Lion”.  ;)

@Steve
“I don’t believe in the divinity of Christ, but I certainly do find it impressive that he persuaded this small group of people, people who were *desperate* to keep that message alive and get it to others. I do think it’s interesting that so many people who heard Jesus speak *weren’t* instantly converted”

As do I, many of the studies of New Religious Movements (NRM) in Sociology of Religion discuss the charismatic generation of churches (L. Ron Hubbard - Scientology; as a recent and visible example). There has also been discussion of the process of routinization (Weber) that occurs when that charismatic figure is gone. This can include internal struggles over interpretations of what this leader said or stood for and who should lead in their absence (e.g. Sunni/Shia split). The recorded and re-recorded versions of these ‘gospels’ are invariably adopted to the problems of the current period. Such as Mathew’s alterations of, and borrowings from Mark’s text. This is amazing stuff when viewed as people fighting for an idea, creating community and attempting to fight the ‘evils’ of their time. The process is very subjective, hence the splits that often occur during the routinization of a revelation. It’s so human. 

“The idea that men spread the gospels and built the cathedrals, painted the pictures and built those hospitals is far more inspiring to me than the idea the holy spirit did it through them. That people did that gives me great hope for the future, quite independently of any questions of God’s existence.”

Same Here. Could not have said it better.

@mk
“insisting that we fill this need of yours,  this demand that we prove to you that we are not all idiots living on dreams and wishes…well, that’s just not gonna happen. We cannot prove it to you.  It cannot be done.”

Then we agree. I still don’t understand why someone would ‘believe’ something like that. However, as long as these unprovable ideas do not interfere with the rights of other people (including misrepresenting identity as in this article), there is no issue. 

“I cannot tell you why I love my husband or prove to you that I do, or that Love even exists.”

I believe the reason this is hard is because there are so many (observable) reasons that I do love my wife, but I could tell you why given enough time.  My actions towards her are evidence that I do. Love, though often used nebulously, is empirically observable and experienced between beings in this world. I could give you all the reductionist and social scientific reasons behind love too. 

“I cannot tell you why something isn’t “fair” or why something is “beautiful”.  I cannot prove to you that fairness or beauty exist.”

In my opinion fairness isn’t that hard, Chimpanzees get it, so do toddlers. Its a matter of ratios and situation.

I think beauty is a little harder, but there are a number of ideas such as symmetry and ratio which can make a thing or person more beautiful. These have been connected to gene health and mate selection.

Again both of these things are empirically observable and attached to real things in this world. In my opinion they are emotions and thoughts in the brain being created by you synthesizing senses, memories and emotions. They have no need of any supernatural help. What an amazing thing it is. No less wonderful for its material nature.

“I’m just a 52 year old mother of 6, living in a world that is confusing and sad and every day I hear one more thing that just breaks my heart.”

To me the only real difference here is that Atheists believe the responsibility to help rests solely with us Humans, here on Earth.

“I suppose all of this sounds pithy and maudlin to those who don’t feel what we feel.”

I understand the beauty and emotion of rituals, indeed it was one of the things that drew me to study religion, but they are beautiful to me just as they are, a human connection with their world and others in it. 

“You’ve got to stop being so cerebral.  Facts are good.  Science is amazing.  But don’t lock yourself in.  Open a window.  Take a chance.  Believe in something, anything, that you can’t prove.  If for no other reason, do it just for the fun of it.  You might surprise yourself.”

I think you’ll find that Atheists are quite capable of imagination, fantasy and often play with them as part of working out ideas. I have tonnes of fun doing what I do. All science requires people to think outside what they know, come up with original ideas and even fight for hypotheses. We just choose not to place ultimate belief in unproven ideas. Honestly, this again is the type of misconception I am here to dismiss.

Alan,
<B>Open a window.  Take a chance.  Believe in something, anything, that you can’t prove.  If for no other reason, do it just for the fun of it.  You might surprise yourself.”

I think you’ll find that Atheists are quite capable of imagination, fantasy and often play with them as part of working out ideas. I have tonnes of fun doing what I do. All science requires people to think outside what they know, come up with original ideas and even fight for hypotheses. We just choose not to place ultimate belief in unproven ideas. Honestly, this again is the type of misconception I am here to dismiss. <B>
**
I was just having a bit of fun…I know you guys “play”.  But I do think think that suspending your unbelief can be healthy.  Getting so locked into the material world…I don’t know.  It just sounds so “confining”.  Makes me claustrophobic just thinking about it.
**
I’d be interested in hearing your “proofs” of Love.  I won’t accept that there are chemical changes in the brain tho, because we can’t know if the chemical changes cause the Love or the Love causes the chemical changes…or both.  But yes, I’d like to hear your arguments that “Love” is a real thing that exists and can be proven.
**
I agree that love has been reduced to a “feeling”.  Personally, I believe it is a verb.  It’s something you do, not something you feel.  For me, it’s an act of the will.  Which means actions would certainly be considered proof.  But I wonder, why can’t I use the same criteria to prove God?  I can show you my actions toward God, which means, according to you, that I have proof that I love God.  I can tell you my experiences with God, and things I believe He has done for me…why would that not count for me and God, but it would count for you and your wife?  Could you prove that your wife loves you?  I’m just thinkin’ out loud now. 
**
There is an argument for God that I particularly like, as it it doesn’t start with the assumption that there is a God as Aquinas’ do.  It’s the argument from “Desire”.
**
Basically it says that we all have desires.  Some of them could be labeled Natural Desires and others could be called Artificial Desires.  Natural Desires come from Nature herself.  We desire water when we are thirsty, we desire food when we are hungry, we desire company when we are lonely, we desire warmth when we are cold.  These desires are “built into’ us…innate…we have no control over them.  All men have them, they are universal.  They don’t change over time. 
**
Artificial desires are desires that come from outside of us.  They are not innate, not objective, do not arise from Nature…big screen T.V.s, Fancy Cars, wealth…they change over time and are totally subjective. Nature does not, cannot, fill them.
**
Every desire that is created by Nature, can also be filled by Nature. She creates no desire for which she does not also created a way to appease it.  She causes us to be thirsty, she supplies us with water.  She causes us to desire procreation, she gives us the opposite sex. She causes us to be hungry, she supplies us with food…and on and on.
**
Artificial desires are not the same.  I desire a car and I’ll have to get one myself.  Nature does not provide Mercedes Benz’s. I desire wealth, but money does not grow on trees.
**
Since the beginning of time, as we have said here, man seems to have an innate desire to “fill in the gaps” as you say with a god, gods or God.  As far back as we go, we see that men have had some sort of something to explain death, life, the world.  Some sort of supernatural belief.  This desire for a supernatural entity is so universal, that we might call it part of human nature.  IF we agree that it seems this need, this desire, is provided by Nature and not artificially, then it would stand to reason that Nature would also provide a way to fulfill that which we seek.  If nature causes us to seek God, then God must exist, because Nature always provides what she cause us to desire…
**
The only thing left to show is that men have indeed always sought this “God”, and that the need for Him is innate and not created…

Alan,
“insisting that we fill this need of yours,  this demand that we prove to you that we are not all idiots living on dreams and wishes…well, that’s just not gonna happen. We cannot prove it to you.  It cannot be done.”

Then we agree. I still don’t understand why someone would ‘believe’ something like that. However, as long as these unprovable ideas do not interfere with the rights of other people (including misrepresenting identity as in this article), there is no issue. 

Well of course we agree.  We have never claimed to be able to prove that God exists using scientific proofs.  We have always fallen on logical proofs.  We have said over and over that being of the metaphysical world, material proofs simply will not work.  It’s not that we don’t have “evidence”, it’s that we don’t have the evidence you want.  You want DNA, photographs…you want us to produce God, in the flesh, as if He was something you could control or bid to do your will.  We give you written testimony and you say “Not good enough”.  We offer you eyewitness accounts to miracles, blood tests on Eucharistic miracles, photographs of miracles, uncorrupted bodies of saints, prophecies, extra-biblical sources, logic, personal experience, archeological evidence that certain things did in fact take place, historical records of Jesus,
the fact that the Church is still here given everything that has happened to it in the last 2,000 years…and you say “You have no evidence!”  It’s not that we have no evidence.  We have plenty of evidence.  We just don’t have the evidence that you require…which is to produce God. 
**
I understand that every one of those pieces of evidence, on it’s own, would not hold water.  But when you look at all of it, together, a picture emerges and there is enough evidence combined, to at least give a very reasonable justification for believing that SOMETHING is there. 
**
As for not interfering in your life…as a citizen, I have the right to my opinion and my vote.  I will exercise those rights.  If those opinions are colored by the morality of the Churches Teachings so be it. This is no different than your opinion or vote being colored by your morality being based on atheism.  I want abortion abolished from this country, you probably don’t.  I want sex ed out of the schools, you probably don’t.  Each of us could say that the other is imposing his morality on the other.  That’s called Democracy.
**
I’m sure you are for Equal Opportunity Employment.  Equal Housing.  There are now laws in several states that claim that a person placing an ad for a rental may not use terms like “single”, “Mature”, “employed”, “male”...the list is endless.  Here is a copy of all the words you may NOT use in a rental ad…All in the name of fairness.  Someones subjective idea of what fairness means. 
**
http://www.mvfairhousing.com/ad_word_list.php
**
But isn’t this morality.  Isn’t this someones morality being dictated to someone else?  How is this different than saying that I want abortion to be made illegal?  Or marriage to remain between a man and a woman. We ALL impose our personal morality on others.  It’s part of being human.  If mine happens to gel with Catholic Teaching, so what?  Why is that any less valid than gelling with your personal subjective opinions? 
**

“I won’t accept that there are chemical changes in the brain tho,”

Whether you accept it or not these chemicals are still a part of the process. Those chemicals are part of what I termed the ‘reductionist’ view. Love is just chemicals, and to an extent it is. In mammals there is a big connection to love and the fact that most of us raise our children. I could go into more details about what we know about those chemicals but it doesn’t really add anything here and is easily looked up.

However, we have levels of emotion and cognition and memory attached to these chemicals that emerge out of the interaction of our neural network (such as memories) and such chemical reactions. The lived experience of these things, our experience of the phenomenon, is what we call love and other emotions. There is nothing cheap or cold or mechanical about this explanation for me. Love is an incredibly complex process involving child rearing mechanisms, cognitive mechanisms, memories and emotions developed over millions of years to help us cope and survive in a changing environment, within the parameters of our history. Being good to each other is an evolved part of who we are (of course there are negatives here too). As an evolutionary undirected* (*not random) process, absolutely glorious and awe inspiring.

“why can’t I use the same criteria to prove God? I can show you my actions toward God, which means, according to you, that I have proof that I love God.”

A person can love an imaginary thing but it does not make it real. My wife and your husband on the other hand are (I assume) actually real.

“Nature would also provide a way to fulfill that which we seek. If nature
causes us to seek God, then God must exist, because Nature always provides
what she cause us to desire…”

Unfortunately nature is not perfect and she misfires, I think people seek to fill gaps in their knowledge with something false because this is our desire, to rid ourselves of uncertainty or to forget about the things we personally cannot change.

But I believe it is cowardly, we should try to face the world, as it is, and change it from within, instead of relying on wishful thinking.

“The only thing left to show is that men have indeed always sought this
“God”, and that the need for Him is innate and not created…”

For the biggest part of our history in most of the world ‘men’ feared/worshiped spirits, Gods, and God (apparently some earlier than Abrahamic monotheism in the form of Sky Gods) most of them Anthropomorphic in character (including your God) and acting very much like (often bad tempered) super powerful rulers of the world, but they love you.

However, ‘Seek’ is not my interpretation, it assumes the existence of the thing and that it hasn’t just been made up, which is my current understanding. It was more like ‘having no other explanation’; curiosity of things beyond the bounds of our technical knowledge, that we explained by magic and Gods

Once an imaginary being like this has been created it is easy to ‘fall in love’ with them, even if they are abusive. Anything that you spend that much time thinking about and attributing to everything good (or bad) will be attached strongly to many memories and will often be at the front of your mind. As I said, love is very complex. Women will continually go back to a man, even after he has beaten her and abused her (3 Social Workers in my family, Mum, Sister and Dad (recently)). why? because she loves him, he is at the front of her mind and she has many memories with him in them. Knowing that makes me think that not all love is good love. Love can misfire, just like other parts of fallible old life. We are the product of an imperfect process after all, but what a wonderfully intricate process, who’s imperfection is what gives it its ability to continue even when the environment changes. Sometimes the expense of these processes is a misfire .

Again this doesn’t cheapen love or any other emotion for me, but it does make me look for evidence for things in which I am going to put ultimate belief. I choose to love what is really here, in this world, no linguistic or philosophical tricks necessary.

“It’s not that we have no evidence. We have plenty of evidence.” 

Ahh, no you don’t, as none of this evidence has ever stood up to scrutiny, That’s why, as you admitted earlier, you have no empirical evidence for God. If these things had been shown to be true then you would have evidence of something weird happening. If we found a statistical correlation that showed that these ‘miracles’ only occurred for Catholics or for Catholic things then we would at least have a pattern. So far as I know we don’t have either of these.

“We just don’t have the evidence that you require…which is to produce God.”

That would be good, but any form of independently verifiable evidence would do. So far none has been produced, if it had been, surely everyone in the world would be Christian and certainly every Scientist would be, because these things would be Science.

All,
I don’t believe in coincidences, but I’m sure you do.  Whatever you want to call it, at the March for Life in DC this year, I went into the Basilica bookstore and for whatever reason picked up a book.  I bought it, brought it home, began to read it and realized that it was so over my head that I had no hope of ever getting through it.  Not only was it Philosophy and the Proof of God, but it was all in the context of Science!  What was I thinking???? 
**
I forgot all about it, as I have never had a need to use scientific arguments to prove God before…it never occurred to me that God could be argued through Quantum Physics, Time/Space theory or Infinite universe theories…it wouldn’t have mattered anyway, as reading about these things for me, was akin to reading Chinese.  So I put it on my stack of “someday but not now” pile of books and promptly forgot about it.  Today,  I was going through those books, finally committed to putting them in a more permanent “never going to read them” pile and
I rediscovered this book.  I couldn’t believe it.  Here is exactly the scientific arguments you guys were looking for!  Eureka!  I have struck gold!
**
Sadly, the cover alone was so intimidating that I almost shelved it again.  Then I thought, heck, maybe YOU guys could teach ME.  Rather than use these arguments to prove God to you, maybe you could decipher them for me and we could learn together.  You all seem brilliant, well educated and well read…you want proof, I want a better understanding of science.  I realize this would be time consuming and of course I’ll understand if you politely decline, but if you were so inclined we could “read” the book together and see what we would see.  Perhaps some of you have already read it or are familiar with it and have decided that it is so much nonsense, in which case c’est la vie. But I thought it was worth a shot anyway.  It uses people (whom I have never heard of) such as Bernard Lonegan, Fred Hoyle, Roger Penrose, Alan Guth, Alexander Vilenkin, Paul Davies and others.  The topics include the Big Bang, String Theory, Space/Time and Quantum Cosmology to name a few. 
**
The title of the book is “New Proofs for the Existence of God” by Robert J. Spitzer.  It was written in 2010 and the author says that these arguments could not even have been made 40 years ago.  It is the scientific knowledge that we have acquired in that time that has allowed these arguments to even exist…anyway let me know.  Here is an amazon link…
**
http://www.amazon.com/New-Proofs-Existence-God-Contributions/dp/0802863833

If we found a statistical correlation that showed that these ‘miracles’ only occurred for Catholics or for Catholic things then we would at least have a pattern. So far as I know we don’t have either of these.
**
Alan,
I have never claimed that God was Catholic.  Miracles are proofs of the supernatural, not that the Catholic Faith has the cornered the market on miracles.  While it is true that many, many of these miracles have taken place within the context of the Catholic Church, the proof you seek is of God, not of Catholicism.  Right?  First things first.  If we can establish that there is a supernatural reality, then we can move on to defining what that reality is.  You asked for empirical evidence that God exists.  Are writings of eyewitness accounts not considered evidence?  Are archeological sites that back up these eyewitness accounts not empirical evidence?  Are unexplained phenomena that show certain consistent characteristics not empirical evidence?  Are universal experiences not empirical evidence?  What exactly are you asking for?  At any rate, see my above comment and let me know what you think.  The book seems to know what you are looking for and claims to provide it.  I never said there WAS no empirical proof, only that I was not qualified to provide it.  Or even understand it in the case of this book…lol.  I am limited in my knowledge, and even more limited in intelligence.  But there are those who are smarter than I and I am willing to learn.  But I’ll need help.  Who knows, I might even be swayed by the evidence to doubt what I believe now…  ;)

So far none has been produced, if it had been, surely everyone in the world would be Christian and certainly every Scientist would be, because these things would be Science.
**
Here, you might find this interesting.  I don’t know how good the source is, but I’m sure you (or I) can find out more (like who was this prestigious scientist).
**
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1338543/posts

I have found the books of Cardinal Ratzinger to be extremely helpful… in particular, Introduction To Christianity and God and the World.

Here’s a link to a recent dialogue with an atheist in which I referenced both.

http://doxaweb.wordpress.com/2011/03/19/it-all-started-with-a-facebook-status-update/

“If mine happens to gel with Catholic Teaching, so what?  Why is that any less valid than gelling with your personal subjective opinions?”

Because of the authority claimed, and the nature of that authority.

If the Pope said ‘I, as an individual, and my likeminded buddies here, have thought about this and we think that this gay couple who’ve lived together for twenty years don’t really love each other and frankly we find what they do a bit distasteful’ ... well, OK, throw it onto the pile of opinion.

But the Pope is not just some guy on Facebook looking for ‘Likes’. His claim is that he is the direct spiritual descendant and highest spokesman on the planet for the creator of the universe and man, a being who is the actual font of all love, the being that laid down the natural laws of the universe. If a regular person says that homosexuality is ‘unnatural’, it’s a figure of speech. If the Pope says it, he’s saying it’s a profound truth about the way the universe works, more like a law of physics. He’s not saying it as some man born in 1927 who was just brought up thinking that, he’s saying it’s an eternal truth. Plus, in practical terms, he spends billions of tax-free dollars a year lobbying followers to defend that position, on pain of eternal torture.

The Pope is very specifically not saying it’s his personal opinion. He’s passing off his prejudices as God’s.

“the proof you seek is of God, not of Catholicism.  Right?”

Wrong, for me.

‘God’ is such a nebulous concept. We see that even in this discussion - it’s impossible to discuss this abstract ‘God’. I can’t imagine anyone has the time, but just go down this thread and make a list of ‘God is’ statements people have made. If that was a person, it would be someone with multiple personality disorder.

We can look at the properties and claims made for this God by people.

There are some big ones that apply to many religions - we know that there is no evidence of God in the creation of the universe or mankind, that everything can be explained naturally. We know beyond any doubt that prayer for medical intervention has no effect at all. We know that mankind has no ‘special place’ in the universe and can infer at the very least that if the universe was made ‘for us’, the being that did so made some very weird choices.

We can account for ‘the religious impulse’, which looks a lot like ‘curiosity’ to me. Why are things the way they are? Could things be better? Is there something we can be doing to help? The sky’s big, isn’t it - what’s up there, do you think? What happens when we die? Aren’t we more than just meat? Should we feel good about doing what we’re doing?

We can account for the history - how the religions that have prevailed have prevailed, and it’s always entirely mundane: Catholicism triumphed over the Aztecs because they had muskets, horsemen; Spain had a huge economic deficit, Mexico had a lot of gold. The military interventions God have made seem remarkably random - the ‘divine wind’ wrecked the Spanish Armada, but then he sent a hurricane to smash the British army that burned down the White House. His foreign policy is all over the place. 

But we can’t prove the absences of any of the thousands of gods that people have worshipped.

On another board I was on, a Catholic theologian went as far as to say that if an Infallible Papal statement was false, Catholicism was false, and if Catholicism is false, theism is. God would not exist.

It takes about ten seconds of Googling to find Infallible statements that are false. Of course, the theologian then claimed that the the Vatican was *incorrect* to label those statements as Infallible. So the true Infallible statements are true, the false ones weren’t Infallible.

Well, he gets paid to think like that, I guess.

So I’m not interested *just* in disproving Catholicism. I’m interested in looking at the specific claims all religions make, particularly when they are testable. Like it or not ‘praying for the sick improves their chances’, ‘God made man but not like he made animals’ and ‘homosexuality is unnatural’ are testable claims, and are all demonstrably false as stated, you have to start changing what words mean to get them back to ‘not disproved’. And, eventually, if Catholicism makes 100 claims and 99 of them are false and the last one is ‘God exists’, you can’t ever disprove that, but you can look at the record of the people making the claim and judge accordingly.

Steve,
First, the pope, the Church and Catholics say absolutely nothing about the feelings two people have for each other.  No one denies that two men can love each other, deeply for that matter.  That topic is not even touched upon.  Second, so what if he claims to speak about a universal truth.  No gun to anyones head that says he has to believe it.  Joe Nutjob could claim that he is speaking for the whole universe and no says you have to agree with him.  What difference does it make if a. the pope says that sex between two people of the same physical makeup is disordered and b. that this is a universal truth?  You are free to dismiss a or b or both or neither…

Plus, in practical terms, he spends billions of tax-free dollars a year lobbying followers to defend that position, on pain of eternal torture.

The Pope is very specifically not saying it’s his personal opinion. He’s passing off his prejudices as God’s.

And this is my point…no matter what he says, or what he believes, is he not beholden to the same positive laws that you or I are?  Does being pope mean he can just override the law and make a decree that all nations are forced to follow?  What I am saying is that every single individual has an opinion about what morality is and is not.  And each of them has a “vote”, a voice, a choice.  IF our choice is to listen to the pope/the Churches voice, and then act within the laws of the land we are living in to promote our view of morality, how is that different than YOU acting according to what you believe to be right and then working within the confines of the laws to get what you think is right?
**
Also, I think the governments of the world recognize that it is in their best interests to give tax breaks to churches as long as those churches are paying a large portion of the money needed to fulfill the needs of the poor, hungry and sick.  If the Church (or ANY charitable organization) was forced to pay taxes, then they would also have less to pour into the communities.  If Catholic Schools closed, the state would have to educate those children at their own cost.  If Catholic Hospitals closed, the state would have to pay for the overflow of healthcare.  If charitable institutions stopped feeding the poor, then the burden would fall to the secular world.  It’s a trade off, and one that I think the free world sees as beneficial.  On the other hand, if the Church didn’t pay taxes, she wouldn’t be stopped from entering the political scene.  She would be free to endorse certain candidates from the pulpit and you might see a surge in her political power.  Which I assume you would not like to see.  So imo, tax exemption is a win/win for all of us.  If you were to insist that the CC pay taxes then you would have to insist that ALL Charitable organizations pay taxes…

Steve,
There are some big ones that apply to many religions - we know that there is no evidence of God in the creation of the universe or mankind, that everything can be explained naturally
**
That statement is simply not true.  We cannot, emphatically cannot, explain EVERYTHING naturally.  We can explain much, yes, but EVERYTHING?  I think not.
**
So I’m not interested *just* in disproving Catholicism. I’m interested in looking at the specific claims all religions make, particularly when they are testable.
**
You made this statement: If we found a statistical correlation that showed that these ‘miracles’ only occurred for Catholics or for Catholic things then we would at least have a pattern. So far as I know we don’t have either of these
And my question was, are we proving that God exists (no matter how you define Him)or are we proving that the Catholic Church has the Truth about God.  At this point I assumed we were still working out the “God” question.  To say that all miracles do not occur within the confines of the Catholic Church is to turn the conversation in a different direction.  The question is not “Do miracles only occur in the Catholic Church?”, but “Do miracles occur at at all?”.
**
No one has said that Homosexuality is unnatural if by unnatural you mean not occurring in nature.  What I have said is that it is out of the natural order of things. Going against Natural Law is not the same as being UNnatural. 
**
off to Mass, I’ll be back.

“There are some big ones that apply to many religions - we know that there is no evidence of God in the creation of the universe or mankind, that everything can be explained naturally
**
That statement is simply not true.  We cannot, emphatically cannot, explain EVERYTHING naturally.  We can explain much, yes, but EVERYTHING?  I think not.”

‘Everything’ to do with the creation of the universe and mankind. We have models of both that work with the available evidence, without the need to invoke the supernatural. Perfect models? No, but ones that work with the evidence we have. 

“You made this statement”

I didn’t, that was Alan Nixon.

“Going against Natural Law is not the same as being UNnatural.”

Neither term has any useful meaning, both are based around sliding definitions and are traditionally used to pretend that individual prejudice can be imposed on the physical laws of the universe.

If ‘nature’ is the material world, and apparently God is not to be considered part of that material world, the only thing ‘unnatural’ in this conversation is God itself.

“First, the pope, the Church and Catholics say absolutely nothing about the feelings two people have for each other.”

I believe you are intrinsically disordered and self indulgent. I believe that while you and people like you shouldn’t be discriminated against you should not be allowed to work for my company. I believe that you go against what is willed for your life, and you must change your behavior to reflect that. I rule it is not unjust to say that about you.

Or rather I don’t, but that’s what the current Pope has said about homosexuals. Seems a little more than ‘absolutely nothing’.

http://www.slate.com/id/2131019/

“Second, so what if he claims to speak about a universal truth.  No gun to anyones head that says he has to believe it.”

So, as a Catholic, you’re saying that Popes are just random guys just saying stuff?

“Joe Nutjob could claim”

... that Mr Ratzinger is basically just Pope Joe Nutjob?

“If Catholic Hospitals closed, the state would have to pay for the overflow of healthcare.”

Which do you believe serves the poor better: the current US system, or the state-provided, free universal health care of, say, the UK?

If you’d like the actual answer, it’s at:

http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Content/Publications/Fund-Reports/2006/Apr/The-U-S—Health-Care-Divide—Disparities-in-Primary-Care-Experiences-by-Income.aspx

“If you were to insist that the CC pay taxes then you would have to insist that ALL Charitable organizations pay taxes”

No. As with secular organizations, which also do philanthropic work, you could simply ask for financial transparency, then tax the stuff that’s not actually charitable work - evangelization, religious study and so on.

Just treat the Church like any other organization, and its clergy like any other people.

“The title of the book is “New Proofs for the Existence of God” by Robert J. Spitzer.”

It’s important to note that Spitzer’s a Jesuit with a doctorate in Philosophy, he’s widely published in philosophy journals. So he’s not a scientist himself, or approaching this from a position of considered neutrality.

He was part of a Larry King roundtable with Stephen Hawking:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIttENo2eOM&feature=related

Transcript here:

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1009/10/lkl.01.html
 
Chopra’s made a lot of money basically reassuring people that science and religion speak to the same ‘essential truths’. The fact they actually don’t doesn’t seem to trouble him, as you can see. I’ve not read Spitzer’s book, but from this it looks like he’s falling back on the ‘oh, scientists don’t know enough theology’ argument. While failing to grasp that Hawking (whose book I have read) has laid out exactly how ‘something could come from nothing’ and ‘intelligibility’ can exist in an atheistic universe.

By saying God isn’t ‘necessary’, Hawking seems to demonstrate a grasp of theology. The point of the ‘first cause’ argument is that it’s *necessary*. It’s built on a bedrock that there is no other way it could have happened. There’s another way it *could* have happened. By definition, then, the traditional first cause argument is false.

God *could* have created the universe. He *needn’t*. If that’s the case, we can cross any and all ‘necessary being’ proofs of God’s existence off the list.

Steve,
So, as a Catholic, you’re saying that Popes are just random guys just saying stuff?

... that Mr Ratzinger is basically just Pope Joe Nutjob?
The only place that the Pope has an elevated status is in the eyes of the Church and her members.  In the eyes of the rest of the world and with regard to positive law, then yes, I would say that Pope Benedict is no more or less than any other Joe, Nutjob or not.  Certainly you don’t give him any more creedence than you would the milkman.  He doesn’t have a special secret vote, or final word or any power whatsoever over the secular world than any other citizen does.
**
I believe you are intrinsically disordered and self indulgent. I believe that while you and people like you shouldn’t be discriminated against you should not be allowed to work for my company. I believe that you go against what is willed for your life, and you must change your behavior to reflect that. I rule it is not unjust to say that about you.

Or rather I don’t, but that’s what the current Pope has said about homosexuals. Seems a little more than ‘absolutely nothing
**
Good Lord, I expected more from you than to pull a bunch of things out of context, throw your own spin on them and claim them as fact.  Is this how you do science?
**
Okay, if sex, with ANYONE isn’t self indulgent, then I don’t know what is.  Do you?  Why do people, especially people who don’t see sex as something sacramental, have sex?  Because they score points somewhere?  Because it cures Athletes Foot?  No.  Because it is pleasurable.  It is self indulgent.  Men who look at porn are indulging themselves.  People who overeat are indulging themselves.  People who have sex are indulging themselves and it doesn’t matter if it is heterosexual or homosexual.  So now we have a group of people who are drawn to others of the opposite sex, and they “indulge” their attractions.  Is that not accurate?  Furthermore, there are very good and sound reasons why Pope Benedict, at this particular time, drew the line on men with homosexual tendencies…deeply rooted…homosexual tendencies.  Surely you are aware of the priest scandal?  Well it wasn’t only about pedophilia.  Homosexuality was running rampant through the seminaries and parishes.  Some of those homosexuals also had a taste for younger men and boys.  This is documented.  The question is not why did the pope put a moratorium on homosexual men becoming priests, but why wasn’t it done sooner!  While between 4 and 10% of the general population is estimated to be homosexual, some estimates say that as high as 75% of the priests ordained between 1960something and 1980something were gay.  That, to me, is a red flag.  THAT is why Pope Benedict said “No More”.  Good men left seminaries, or were thrown out because they wouldn’t bend to the homosexual atmosphere in almost every seminary in the country (and other countries as well).
**
To make the leap from the Pope, in HIS own church has said “finis” to homosexuality, to the Pope says no one should HIRE homosexuals because they ARE homosexuals is nonsense and you know it.  I’m really surprised by you comments.  For a man who claims to follow reason, that was an emotionally charged, unsubstantiated argument if I ever heard one.
**
*deep breath*
**
‘Everything’ to do with the creation of the universe and mankind. We have models of both that work with the available evidence, without the need to invoke the supernatural. Perfect models? No, but ones that work with the evidence we have. 
What models?  There are as many theories as to how the Big Bang happened as there are scientists.  NO ONE knows.  And no one knows “everything” about mankind either.  Heck, we can’t even agree on what it means to be human, if there is life after death, if our brains control us or we control our brains, if we have a soul, what causes “life”...seriously, you chastise me for using the word “knowledge” the wrong way and then you make a statement like that?  Are you the same Steve Jeffers that I was speaking with earlier?  ;)

Steve,
I believe that you go against what is willed for your life,
Careful.  You’re beginning to make metaphysical statements there…who exactly “willed” this for your life?  If you willed it for yourself, then I fear you have admitted to self indulgence.  If it is an act of Nature then no will was involved.  If it was willed from the outside, then…well, we both know where that leads.  ;)

“He doesn’t have a special secret vote, or final word or any power whatsoever over the secular world than any other citizen does.”

To say that the Vatican has and wants no influence over the world is demonstrably untrue:

http://www.usnews.com/news/religion/articles/2009/12/17/abortion-debate-shows-the-catholic-bishops-growing-influence

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/mps-investigate-catholic-influence-on-schools-786146.html

http://afjn.org/about-afjn/collaborating-organizations/catholic-task-force-on-africa/33-catholic-task-force-on-africa-mission.html

Steve,
To say that the Vatican has and wants no influence over the world is demonstrably untrue:
C’mon.  I never said he didn’t have influence, I didn’t say he didn’t want to have influence.  I said he was given no special political power to enforce his views.  Every person has influence.  Yes, he’s a big man.  But to whom???  Not you.  Not Alan.  To me and other Catholics.  That’s it.  Of course he has influence.  Hard to be the “head” of anything and not have influence.  That’s kind of the definition of being a leader, is it not?  Nobody but Catholics are obligated to obey or pay any heed whatsoever to his influence.

The move comes after a 66-page circular from the Bishop of Lancaster, Patrick O’Donoghue, instructed Catholic schools in the North-west to stop “safe sex” education and place crucifixes in every classroom.,

Is it me, or are you saying that a Catholic Bishop should have no say so in what is taught in a Catholic School?

“To make the leap from the Pope, in HIS own church has said “finis” to homosexuality, to the Pope says no one should HIRE homosexuals because they ARE homosexuals is nonsense and you know it.”

I didn’t say that.

My original post was a response to you saying the Pope had said nothing against homosexuals. I just took what he’d said and said it about you - a simple ‘would you like it if someone said this about you?’ rhetorical thing.

You’ve said it yourself: the Pope is in charge of an organization that, on his order, has banned the recruitment of homosexuals. That is not taking a neutral line. Regardless of what he thinks about secular hiring - *he is in charge of a multinational organization that has banned gays from being hired*.

Here’s the key belief of modern, New, strident atheism: treat everyone the same. If a school district had a problem with child molesters, the answer would not be to place a ban on future hiring of homosexuals. The answer would be a root and branch removal of managers, police involvement and a purge of everyone who oversaw the system *as well* as punishment for the offenders. And, of course, systematic care for the victims. And, of course, systems in place to detect signs in the first place.

Instead, what you’ve done is what the church has done: blamed the gays.

If 75% of new priests were Italian, would you have banned Italians?

Your link—-> http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Content/Publications/Fund-Reports/2006/Apr/The-U-S—Health-Care-Divide—Disparities-in-Primary-Care-Experiences-by-Income.aspx didn’t work.

Steve,
My original post was a response to you saying the Pope had said nothing against homosexuals.
And I didn’t say that.  What I said was, the Pope never addresses the feelings homosexuals have for one another as a moral issue.  He addresses their behavior.  When it comes to representing his Church, which he must protect, then if a man is predisposed, whether genetically or psychologically, towards homosexuality, then in this period of time, he is not qualified for the priesthood.  Not because he loves other men, but because there was a crisis in the priesthood that was rooted in homosexual activity. 
**
You’ve said it yourself: the Pope is in charge of an organization that, on his order, has banned the recruitment of homosexuals. That is not taking a neutral line. Regardless of what he thinks about secular hiring - *he is in charge of a multinational organization that has banned gays from being hired*.
Priests aren’t “hired”.  lol.  They aren’t window washers.  They’re qualifications aren’t degrees, or talents or intelligence.  Their qualifications are based on whether they have been called, legitimately called, by God, to a vocation.  Vocations are not meant to be occupations.  That they get paid in order to live is not the same as working to get paid.
**
You’ve said it yourself: the Pope is in charge of an organization that, on his order, has banned the recruitment of homosexuals. That is not taking a neutral line.
Are you not getting this?  You’re complaint was that the Pope has spoken out to the secular world about the immoral aspects of the homosexual act.  You claimed that he condemned two men that love each other deeply.  I said that he has never addressed their feelings, only their actions.  Up to this point we have been talking about the secualar world and the influence of the pope and his stance on homosexual acts.  Then you switch gears and claim that he is prejudiced against homosexuals within the confines of the Church.  It’s HIS Church.  It’s HIS job to ordain priests who will represent the Church, will shepherd the flock.  He doesn’t appoint women to the priesthood either.  But that is in house business.  It has nothing to do with the secular world.  Homosexuality is, in the Churches eyes, intrinsically disordered, meaning out of the order of the natural way of things.  Dogs with 3 legs, blindness, infertility, 6 fingers on one hand…all of these things are nature not acting according to nature’s laws.  Not Natural Law. Not morality…but not according to the way nature is meant to work.  Sometimes wires get crossed and things come out different than the norm.  This is why there is nothing intrinsically immoral about BEING homosexual.  But giving into this tendency IS immoral.  In the case of homosexual priest, they weren’t just being homosexual, they were ACTING on it.  Even to the point of molesting young boys.  So asking me if they were 75% Italian is ridiculous and you know it. 
**
If 75% of priest were gay and NOT acting on it, then this wouldn’t have had to happen.  It’s not their homosexuality that got them removed, it was their behavio.

“Your link didn’t work”

Sorry - try:

http://www.commonwealthfund.org/usr_doc/Huynh_UShltcaredivide_900.pdf

Instead, what you’ve done is what the church has done: blamed the gays
You’re killin’ me here.  The Church teaches that homosexual behavior is wrong.  Morally wrong.  But she should still allow homosexual priests who are active participants in homosexual behavior be the leaders of this Church.  And that doesn’t strike you as mildly hypocritical?  What if these priests were having sex with women?  Knowing that the church a. condemns sex outside of marriage, and b. requires priests to take a vow of celibacy.  We should just allow these priests to continue to be priests and act in the very ways that they are telling their parishioners they must not act?  Really?  That’d fly.  And they DID remove the offenders and the bishops who covered them up…and guess what?  They were all gay!  Maybe she should let known murderers and abortionists and rapists be priests too.  And when her people balk, say well, we’re all for “hiring” equally.  We don’t discriminate against sinners.  Oh wait a minute!  That’s our entire purpose for being…to overcome sin…shoot, we’re in a fix now boys!

“Their qualifications are based on whether they have been called, legitimately called, by God, to a vocation.”

‘Legitimately’ is in that sentence is a wonderful bit of hedging. They thought they were called, they went through the system, everyone thought God had called them ... then it turned out they were a pedophile, so I guess they faked their way in and God didn’t call them?

Did God call the pedophiles to the vocation of the priesthood? Or, once God had called them, did they become pedophiles? Or did they somehow sneak in under God’s radar?

“In the case of homosexual priest, they weren’t just being homosexual, they were ACTING on it.”

And here’s the problem - you’ve equated pedophiles with homosexuals. More to the point, the Pope has decided to ban all homosexuals because of it.

Pedophiles in the secular world, even those who molest those of the same sex (usually men and boys) tend not to identify as gay, and often have heterosexual relationships with adults.

Homosexuals who are free to act on their urges don’t ‘act on’ their urges by molesting children.

That’s why the Italians thing is the right question: if 75% of my employees are Italians [as you say 75% were gay], and 9% are thieves [according to reports, around 9% of US priests are implicated in abuse or covering up abuse], it simply doesn’t follow that the problem is ‘too many Italians’. These are two separate factors. Even if there is some link - a higher tendency to be a thief among Italians, a subculture of Italian tolerance of thieving - the vast majority of Italians are not thieves.

Every organization that deals with kids has to face the fact that some employees will get a job there to molest children. Or, once they are there, those employees begin to abuse their power.

The problem in the Catholic church is not rampant gayness. It’s that there was a culture of keeping quiet, denial and moving offenders around. It’s in *that* climate it thrived. People got away with it, so they kept doing it - and *that’s* human nature.

Look, it’s very simple: if 75% of young priests are gay, and only 9% of priests are child molesters (these are, incredibly, the Church’s *own* figures), then *all homosexuals can’t be child molesters*.

Even if ‘all child molesters are homosexuals’ (which isn’t true anywhere else in the world) *was* true in the priesthood, it doesn’t work the other way round.

Draw a Venn Diagram if you like:

9% of priests are homosexual child molesters
66% of priests are homosexual non-molesters
25% of priests are heterosexual.

There’s no way of cutting it - there are about seven and a half innocent gays for every molester. Yet *all* homosexuals are banned.

“What if these priests were having sex with women?”

Heaven forfend!

Among the priesthood, which do you think is most common: molestation of young boys, or consensual sexual relationships with adult women?

http://www.richardsipe.com/diocesan_profiles/diocese_of_burlington.htm

Well, this study suggests that in this one diocese with 102 priests, it’s a close run thing. It demonstrates that according to the Church’s own records 15 priests had affairs with married women, 12 with unmarried women, 4 with their own housekeepers and these resulted in 2 impregnations (a fairly low rate which makes me wonder if another rule was broken). 

So, 102 priests, 31 heterosexual relationships.

Let’s do that math:

102 priests.
44 straight.
49 gay.
6 bi.
3 unknown.

So, put the straight and bi together, that’s 50 priests and 31 affairs! Three out of five straight priests have had sex with an adult woman.

That’s *reported* relationships. I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to say that most heterosexual relationships with adults go unreported.

And the problem’s widespread enough that:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/church-in-talks-with-priests-mistresses-1282561.html

And whatever else a gay relationship might lead to ...

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,346367,00.html

... it wouldn’t be abortion.

“We should just allow these priests to continue to be priests and act in the very ways that they are telling their parishioners they must not act?  Really?  That’d fly.”

As the actions of child molesters was enough to get homosexuals, as an entire category, banned for being a 1 in 8 risk ... and 3 out of 5 straight priests have affairs with adult women, wouldn’t the fair, non-hypocritical thing to do be to ban all heterosexuals, too?

Steve,
‘Legitimately’ is in that sentence is a wonderful bit of hedging. They thought they were called, they went through the system, everyone thought God had called them ... then it turned out they were a pedophile, so I guess they faked their way in and God didn’t call them?
Aren’t you paying attention?  The very men that discerned them were also active homosexuals.  Let’s try a different scenario.  Let’s pick something less toxic to either of us.  Pretend that these were drug addicts.  I’m sure that both of us would agree that drug addiction is disordered, right?
Okay, now we must remember that the very definition of what the Church is, is a guardian of Truth and Morals.  Or Faith and Morals if that is more palatable.  Now let’s say that in a large pocket of the church men have been entering the priesthood, fully admitting that they were drug users, but claiming that it is all in the past and that they are no longer using.  The bishops that are discerning these mens claims to a call to the priesthood are themselves drug addicts.  These are not occasional pot smokers, but are men that have (wait for it…)deeply rooted addictions.  Now some people think that addiction is genetic, so the predisposition to drug addiction is not their fault and they have claimed that they are no longer “acting” out their addictions.  They are accepted to and enter the priesthood.  Years go by. Bishops talk to priests, priests talk to bishops, priests talk to priests and before you know it all the drug addicts know each other.  They begin to use again, and to cover up for each other.  Other men get wind of the fact that you can join the priesthood, indulge your addiction, be protected by your superiors and basically live a life free of the prying eyes of the law. Some of these priests now start to befriend young men and they start doing drugs with them.  Little by little, mostly due to the young men coming forward, the priests are exposed.  But the bishops continue to cover for them.  Forty years go by and the priesthood is now comprised of (let’s use a very conservative estimate) 40% of drug addicts who are using.  The whole thing blows wide open.  Other countries start recounting similar stories.  The laity is horrified.  The secular world sneers.  The drug use was bad, the cover up was worse and involving children was the worst of all.  One day the Pope decrees that as of now, no more drug addicts, with deeply rooted addictions will be allowed into the priesthood.  He says: “I believe these men are intrinsically disordered and self indulgent. I believe that while you and people like you shouldn’t be discriminated against you should not be allowed to work for my company. I believe that you go against what is willed for your life, and you must change your behavior to reflect that. I rule it is not unjust to say that about you.”
**
I understand that drug use is a criminal offense and homosexuality is not, so you obviously have to take that out of the equation.  I had to pick something that was agreeable to both of us, and I’m pretty sure that drug use and especially drug use with minors, qualified.  Even if it were legal to use certain drugs, I’m sure both of us would agree that a. addiction is not recreational use, b. bringing children into the mix is highly immoral and c. Men in a leadership role whose entire “business” is preaching morality and right action should not be abusing drugs. 
**
The Catholic Church looks at homosexuality much as it looks at drug addiction.  The predisposition to addiction or homosexuality is not a sin.  (And I get to use the word sin here because we are trying to see this from the perspective of the church) but giving into drug addiction, or giving into the tendency towards homosexuality is a sin.  You cannot indulge sin and teach morality at the same time.  Yes, of course we all sin, but we are not talking about sinning, we are talking about indulging sin.  Embracing it.  Flaunting it.  Repentance is key to forgiveness in my world.  To the secular world the grievance was the pedophilia.  But that is because it does not view homosexual behavior as morally reprobate.  But the Church does, and this is the Churches call, not the secular worlds.  We find both the pedophilia AND the homosexual activity deplorable.  Especially given the context and who was performing the acts.  For the record, we find the pedophilia much worse than the homosexual activity.  There is, in the Catholic Church a hierarchy of sin…

Jesus said,  “Everyone who belongs to the Truth listens to my voice.”

Steve,
Look, it’s very simple: if 75% of young priests are gay, and only 9% of priests are child molesters (these are, incredibly, the Church’s *own* figures), then *all homosexuals can’t be child molesters*.

Even if ‘all child molesters are homosexuals’ (which isn’t true anywhere else in the world) *was* true in the priesthood, it doesn’t work the other way round.

No one said that all homosexuals are child molesters.  You are thinking like an atheist. (Which is fine, except to understand what happened you have to think like a Catholic).  All homosexuals are NOT pedophiles.  I never said that.  Never.  But in this case 90% of the pedophiles were homosexuals.  Just as most Muslims are not terrorists, but most terrorists today are Muslim. 
**
But from the churches view, BOTH issues were unacceptable.  On the one hand you have the deplorable cases of pedophilia.  Let’s get rid of them.  Okay, they’re out.  Now you are left with another gravely sinful matter…that of our moral leaders engaging in flagrant immoral behavior, by our standards.  Yes, the pedophilia was worse, but that doesn’t mean you ignore the homosexual behavior.  All of it had to go.  All of it was sinful, morally reprehensible and all of it had to be stopped.  I know you don’t see the homosexuality as anything but a normal expression of two human beings…but these were priests who had VOWED to be chaste.  And they weren’t. End of story.  By their own choice.  Add to that, that not only was there a plethora of homosexual, good men were leaving or being driven out of, the priesthood in droves!  If you weren’t gay, or willing to turn a blind eye, if you prayed the rosary or were too “holy”, if you spoke out against the things you were witnessing, your were sent to psychiatrists, deemed unfit for the priesthood or made so miserable that you left on your own.  THIS was a PROBLEM.  And it had to be stopped.

Steve,
Among the priesthood, which do you think is most common: molestation of young boys, or consensual sexual relationships with adult women?
You are too smart for these games…I cannot believe that you are playing them!  That’s like asking “Which do you think there are more of in the psychiatric profession?  Psychiatrists who have sex with children or psychiatrists who have sex with their adult patients?”  IT’S ALL WRONG!  Priests that have sex with women should be put on administrative leave also!!!!  Oh wait, they are (enter Fr. Corapi).  ANY sexual misconduct should be treated the same way!  Period.  Trust me, the Church is cracking down on the whole bunch of them.  No matter which way they’re bent.  As well they should.  It is just a simple fact that because of the scandal with the children, the homosexual thing has been blown wide open.  It has also shone light on all sexual offenses, but it is possible to say no more men with deep rooted homosexual tendencies, than it is to say no more men with any sexual tendencies.  One is more obvious.  The other is more insidious and harder to see.  But trust me, they are ALL being exposed.

And whatever else a gay relationship might lead to ...

... it wouldn’t be abortion.

Well, you got me there!  (*big ol’ smile)
**
I know this last stuff has gotten heated and I’m sorry.  It’s not so much our disagreement on the morality of homosexuality as your refusal to see that GIVEN our view on homosexuality, it would hardly be appropriate to allow the priesthood to become a “boystown”.
As the actions of child molesters was enough to get homosexuals, as an entire category, banned for being a 1 in 8 risk ... and 3 out of 5 straight priests have affairs with adult women, wouldn’t the fair, non-hypocritical thing to do be to ban all heterosexuals, too?
**
The pedophilia didn’t cause their prohibition. It exposed a secondary condition within the church.  The prohibition is in reaction to the gay community that was flourishing within the church, not to the pedophilia.  They are two different things.  If it is found that priests are having heterosexual sex then heck, let’s make ‘em all eunuchs!

@mk
“In the case of homosexual priest, they weren’t just being homosexual, they were ACTING on it.  Even to the point of molesting young boys.”

“It is just a simple fact that because of the scandal with the children, the homosexual thing has been blown wide open.”

Please stop trying to connect homosexuality with Pedophilia, the connection only exists in the same way that it does for heterosexuals, if a heterosexual male assaulted young girls I would feel equally repulsed. Pedophilia is always wrong because it is always a power issue. Homo- and Heterosexuality do not have this problem automatically, it takes a decision by one of the parties to make ‘sex’ into ‘rape’. Pedophilia is akin to rape, not sexuality.

And let’s look at your numbers again…

8. Reports named nineteen (19) priests who had sexual relationships with adult men. There are instances of adult homosexual relations of priests with men or other priests that border on the criminal, however rarely reported.
3.  Sex With Teens: Twenty-nine (29) priests were involved in sex with minors over the age of 14. Two (2) of the priests were sexually active with teen-aged girls, twenty-seven (27) with teen-aged boys.

I don’t know about you but I come up with 27 + 19, that makes 46 to your 31, take away some of the children over fourteen (most studies show that half of those “children” were between 15 and 17, which while still horrifying is edging closer to homosexual behavior than strict pedophilia which is normally associated with prepubescent children.  I’m not say it was homosexuality and I’m not saying it wasn’t. NAMBLA would say it was perfectly normal, most homosexuals would say it was not.  I’m saying it’s close enough to make the truth had to discern.  Either way, heterosexual or homosexual, it’s pretty dang close and it’s ALL wrong!
**
This link is pretty good as it uses various sources including Kinsey and GLBT sources. 
**
http://www.catholicleague.org/images/upload/image_201004132711.PDF

Alan,
Please stop trying to connect homosexuality with Pedophilia, the connection only exists in the same way that it does for heterosexuals, if a heterosexual male assaulted young girls I would feel equally repulsed. Pedophilia is always wrong because it is always a power issue. Homo- and Heterosexuality do not have this problem automatically, it takes a decision by one of the parties to make ‘sex’ into ‘rape’. Pedophilia is akin to rape, not sexuality.
Here are the facts from Steve’s link:

Sex With Teens: Twenty-nine (29) priests were involved in sex with minors over the age of 14. Two (2) of the priests were sexually active with teen-aged girls, twenty-seven (27) with teen-aged boys.

NOT, NOT, NOT all homosexuals are pedophiles.  In THIS PARTICULAR INSTANCE, THE CATHOLIC PRIESTHOOD SCANDAL, MOST of the pedophiles were ALSO homosexual.  That’s all I have said, that’s all I am saying, and that’s all I will say in the future.  You have the facts right there.  27 out of 29 sexual acts committed on minors over the age of 14, were MALE on MALE.  Where I come from, that is a homosexual act.  I have already made it abundantly clear that there were/are TWO separate problems that took place within the Church.  1. Homosexual practices between consenting adult priests 2. Homosexual acts committed against children or if you prefer Sexual crimes committed against male children by male adults. (And I fully admit that there were also illicit heterosexual acts between consenting adults and heterosexual acts committed against children)  and ALL of them were morally WRONG.

Steve and Alan,

Perhaps I can find out whether the same priests who molested the boys were also involved in consensual adult relationships…I don’t know, I’ll have to dig.  Tomorrow.  Right now I’m off to bed.  Don’t know where you guys live (someone is in Australia) but here, it’s night-night time.  ;)
**
There is some debate over whether pedophilia of males on males is a totally different beast than straight up homosexuality.  It’s hard to say.  I mean, there’s lesbian, transexual, transgender, bi, male homosexuality, pedophilia, ephebophilia, hebephilia, bestiality…where does one end and the next one begin? Are there clear delineations? Do we call them Co-morbid?  Can you be one, two or even three or more of them at once?  I don’t know.  I keep thinking of the two men who used to be two women who got married to each other (legally because one of them hadn’t changed their birth certificate) and one of them was artificially inseminated and carried two children to term.  You can’t make this stuff up.
**
So if I see male on male sexual behavior as homosexual EVEN when one of the males is not an adult, can you really blame me???

I’m also sorry if this has got heated. I’m going to be away from the computer for a few days. If this thread has fizzled by the time I’m back, then thank you for a very interesting discussion.

I think it’s fair enough to talk about the Vatican dealing with things in terms of Catholic values, and I don’t think Catholicism is the place to go for groovy feelings towards homosexuality. Part of me wonders why, if it’s really true that 75% of young priests are gay, *they* chose Catholicism. It is like a vegan getting a job at a steakhouse. I’d ask Jennifer the same question, because, frankly, the Catholic view of women is to have them much higher up the hierarchy of sin than mere gays. The ordination of gay priests is seen as a necessary evil, but there’s an Infallible declaration that women can never be ordained. 

I think there’s a link to the science debate here. Catholicism was a force for learning, healing, scholarship and the spreading of, on the whole, ‘good’. Judged solely as a philanthropic organization, for much of its existence, it was a great one.

But the world moved on. Catholicism lags, I’d say, the mainstream. The civil rights movements have outflanked it. Evolutionary theory and quantum physics have outflanked it, state-provided health care and education have outflanked it. More to the point, though, even all the lay Catholics I know have more advanced views on women’s rights, gay rights, animal rights and so on.

Catholicism has certain values, and a lot of the appeal has got to be its stability and conservatism in fluid, multicultural, complex times. But it can’t be *reality denying*. It can’t exist solely to exist. If its ideas are robust, they can be challenged. Now, a lot of this is that the people running the Vatican are a generation older even than senior politicians. The world they were born into is not this one.

And the child abuse thing is Catholicism’s Guantanamo, in that I don’t think the people running the show understand just how wrong it looks. Most Catholics I know immediately stick their heads in the sand. The official statements, even now it’s admitted it happened, are about how it’s all down to gay infiltration and anyway it happens everywhere ... yes, but if it happened in the secular world, there are mechanisms to catch it and the person is thrown to the wolves, not moved somewhere else. The scandal is not ‘a few people molested’ it’s ‘and a lot of people conspired to keep that secret’, *that’s* the issue. That and the scale. Google your bishop, and he’s facing a lawsuit, I can pretty much guarantee that.

And that’s a problem, if for no other reason that the Church’s job is to be a moral authority. It’s not about modern people ‘straying from the path’, it’s that we’re further up it. Women can get jobs! Gays are not monsters! Medicine is what cures people! Raping kids is bad!

Now ‘outflanked’ is a hostile metaphor, perhaps ‘overtaken’ is better. ‘Superseded’ is perhaps best of all. We can do all that, better, now. Recent Vatican declarations, including the one at this conference with atheists they’re running, has identified the threat: it’s not that they face *hostility*, it’s that they face *irrelevance*. The threat is not atheist tanks might park in St Peter’s Square, it’s that the only people there are tourists who’ve come for the art.

Steve,
Check back if you can.  I’ll post an answer to the above, because I think some of your remarks are off base.  Some have merit tho.  I’d like to address them but I have to get to school.  I’ll check back in a few days to see if you’ve returned.  I too have really enjoyed this.  It’s rare to actually dialogue with someone instead of just trading insults.  Usually it’s about “who wins”.  This conversation really was about “I’d like to understand”, which means we BOTH win.  If I don’t see you again in a couple of days on here, I really, really hope we “run into” each other again.  Peace.  I’d say I’ll pray for you but…lol.  Let’s just say, I’ll keep you in my thoughts and hope we meet up in a few days…

You guys lost me when the topic turned to the sex scandal. I thought that the subject at hand was a debate on whether it is possible to show the existence of God empirically, or philosophically…or at least something along those lines. So I’m not sure how this lengthy digression furthers that line of reasoning. I’ll still be checking my inbox, though.

Sam,
Lol.  I just go where I’m led in these conversations.  I think we got onto how you decide which God is THE God, which led to evidence that the God of Christianity had a lot of evidence going for him, which led to contradictions in the bible, the fact that most of the evidence comes from men, that those men are flawed, that the pope is one of those men, that the pope said homosexuals could no longer be priests and that led to a conversation on the scandal…defending the Faith can mean going where most men fear to tread…but if someone outside the faith is willing to have an honest conversation, (and Steve and Alan were) then I am willing to answer any and all questions. The priest scandal is one of those things that has hurt both Catholics and non Catholics.  To not talk about it is a disservice to everyone.  It is distasteful to be sure, but the Truth will set you free, as they say.  I think this openness, shown by Alan and Steve, this willingness to listen as well as speak,  is the only hope we have of ever getting rid of the stereotypes, caricatures and misconceptions on both sides.  Kudos to both those guys.  I REALLY enjoyed myself this past week!

@mk

The feeling is mutual (/bows with respect)

This has been one of the more enjoyable and stimulating conversations I’ve had on a religious forum. Conversations like this are bound to wonder, there is a lot of content to cover and heaps of misleading/interpretable information (and stereotypes from both sides).

I agree that openness like this is a key component of the negotiations ahead of us. Thanks for the chat.

Al.

By far one of the best postings I’ve seen about the most evangelical, fundamentalist and proactive religious groups out there, Atheism. I speak firstly of that - that in the context that reality is best observed from the Earth that Atheism certainly has proven to be one of Earth’s most effective religions in this age. In going out from the surface of Earth, I have two immediate comments: 1) Earth is but a small pebble in the giant cosmos far beyond the scale of a grain of sand against the scale of our galaxy - we are nothing. Yet, 2) God so loved the world that He (the Father) sent His only Son (also God) here to make right in eternity what was wronged by the flaws of creation - not because God allowed sin, but because humans mistakenly chose it.

Some of my best friends on Twitter are very smart Atheists who either work for or fly for NASA. @aggieastronaut is perhaps my favorite of the favorites. They look at the Bible and so much attention given to the context of Earth as the false center of creation and realize that much more exciting realities happen - and they do on the microscopic or macroscopic scale than they do in the Biblical rendition of the little things happening on Earth. Yet all the same these same people go out as far as I do, to fathom the mystery and majesty of creation, finding that it all must have started about 13.5 billion years ago, not the less than 6,000 years ago that the Christian fundamentalist nutjobs do - some of who join many NASA scientists like Dr. Hansen who don’t know yet that “climate change” is actually a naturally occurring, ever-changing reality of Earth and that yes, there is Climate Change now - just as there has always been. This is to be different than the kind of nutjobs you’ll find on @coasttocoast on Twitter saying as Doctor Hansen of @NASA does that humans are in any way, shape, or form smart or strong enough to either create or stop climate change.

George Noory, the current host of @coasttocoastam is one of the most bizarre people alive, who believes in this junk-science of Goya - the living Earth. I happen to believe that the Earth was designed - intelligently - to defend itself, but all for the purpose of proving that the intelligent designer - the creator of all knows what He is doing. Why oh why would God create the pot plant? To get people high? NO - to instead fill the planet with oxygen. But people smoke it, they die, and they become through the worms of death the fertilizer for the pot plant to fill the atmosphere with oxygen. When people burn down the Amazon Rain Forests, they deprive Earth of oxygen and next time it rains “Mother Earth” causes mudslides to kill everyone who burned down the rain forests. Some call this type of nature “karma,” which is a junk science in and of itself, but the fact is that nature proves that choices made in freedom do have natural consequences, and the clues are left all around nature as it is to prove right what I’m about to say.

Humans were left with free will, and through our choices, we really screwed up the balance of why God even created us to live in the first place. I mean, every alternative to Creation is already proven false by the Earth-centric religions of every alternative but for two - Judaism prior to 6 BC and Christianity ever since then. It was God, not the Epistle writer John of Patmos or brother of James - take your pick Who called the Jews the Chosen People, and to this day, how dare any of us to write as John did in the surviving Gospels to paint the Jews out to be as bad as Hitler would have said that they were. In all of recorded and prehistoric times, it was the great Iraqi (UR) resident Abram who realized first what I have to tell you what I see when I look into the sky to see those thousands and thousands of stars out there as real as and far more numerous than the cells on our skin: this Earth really is just a “nothing” in the Universe, so why would the Arc carry the Spirit of God, why would the Father with a face appear as the Burning Bush, and no it’s not a sex or DNC ploy to say that - but a fact (Who I personally believe to be a sphere in shape since as we were created in God’s image we start out as the spherical fertilized egg, made in God’s image, and one look at everything - atoms, molecules, moons, planets, stars and the Universe itself, God DOES have a fascination for spheres - but seriously unimpressed with the Catholic idea that the Holy Spirit is a dove but in the most symbolic form) ... why would any of this happen on Earth at all if Earth is just a bunch of animals limited to the smartest and brightest who can’t believe in God because they are too smart to do the math?

I mean I’m someone who is smart enough to do the math, and as everyone who knows me knows, I find the intramural nonsense between Catholics to be shameful and far more destructive within the Church - and when I say Church I mean the Orthodox and Anglicans as well - as any Christian division between endless denominations that divide Christ’s broken body or unleavened loaf to the point that someday Catholicism may be reduced to nothing but crumbs for the dogs - the Muslims who can’t interpret the Qur’an past the 7th Century because of the nonsensically illogical non sequitur opinions of mankind that followed the insecure paths of all too many Christian Catholic Popes that sort of went like this: “When we want your opinion, we’ll tell you what it is.”

Trust me, I can “use” the Bible as well as anyone, and like the strongest of Baptists, although they refuse to allow anything but the “Johnny-come-lately” truly imperfect KJV or NIV editions to come through, although the revised editions of the NAB is the best and getting better every day, the Baptists believe as I do that the Scripture is truly the living and breathing word of God for our day. The Church puts all too much emphasis on what are called Saints although some of them were great in forming the Church that Christ clearly commanded into existence as His own. All the same, let me just say that even as Saint Augustin was cited heavily in even the perhaps most important Catholic document in recent (like within the last 1,000 years) history, Redemptionis Sacramentum on certain matters to be observed or to be avoided regarding the Most Holy Eucharist, ironically I have a problem in the title. Jesus certainly as God knew every language possible, as evidenced by his vacation in Tyre, His tour through the Decapolis, His visits with “redneck” illiterate fisherman atop the Sea of Galilee, his decision to hire a great Scribe named Judas Iscariot or the educated but in all sense of the modern world Atheist Thomas to be His Disciples, and of course even in birth in 6 BC or thereabouts Jesus knew Gangsta Rap, Mandarin, Ebonics, Navajo, Cantonese, and every human language before or since. Yes Jesus, and it shames me to admit it He even knew Ecclesiastical Latin - a language that was never really a natural first for the Church although when I lived in Bella Italia for 3 years I found that the Churches built, say after the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano a Roma (the actual home of the Holy See - NOT the Vatican) or my personal favorite Catholic Church in Rome the VERY old Chiesa di Santa Maria - although even Saint Peter probably knew a thing or two about Latin before he died in Rome, this was really never a natural Divine language of the Church, but it was especially a political one given what would happen of the Roman Empire and the 1054 split that Catholicism never really could come to grips with.

In fact, I find the presumption over all too much of the Christian Catholic lifespan that God or God’s people should have an “official” language in Latin to be totally Earth-centric and self-centered. To quote the great writer Luke in Part II (Acts) of his great work as a a great investigative reporter from Antioch who never had met Jesus, but who upon interviewing Mary and others before their deaths was able to piece together the Part I (Gospel according to St. Luke), ““We are Parthians, Medes, and Elamites, inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya near Cyrene, as well as travelers from Rome, both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs, yet we hear them speaking in our own tongues of the mighty acts of God.” Amen. So all of you nonsensical types who think that the Catholic Mass can only be appreciated best by God in Latin need to realize that when this trend formed, the Church was still stuck back in the old Greek, Coptic, Ethiopian, and Egyptian versions of the Bible, the Greek clearly the most influential and correct, and at the time, the Latin Vulgate was just that - the Vulgate of the Church at the time. By the time nonsensical types in the Council of Trent for WHATEVER UN-GOD-KNOWN reason wanted to say that the 1570 Tridentine Mass is the one and best “high Mass” to reach God, I have to only say that your language is as good as all the rest ... no better and no less, and if you can understand what is going on there, more power to you. If, as you believers in the Tridentine Mass are correct in saying that God is best understood as a mystery to be revealed, then one might as well just live and die as an Atheist.

Why do I so strongly believe that the Catholic Church is the original one that comes straight from Jesus Christ, the son of God, who came to Earth to right for the Father in Heaven who as beforehand mentioned rights all wrongs with consequences to bad choices, and rewards to good choices under the soul-filled populace of planet Earth - the eternal souls that spend only a little time here in this life? Well let me say that I give fully and equal credit especially to the Orthodox (Eastern) Church as equal co-heirs in this and I once came up with a website to try to get the Western and Eastern Churches back together by 2054, a thousand years of Satan’s power over the division between the two so ridiculously and needlessly separated. There were not really so many differences between the two Churches theologically until the relatively recent dogma about Mary’s Assumption into Heaven and what is truly nothing short than the cult that followed - and as someone who hates recitals or recited prayers I believe more strongly than anyone that Mary followed Jesus - after being sentenced by who would become Saint Paul to death in the massacre of Christians in Jerusalem.

The theology of the called “Marian cults” would become huge - so huge that a Papal Encyclical would have to come out to say “knock it off, Marian Cults - cool your rockets, hit the brakes. It’s about Jesus - not about Mary.” I could not agree more, but long before any of this happened, Protestants had split from Catholics.

The greatest scourge against Protestants and the greatest scourge against Catholics is both found in the same remnant of old papyrus or parchment translated with fidelity and getting better every day by Saint Paul’s scathing letter to the disobedient, challenging, wayward Church of Corinth that against others in the region including Ephesus just couldn’t get it. (To be fair within 40 years of being called the Church that could do no wrong by Saint Paul, Jesus threatened the Church of Ephesus with extinction because “they had lost the love they had at first,” and indeed, Paul’s “church that could do no wrong” indeed did collapse by the promise and will of Jesus).

Chapter 11 first of all starts out with some important doctrine that is important to the legitimacy of the Sacrament of the Eucharist - the Holy Communion. Saint Paul is echoing what was contained in 3 of the 4 Gospels (John’s omitting this whole part for whatever reason), “For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night He was handed over, took bread, and, after He had given thanks, broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

Now I don’t know how Protestants can’t see this mandate to carry on with the Eucharist in Christian Churches, because yes it’s true, it’s in the Protestant Bible, too.

Early Catholic / Christian Bishops were so excited by these words that they became part of the Mass, perhaps even more so than the original words of Jesus did when telling the Apostles about the new Passover that was starting at “The Last Supper” or as I like to call it, “The First Mass.”

While the early Church Fathers saw the earlier quote as something extraordinary and profound, I see it as something that was, in its day an ordinary, understood fact of life that would set up the scathing accusation - not command that would come next pertaining to just how sacred this Sacrament of the Eucharist was. “For as often as YOU eat this bread and drink the cup,” accuses Saint Paul to the Corinthians, “YOU proclaim the DEATH of the Lord until He comes. Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord. A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup - for anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many among you are ill and infirm, and a considerable number are dying. If we discerned ourselves, we would not be under judgment, but since we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.”

I mean here’s my rub with the Catholic Church from the Pope to all of the Bishops and trust me most or all of them have heard about this by now. BY SOME VERY WEIRD ENSCREWENMENT of fact by the leaders over the years Catholicism, the accusation using “you” by Paul accusing the Corinthians of infidelity has been replaced with the imperative of “I.”

So trust me, by praying silently as the Church undergoes the 2nd most profane theological blunder - perhaps seconded only by the presumption that Jesus only speaks Latin at Mass, although His only personal experiences are like before Pontius Pilate or the Roman Centurion Jesus would had very few chances to speak English ... that we can as Paul would scream as an accusation “YOU proclaim the DEATH of the Lord until He comes,” as opposed to “I” or “WE” proclaim it, I indeed to scream when I hear this so-called “profession of Faith” “YOU” when the rest of the clueless, Scripturally dead Church mumbles out of recital without any thought “WE,” without even the beginning of a clue of what they speak. Yeah, you fellow Catholics go ahead an declare the Lord dead - and trust me, you don’t have the beginning of a clue what you’re talking about.

But all of this intramural discussion between Christians is a political fight over life on Earth, not souls in heaven. I mean even God would forgive the Protestants for not “getting” what Paul was saying in not only the relevance, but the sacredness of the Eucharist in their own Bible, but God forgives my fellow senseless Catholics for not realizing how profane the so-called “Profession of Faith” is by Paul’s accusation - far short of an imperative to believe anything as he (Saint Paul) gave his scathing delivery to the wayward Church at Corinth.

But will God forgive any of us who are Christians, or Muslims or Jews or Hindu or Buddhists who still look at the Universe in the form of Earth-centric frame-sets not too renewed from the nonsensical tides of astrology or the kind of sorcery that brought the Magi to visit the baby Jesus?

I hope so. The Atheists actually get big kudos from me. They are generally, as I am, believers in the the realm of scientifically believable realities of the present Universe of God. Believers in God quote the Big Bang - whether they believe as I do that it happened 13.5 billion years ago if as some Christians and Jews believe in sincere craziness that the Universe was created not even 6,000 years ago despite abundant evidence to state otherwise present. This same group of nutty Evangelical Christians believe that the Dinosaurs walked Earth with humans, and that all clear evidence of evolution happening even in our lifetimes is not really happening. As nutty as the fundamentalist Evangelicals are, however, no one matches the activism, enthusiasm, fundamentalism and closed-mindedness of the Atheists. Their faith in no God despite the evidence of the canvas that all exists defies logic, for no canvas was painted without a Creator - the Great Painter.

The final straw in logic does not reside in science, but rather in what is God’s Holy Spirit working within our eternal souls. Most of us know that the scientists and atheists are right - that reclaiming Earth as an eternal place for eternity for humans is absurd as scientifically it certain that in less than 4 billion years our Sun will expand into a Red Giant that will swallow Mercury, Venus, Earth and come close to touching Mars. We know through science as an indisputable fact that the Universe is expanding rapidly and against all of the laws of physics at an accelerating rate. We know that by the time eternal heaven comes, the Universe itself will have expanded and cooled into an endless collection of cold, dark, galaxies.

And so in a nutshell, religion is nuts for not believing what Atheists have discovered about science, while to go a step further, Atheists are even crazier for not listening to that Holy Spirit knocking on the door of their hearts that yes, there was a source who painted this observable Canvas and we on the doomed little Earth were so valuable that God sent His one and only Son to save us from ourselves.

So clearly, outside the existence of the geometry of space and time there is a place where heaven is and where God and all of the angels live, and yes, Mary too I am certain ... there is a timeless eternal creation where will go to spend all of eternity. Or, I suppose we will not get there, falling short of reaching orbit outside the Universe in the afterlife because of the weight of our sins. Yes there is a hell - it is here, in this Universe, and who cares about what is to found in an eternity without living with God in heaven. Living without God in heaven is hell in and of itself.

One thing that is helpful to me is starting with affirming values that the person in question holds dear, and then expanding from that to how the Church TOTALLY AGREES WITH THEM and has always worked to affirm that value as well. References to historical events are always interesting and easier conversational currency than Biblical passages.

Hunt them down, throw them out, and turn the evidence over to the police. No mercy, until they are in jail. It is terrible that the Church allowed itself to become a haven for homosexuals. They lived a lie and did not have the courage to tell us what they were and let us decide if we wanted to accept them as a minister. While homosexuals are to be accepted and loved as family in Christ if they remain celibate, what they do is utterly abhorrent. I could never be comfortable with a priest who I thought was one of them. They should be generally simply be kept out of the priesthood unless they publicly come clean. If anyone reads this and feels compelled to go on and on about homophobia and all the other left-liberal whining, don’t bother. I believe and say what I wish and if anyone’s feelings are hurt, go see your Mommy. Cheers.

“What are your tips for talking to atheist friends and family members about the Faith?”

Here’s one tip: Don’t expect an atheist to be impressed by the opinions or suggestions of someone who, like Ms. Fulwiler, claims to have once been an atheist and is now a believer. Only believers are impressed by that. To an atheist, that is not a certification of credibility that she either knows what she’s talking about when she characterizes the thoughts, feelings, motives and actions of other atheists, or that her arguments make any sense. To an atheist, that only means that she made a mistake. 

Here’s another tip: Just love your friends and family, regardless of their opinions about gods and religions. Love them for the good, generous, caring things they DO, and don’t be a pest about getting them to agree with your beliefs.

If your god is what you think he is, then he knows a helluva lot better than you exactly what your atheist friends and family need to come to believe, and it never was and never will be in YOUR hands. For you to assume the mantle of Head Sales Representative for the almighty and presume that YOU are the one who has been appointed by a supreme being to make the difference is the height of vanity and arrogance. Let your god do it himself. You’re just mucking things up.

Stop pestering your atheist friends and family just because you need constant agreement to keep your sagging beliefs up. Simply love them and treat them respectfully. THAT’S your job.

Richard Wade
Serious Roman Catholics are commissioned to evangelize.

I know that atheists exist, in a manner of speaking. A lot of them seem to preach atheism quite religiously. Believe and preach as you wish. The problem I have with all of this is that I simply do not believe in the existence of atheists. The mere pronouncement that you do not believe in God indicates that there must be so; otherwise you would be believing in nothingness and nothingness cannot be. In any case, seriously now, you can’t really be an atheist. Right? I will not try to debate this; you are too smart for me. I will just carry on under the assumption that you do not exist.

@Duane
“I simply do not believe in the existence of atheists.”

Lucky for Atheists they have decided not to hide themselves from other people and therefore do not need you to acknowledge them.

In the same way it would be silly of me to argue that there are no Christians or that I do not believe in Christians. Christians are here in the world and they make themselves known to myself and other people. Even if I decided that I didn’t believe in Christians, they would still clearly exist.

“The mere pronouncement that you do not believe in God indicates that there must be so”

From that perspective you are an Atheist… Since you just told us you don’t believe in the existence of Atheists…

“otherwise you would be believing in nothingness and nothingness cannot be.”

By definition Nothingness isn’t. Otherwise it would be Somethingness. In which case it couldn’t be Nothingness. Because it is. And yet it is Nothingness.

Moreover, Atheists don’t ‘believe in nothing’. I believe in lots of different things, but none of them are supernatural or godlike (well some seem kinda Godlike in comparison to my puny self). If you asked politely what they are, I (and I believe most other Atheists) might tell you. Try engaging with a few Atheists, person to person. It will soon be clear to you that they do not ‘believe in nothing’.

(edit)

“From that perspective Atheists Exist… Since you just told us you don’t believe in the existence of Atheists…”

‘The mere pronouncement that you do not believe in God indicates that there must be so; otherwise you would be believing in nothingness and nothingness cannot be.’

I used to think that there weren’t any people who really believed in God. That it was just such a silly thing to believe in that everyone was just pretending.

It was one of the great shocks of my life to realize that clever, thoughtful people could believe in God.

As for ‘you believe in nothing’. No ... I just don’t believe in the same thing as you. When you some to understand the difference between the two things, that will be one of the great shocks of your life, I’m sure.

I still don’t think any Catholics *really* think the Eucharist is real. As Monty Python put it, it’s like a magic trick where you turn a rabbit into an elephant ... one with long ears, a little nose and rabbit teeth it uses to eat carrots. *Anyone*, even an atheist, can believe it’s good not to kill people and steal their stuff. The psychological need to declare far more than that, to say ‘I believe! In the face of not just science and rationality but my own observation and sense! I believe in something that, if this wasn’t a religion thing, would mean I was batpoop crazy!’ is just too transparent.

This, of course, is not the forum to have Catholics admit they have their doubts, too. That takes far more bravery than howling formulaic declarations of devotion.

“I used to think that there weren’t any people who really believed in God. That it was just such a silly thing to believe in that everyone was just pretending.”
Ms. Cole . . . . . My BA was in engineering physics with a lot of nuclear stuff included.  I have an earned PhD.  I do believe in Transubstantiation, and yes, I have prayed for the respose of the soul of Hossan bin Laden.
  I was always bothered by being unable to ‘see God’, even while I said “I believe in the Creator of all things visible AND INVISIBLE.”  ThenMartin Gqrdner wrote in Scientific American about Edwin Abbott’s book Flatland, and I understood how naturally worlds could exist side by side, with people in the lesser world quite unable to even imagine any greater world. I examined the ‘impossible’ teachings of Jesus and His Church, and saw that in such contiguous worlds they could easily and mechanisticly be carried out.
  Then I wrote ‘Techie Worlds’, now available at Amazon.  Yes, I am a Roman Catholic convert, and Jesus’ Redemption is in my daily life.  I am now engaged in a ‘Meetup’ to develop an economic modification that will let all citizens have a FAIR share in our goods.  (AGAIN at Amazon as T.E.A.F.S.)  My experience of ‘Catholics’ is that they include both the smartest, the wisest, and some of the dumbest among us.  We have a lot of fun!
George Richter
Grand Rapids, MN

@Jemima Cole If you are looking for a real conversation, then I’m sure we’d love to have you join in. However, if you are simply going to troll, then your time (and ours) would be better spent elsewhere. If our faith truly were “batpoop crazy” (to use an unfortunate turn of phrase), then many reasonable people (myself included) would have left long ago. The use of reason doesn’t presuppose atheism, and the acceptance of faith doesn’t presuppose “batpoop” craziness.

Sam,

I was responding to someone who said there was no such thing as atheists. I was using belief in the Eucharist as an example of something that I find it really difficult to imagine people ‘really’ believe. Yes, there are atheists. Yes, there are people who think that it’s the literal body of Christ.

Jemima Cole
We don’t “think that It’s the literal Body of Christ”. 
We know the Eucharist is the literal Body of Christ”.
You think there isn’t a God.  You don’t know it.

“You think there isn’t a God.  You don’t know it.”

I understand it, using exactly the same faculties I use to understand the rest of the world, without the need to involve special pleading or excuses. I may be wrong. If I’m presented with any persuasive evidence, I’ll change my mind. Same deal with unicorns and homeopathy. 

The Pew study into religious attitudes (link: http://blog.adw.org/2011/05/why-catholics-leave-–-a-recent-study-and-some-comments-from-two-different-perspectives/ and http://pewforum.org/U-S-Religious-Knowledge-Survey-Who-Knows-What-About-Religion.aspx#Christianity) showed that 45% of Catholics didn’t know that Catholicism taught that the wine/bread becomes the blood/body.

So even about half the people who have drunk the ‘literal blood of Christ’ on a regular basis have managed not to notice. How is that possible, do you think?

Jemima,

Therein lies your problem.  The faculties one uses to discern the world around you are not the same ones you use to discern the metaphysical world.  Anymore than you would use sheet music to understand surgical procedures or a color wheel to understand astro physics.

“Anymore than you would use sheet music to understand surgical procedures or a color wheel to understand astro physics.”

Or ‘facts’ to understand ‘truth’ apparently, that’s what I’ve just been told on another thread.

45% of Catholics don’t understand that they’re meant to have eaten the body of Jesus. Why is that?

Jemima - I haven’t always known - I know now.
      It is the universal story of conversion. And like most great things in life, it happens unexpectedly to most people.  I am like most people who have had a conversion of heart.  I wasn’t looking for it.

Jemima,
Since I don’t know what you were told on another thread, the context, I can’t really answer that.  We have “data” in our Faith, but it’s not the same kind of data that you would use to prove two triangles are identical.

45% of Catholics might not understand a lot of things.  There are multiple reasons for this.  The 70’s happened.  That’s a biggie.  Also, being born into a Catholic Family is no guarantee that you will pursue your Faith. 

I’m Irish.  But I know very little about Irish history.  If you take the fact that we were poorly catechized for the last 40 years or so, combine that with a culture that has been brought up with philosophies from the Age of Enlightenment, a culture that is saturated with science and technology, new age garbage, hollywood, false feminism and Freud, it’s not hard to understand why most people in the world are confused about a LOT of stuff. 

If you are REALLY interested in having an in depth conversation about Faith, what it means, and how someone can have it, I’d be happy to oblige.  We live in an age where immediate gratification is the soup du jour and I’m afraid Faith just doesn’t fit into the world of sound bites.  It’s complicated and simple all at the same time.  It’s easy to throw around the priest scandals, and demand empirical proofs of God…but it’s also a waste of time.  What is it you are REALLY asking?

I said I didn’t believe in the existence of atheists. Slip of the tongue. The corporeal you does indeed exist. I simply do not believe that in your hearts you truly do not believe in some sort of creator God. Something big-banged out there no doubt but I don’t see how nothingness can explode. We will all recall the question of God again when we are lying on our deathbeds. Then there was the French philosopher who said he didn’t know whether there was a God but didn’t want to take the chance.

In any case none of this can be proven (or dis-proven) in any way. Does one believe that their mother/spouse/toddler loves them? You can’t. You simply believe and you have faith. Faith is belief without proof. You do not have the right to believe as you wish in the cold, dark world of islam, but you can believe as you wish in our Christian society. Oh yes, you are a Christian whether you believe or practice or not, whether you like it or not. You are fully of Christendom. Everything about our world is Christian; history, heritage, culture, law, politics, table manners and so on and on.

Do believe me that I am not trying to convert or evangelise. Believe, or not, as you wish and I will stand up for your right to do so.

What bothers me greatly is what I perceive to be the agenda of atheism as a movement, an offshoot of the left-liberal movement. That is to discredit, humiliate, ostracize, marginalize, persecute and then suppress organized Christianity, especially my Catholicism. The Vatican and the Southern Baptists ruling the world? Don’t be so silly. Their voting according to their beliefs? Who the blazes is going to dare to say that Christians have not the absolute right to vote with their beliefs? The anti-Christian people want us effectively shut down, and they are working daily, gradually and unrelentingly to do so.

We in Christianity have allowed ourselves to become easy targets. We do not fight back. Not me. No more. I am not an easy target any more and I sure as hell will fight back however I must. Thanks.

“I simply do not believe that in your hearts you truly do not believe in some sort of creator God.”

I know. You are wrong, though.

The rest of your silly cut and pasted rant ... well, least said soonest mended. The idea that atheism is a new phenomenon aimed at persecuting Catholics is just basic illiteracy, though. There were people who didn’t believe in any of the gods long before your particular religion was a glint in anyone’s eye, and there will be long after it’s gone away. The idea America is a Catholic nation would have been news to (the extremely devout Christian) John Adams, who wrote:

“As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion”

The idea Christians are persecuted is so deeply engrained in the DNA of Christianity that every time someone even asks you to consider that not everyone isn’t a Christian ‘deep down’, it counts as ‘persecution’. Every time someone points out Christian persecution - doctors murdered, kids abused, health care denied, children raped by priests, homosexuals beaten - we’re being mean. This graph explains it best, I think:

http://www.rationalresponders.com/sites/www.rationalresponders.com/files/images/ChristianHelp.gif

You are the product of a tolerant, secular society, like it or not. One where we all tolerate whatever god or gods you happen currently to believe in or not believe in. If you can name one example of a country where a single belief system gained total control and it ended well ... well, try. Go for it. That goes for atheist regimes as well as theist ones. Catholics have thrived here in ways they simply never have in any other country. The joke being that includes the Catholic theocracies.

I don’t believe you are an atheist ‘deep down’. If only.

“What is it you are REALLY asking?”

All right.

I’m an atheist. I have been accused of not really being an atheist. Can I find a way to show you all the way to the bottom of my godless heart to show you? No.

I tried to explain using a similar situation, basically the reverse. I never used to think people believed in God ‘deep down’. I know they do believe, now.

I’m looking at the reasons for belief. One of the central beliefs of Catholicism is the Eucharist. The Eucharist looks to me like ... I can’t think of polite way to put this. This is what it looks like to me: it looks nuts. It looks crazy that you can buy wafers on Amazon and if the right person says the right words they’re suddenly the literal flesh of God. Except they’re still wafers as far as any known form of observation can tell.

If another religion had a ritual like that, I’m sure Catholics would think it was nuts, too. And I just can’t believe that anyone with any critical faculties at all hasn’t, at some point, gone ‘might this be a load of old nonsense?’.

So my question here is: if it’s really such a powerful moment, how come so many people who’ve tasted Christ’s body have been able to walk away? How come, in fact, almost half of the people who haven’t walked away also haven’t even noticed that’s what they’re doing?

Deep down ... don’t you know the Eucharist is a load of silly nonsense? If not, why not?

My position is this: by definition, if you could prove to me (using proof) that it turned into anything else, it wouldn’t have to be the muscle tissue of a Palestinian Jew with some weird DNA anomalies caused by a non-human father), then I’d have to concede there was something in it.

What would persuade you there wasn’t anything to it? It’s a testable claim, isn’t it? How could we both go about testing it?

‘When Same-Sex Marriage Was A Christian Rite’ By ThosPayne:

A Kiev art museum contains a curious icon from St. Catherine’s Monastery on Mt. Sinai in Israel. It shows two robed Christian saints. Between them is a traditional Roman ‘pronubus’ (a best man), overseeing a wedding. The pronubus is Christ. The married couple are both men.

Is the icon suggesting that a gay “wedding” is being sanctified by Christ himself? The idea seems shocking. But the full answer comes from other early Christian sources about the two men featured in the icon, St. Sergius and St. Bacchus, two Roman soldiers who were Christian martyrs. These two officers in the Roman army incurred the anger of Emperor Maximian when they were exposed as ‘secret Christians’ by refusing to enter a pagan temple. Both were sent to Syria circa 303 CE where Bacchus is thought to have died while being flogged. Sergius survived torture but was later beheaded. Legend says that Bacchus appeared to the dying Sergius as an angel, telling him to be brave because they would soon be reunited in heaven.

While the pairing of saints, particularly in the early Christian church, was not unusual, the association of these two men was regarded as particularly intimate. Severus, the Patriarch of Antioch (512 – 518 CE) explained that, “we should not separate in speech they [Sergius and Bacchus] who were joined in life“. This is not a case of simple “adelphopoiia.” In the definitive 10th century account of their lives, St. Sergius is openly celebrated as the “sweet companion and lover” of St. Bacchus. Sergius and Bacchus’s close relationship has led many modern scholars to believe they were lovers. But the most compelling evidence for this view is that the oldest text of their martyrology, written in New Testament Greek describes them as “erastai,” or “lovers”. In other words, they were a male homosexual couple. Their orientation and relationship was not only acknowledged, but it was fully accepted and celebrated by the early Christian church, which was far more tolerant than it is today.

Contrary to myth, Christianity’s concept of marriage has not been set in stone since the days of Christ, but has constantly evolved as a concept and ritual.

Prof. John Boswell, the late Chairman of Yale University’s history department, discovered that in addition to heterosexual marriage ceremonies in ancient Christian church liturgical documents, there were also ceremonies called the “Office of Same-Sex Union” (10th and 11th century), and the “Order for Uniting Two Men” (11th and 12th century).

These church rites had all the symbols of a heterosexual marriage: the whole community gathered in a church, a blessing of the couple before the altar was conducted with their right hands joined, holy vows were exchanged, a priest officiatied in the taking of the Eucharist and a wedding feast for the guests was celebrated afterwards. These elements all appear in contemporary illustrations of the holy union of the Byzantine Warrior-Emperor, Basil the First (867-886 CE) and his companion John.

Such same gender Christian sanctified unions also took place in Ireland in the late 12th and early 13th centuries, as the chronicler Gerald of Wales (‘Geraldus Cambrensis’) recorded.

Continue: http://wp.me/pE2RF-8IA

Oh Corey, that’s a ‘fact’, that’s got nothing to do with ‘Truth’. Stop persecuting these poor people.

Jemima,

You ask for proofs.  There are many different kinds of proofs.  There are empirical proofs, there are logical proofs.  In today’s culture, many people don’t accept logical proofs or proofs from reason. But until about 300 years ago, no one questioned these types of proofs.

Can I prove empirically that Jesus is truly present, body, blood, soul and divinity, in the Eucharist?  No of course not.  There have been Saints over the years that could tell you which hosts were consecrated and which were not.  That is a proof of sorts.  There have been Eucharistic miracles over the years, where the hosts bleed. That blood HAS been tested scientifically and has been shown consistently to be of AB Blood type.  That is also an empirical proof.

The problem is that in our day and age nothing short of producing God Himself will be accepted as “proof”.  Nothing. 

BUT, if we go with the other sorts of proofs…proofs from reason, we can get a little farther.

Why do some walk away?  Because believing requires profound change on the part of the believer.  It requires a change in thought and behavior.  Most people don’t want to change.  Satan believes.  He knows God is real. But he had no desire to “change”.  He, like people today, preferred to be his own God.  It’s the same reason many people receive the Eucharist, but don’t “get” it.

I don’t know how much you know about the Catholic faith so I hesitate to go into a lot.  I wouldn’t want to talk down to you, nor would I want to assume that you know more than you do.  So tell me what your understanding is, and the extent of your knowledge of the Catholic Faith.

Start by telling me if you understand the vast differences between Catholic and Protestant theology.  Do you have any background knowledge of the Jewish Faith?  To understand how we got from “there” to “here” is a long road. 

And where did you get the idea that I think Christians are persecuted?  I mean, certainly they are in places like Egypt and Iraq, but here?  In the US?  I would say that they are ridiculed, but not truly persecuted.

As for not really being an atheist…lol…only you could know.  I do think that deep down each of us has the ability to believe, but that doesn’t mean that you do believe and only pretend not to.  Believing is part gift, part “act of the will”.  Faith is a theological virtue.  Without it you can give an intellectual nod to God, but that is not the same as Faith.  Again, Satan believes, but I’d hardly call him a Christian.  If there is a God, and He created us, then it stands to reason that He created us with an innate ability to know Him.  But whether or not you are in touch with that ability is a different thing.  So while I would say that you on some level are aware of God, even if not a conscious one, I would not say that you are not really an atheist.  You have chosen not to believe.  That’s all that is needed to be an atheist.

Corey,

When you make claims like that, you need to cite sources.  I cannot possibly check what you are saying, and like Jemima, I’m not going to just accept what you say “without proof”...lol.  I went to your link which led to another link.  There I found 2 sources for Mr. Paynes article.  New Advent, which not only didn’t confirm his story but actually explained it differently, and another with no longer works.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adelphopoiesis

Corey,

Ahhhh…I see where you got this.  One guy, a gay man I might add (no bias there…lol) read about a ceremony that bonded men as brothers and decided that this must have been a gay marriage.  Nonsense.

In his review of the book, Miodrag Kojadinovi?  says: “The book is a scientific treatise abundant with references. But it starts from a premise that to me seems insufficiently proven. It chooses to see, based on relatively meagre evidence, a very idiosyncratic relationship sanctioned among certain ethnic groups as a precursor to California bunnies’ white weddings. It goes so far to refer to the emperor Basil as a ‘hunk’. It neglects the fact that adelphopoiesis/pobratimstvo can be achieved through simple invocation: ‘My-Brother-Through-God!’ in case of peril. A foe suddenly turns an ally.” [11]

Alternative views[12] are that this rite was used in many ways, such as the formation of permanent pacts between leaders of nations or between religious brothers. This was a replacement for “blood-brotherhood” which was forbidden by the church at the time. Others such as Brent Shaw have maintained also that these unions were more akin to “blood-brotherhood” and had no sexual connotation.[7]

There also is a Medieval French ‘affrèrement’ ceremony: ordo ad fratres faciendum.[13][14] examined by Allan Tulchin of Shippensburg University in an article in the Journal of Modern History.[15][16]

Jemima,
See how apparent “Facts” can mislead?  Funny how facts can promote lies, and lack of facts can promote Truth.

“In today’s culture, many people don’t accept logical proofs or proofs from reason. But until about 300 years ago, no one questioned these types of proofs.”

I’ll accept proofs from reason. But not from a false premise. ‘Everything has a cause’ is a false premise, even within the terms of the theological arguments that depend on it. The argument depends on there being an exception. Fine. If you allow your exception, ‘God’, you have to allow physics’ ‘quantum particle’. In any case, there’s a leap from ‘there was a first cause’ to ‘and he gave the keys of Heaven to St Peter and so don’t argue with your priest or you’re going to hell’.

“The problem is that in our day and age nothing short of producing God Himself will be accepted as “proof”.  Nothing.”

Rubbish. All it demands is testable claims.

‘The Bible guarantees the world will end on May 21 2011’ is a testable claim. Obviously it’s not one anyone here believes, but we’ll know if it was right by Sunday. 

‘The Pope is infallible (when speaking ex blah blah)’. Very testable.

‘John Paul II cured a woman’s Parkinson’s disease’. Testable. Proved false (she had a relapse and it turned out it wasn’t Parkinson’s). Does that prove God doesn’t exist? No. What it does is undermine the authority of the Vatican. They say reality is X, reality actually is Y. Doesn’t that give you pause for thought?

If your critical faculties don’t start kicking in when you look at that beatification process, I’m not sure when they would. Do you not see the lies, cynicism, dodgy data, false witness and blatant politics? Can you, hand on heart, look at that and take it at face value? No, let me guess: you haven’t really looked into it. Look into it, then. Even if you buy the basic supernatural premises of the argument, look into this specific case and come back and tell me you think it’s all above board and a wonderful affirmation of eternal truths.

‘Catholic church teaching on abortion is eternal and unchanged’ is a testable claim. It’s false. ‘Nature abhors homosexuality’ is a testable claim, if you define terms a little more carefully. That’s false. ‘The Biblical account is infallible’. False. The Gospels couldn’t have been written by the people who’s names are on them. Almost certainly true. Praying for the sick improves their chances. False.

“He, like people today, preferred to be his own God.”

You choose to be ‘your own God’, in those terms, though. You can’t prove God anymore than I can disprove God. You are not obeying God, you are choosing to do what your religion believes God wants you to do.

I’m assuming you’re not a murderer. I’m not. In your terms, I’m not a murderer because I selfishly choose not to murder, whereas you’re not a murderer only because you’re following orders not to murder. If the Pope told you, ex cathedra, that it was the infallible will of God, that you had to murder someone, would you do it? I would ask him to put it in writing, take that letter to the police, testify against him in court and hope he rotted. You? And if not, why not? You’re going to say ‘he wouldn’t’. OK. It’s a thought experiment. What if he did? ‘I wouldn’t believe that was really the will of God’. Then you’re your own God, too.

“Start by telling me if you understand the vast differences between Catholic and Protestant theology.”

I understand the nature of the apostolic tradition, if that’s what you’re asking. Again, testable claims. We can look at the reliability of the Biblical account and the history of the early church, scholarship on the creation of the Bible. Catholics seem to think that there’s a simple, unbroken line of agreed infallible Catholic teaching (allowing that it’s evolved a little over time) from Jesus to Mr Ratzinger, and that if you put them in separate rooms and posed them a moral dilemma, they’d both give you the same answer. That about five hundred years ago, a few Prots went off in a huff because they wanted to be selfish and use johnnies and until then everything was fine. It’s a story that has very little to do with what actually happened. 

“As for not really being an atheist…lol…only you could know.  I do think that deep down each of us has the ability to believe”

I have the ability to believe, and I know this because there are things I believe in. I’ve never seen Glee, but I believe it exists and I have a number of secondary beliefs about it.

Do you have the ability not to believe in God? Do you think, as I do, that there’s a simple alternative, that there are no gods, or that there is at least one? And how have you reached your choice?

Many claims are made for God. Only one of them would have to be convincing to me for me to believe that God exists. That goes for any of the gods, not just your version. But so many of the claims made are not just false but comically wrong that, after a while, I came to a verdict. Beyond any reasonable doubt, my understanding is that there’s no God. If I am wrong, I’m happy it’s for the right reasons.

I’m asking a different question to you. You believe. If you ask ‘How can God exist when there is suffering?’, what you are really asking is ‘Obviously there’s a God, but I know there is suffering, how can I reconcile those two things?’. I’m asking ‘Can we make an inference about the existence of God from the existence of suffering?’.

“But whether or not you are in touch with that ability is a different thing.”

I have the ability to understand the question ‘does God exist?’. Just as I can ask ‘do pixies exist?’ or ‘is that movie Thor a documentary?’. I think you see this as me willfully defying God, that it’s some form of stroppy rebellion against an undeniable truth. I’m not, any more than you are willfully denying Thor.

I look at the world, I look at the claims made for the gods, they don’t match up. Either the God claims lack utility, or they are superseded explanations for the natural world, or logic based on a false premise or an axiom that needn’t apply, or, simply, that they predict a thing which is specifically the exact opposite of what then happens.

“One guy, a gay man I might add (no bias there…lol)”

Of course it’s disputed. Now apply the same rigor to the other arguments under discussion. Duane invoked Pascal’s Wager - go for it, come back and explain why that’s pretty much discounted as a serious argument. Look at ‘first cause’ arguments, then look at modern quantum physics and admit that we can scrub them off the board.

Let’s make claims and assess them. Let’s take facts and analyze them, and take them wherever the conclusion takes us, with no special pleading or after the fact changing of definitions. If a statement is said to be infallible, no backsies when it turns out to be false.

You said that there are Eucharist wafers that bleed and ‘consistently’ it’s AB blood?

Except, no, that’s nonsense. You’re talking about one experiment, the Linoli one.

There’s a lot of cut and pasting in the Google hits, and it reeks of an urban myth. But they all say it was ‘confirmed by the Higher Council of the UN World Health Organization’. OK. Find that:

http://www.who.int/en/

I don’t mean find the document the UN issued that ruled that a Eucharist wafer bled AB blood, I mean find this ‘Higher Council’. It doesn’t exist.

Now, if you say a gay man has to be ‘biased’, then you’d accept at least the possibility that a devout Catholic like Linoli might be biased? The story itself says the Vatican paid for the tests. To believers, I suspect that’s meant to invoke an unimpeachable source. ‘If the Vatican said it, it must be true’. Yeah. Not the premise I’m working from, sorry.

And that was all he did? He’s a scientist with GOD’S BLOOD in a test tube and all he did was work out the blood type? Hasn’t he seen Jurassic Park?

You can’t have your cake and eat in on this one. Either it’s scientifically testable or it isn’t. Either it turns into flesh in a way that can be measured or it doesn’t. And if it’s AB blood when a devout Catholic tests it, and that’s proof, then if you sealed the Church and sent in a team of skeptics to do a full forensic analysis, then it should be AB Blood when they test it, too. And, of course, if we ran this test in 2011 we’d be able to do a full DNA analysis. We’d be able to tell from that it was a Jewish man born of parthenogenesis. I guess Jesus’ DNA would have some weird results when it came to inheritable genetic conditions.

If not, why not?

This is not me being theologically naive. This is me just asking for words to mean what words mean. If the blood that comes out of Eucharists is ‘consistently’ something, then it’s consistently that thing. If it’s blood, it has DNA in it. And this is why the Catholic Church scurries away from this sort of thing, and starts talking about mystery and majesteria.
 
Here’s what I’d predict - if it’s really blood, I think you could test the blood of everyone that came into contact with that wafer since it was manufactured and the blood would match the blood of one of those people. I’m guessing someone within that building, if it’s fresh blood.

If the miracle of the Eucharist worked like the urban legend says, if it ‘consistently’ produced the same blood, with the same DNA, even if the wafers themselves were in different parts of the world, and were baked in different factories, and teams of skeptics were given free reign to investigate ... well, that would be something. Not proof of God, but proof that something very weird was going on where the simplest explanation might be that the Catholic church was right.

The fact that isn’t how it works, even a little bit, isn’t *disproof*, but your invocation of the Linoli case shows that you understand the issue of standards of proof. Apply them.

Run the test. I predict, like all the various weeping/bleeding idols that various religions have produced, that it’ll be a straightforward case of mundane explanation. That most ‘miraculous bleeding’, when tested, will have blood that matches the DNA of someone who worked at the Church and had access to the wafers. Or it won’t be blood. Virtually all the ‘weeping statues’ turn out to have little reservoirs at their base that someone has to deliberately fill up with a liquid. Does that rule out there being one genuine weeping statue? No. It does mean that we have to approach all claims of weeping statues with extreme skepticism, and it means that people within the church are known to be deceiving their flocks.

Actually, no, I predict that the blood will mysteriously disappear and when anyone asks where it went, someone will shout ‘it’s another miracle! The miracle of the disappearing blood!’. When people asked to see the Golden Plates Joseph Smith said were given to him by an angel, he could never produce them. He later said he saw an angel take them back to heaven. Do you believe that? I can see another possibility.

Test. Test my claims, but test your claims the same way. Using the same rules, in the same spirit. That’s all I ask and all I need.

Jemima,

Lol…I take it you have a few doubts…

I’ve got to be honest and say that I have wondered why they don’t do DNA testing also.  It would be fascinating to say the least.  But you bring up Jurassic Park and I wonder if the temptation to “clone” Jesus wouldn’t be too great.  I don’t even know if you could clone something from blood, but I guess what I’m saying is that the danger of treating something sacred as a scientific experiment has to be weighed against the benefits of such testing.  I don’t have an answer for you, but I’m also not willing to assume it’s because the whole thing is a manufactured phenomena.  Why would the Church do this?  They don’t need to as their whole premise is based on “Faith” without proof. 

I am unfamiliar with the miracle you are referring to.  Unless it is also known by another name.  Here is one that took place in Laciano.

http://www.therealpresence.org/eucharst/mir/lanciano.html

The blood from the Shroud of Turin is also AB.

I can’t find anything about the blood type of the Betania miracle but it was tested and found to be human blood.  Same with one from Methuen, Mass.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6SH93arrIE

And I certainly didn’t expect you to say “OH, NOW I BELIEVE”.  I was just trying to show that there are some empirical proofs that something supernatural is going on.  Like Fatima, Lourdes, Rwanda…none of them are enough, obviously.  But they give one pause.

And here is a video that discusses another one.  Unfortunately, I don’t speak Italian.  There are subtitles but I can’t find out the name of the “miracle”. I’m going to keep looking tho.  There is actually a number of videos in this series.  I haven’t watched them all.  But I will.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbg_dhI4XCs&feature=related

Jemima,

Here is a link to the Professor (Fredrick Zugibe) from the video. 

http://www.e-forensicmedicine.net/bio.htm

Of course it’s disputed. Now apply the same rigor to the other arguments under discussion. Duane invoked Pascal’s Wager - go for it, come back and explain why that’s pretty much discounted as a serious argument. Look at ‘first cause’ arguments, then look at modern quantum physics and admit that we can scrub them off the board.

Why does Quantum Physics defeat a first cause?  As for Pascals wager, that is one argument among many.  It is the way one man decided that his odds were better if he believed and was wrong than if he didn’t believe and was wrong.  Seems like a logical argument to me.  Not an end all/be all argument to be sure, but a perfectly legitimate one.  Keep in mind that at the time of many of these arguments (Aquinas/Augustine) there really wasn’t much dispute about whether or not God existed.  They were debating a different audience than today.  They were arguing for ONE God as opposed to MANY Gods, but pretty much everyone believed in God.  Only the rare skeptic disputed His existence.

There are other arguments for His existence.  I personally like the argument from desire.  And while we might not be able to see and know the mind of God, we can know things about Him by looking at creation, or if you prefer, the world around us.  Certainly you are free to believe that the world spontaneously came out of nothing, but that is as far fetched as believing it was created by God.  They are equally unprovable.  Yet, we have past experience to show that that theory is even more far fetched than God, because NEVER has anything come from nothing.  We see all of existence and cannot point to one instance where something came out of nothing.  But we can point to billions of examples of something coming from something else.  So while you can believe that everything came from nothing, it is no more reasonable an argument than that it was created by an intelligent being.  We have evidence that billions of things were created by something greater than the created thing, but NO evidence that something just popped into existence out of nothing. 

I see a picture of the Mona Lisa and I know someone created it.  I see the Golden Gate Bridge and I know someone created it.  I see a mountain, and I don’t know WHO created it, but given what I know of the world and how it works, it is perfectly reasonable to assume that someone created.  Not provable, but reasonable. 

Now some philosophers, to be sure, thought that you could prove God’s existence using reason alone, but as a Catholic I do not believe that is true.  We believe that eventually you’ll have to make that leap of faith.  Reason will only carry you so far.  Not because there are not enough reasons, but because we are not intelligent enough to comprehend them.  Aquinas believed that if you were smart enough and had enough time you could reach a belief in God through reason alone, but conceded that no one had that much time, or was that intelligent. 

So the question isn’t really “Can you prove God exists”, but rather, “Is it reasonable to believe that He exists given the evidence that we do have”.  I answer yes.  It is perfectly reasonable.  It does not mean I have lost my senses and drool all over myself or believe in flying spaghetti monsters.

@mk

“NO evidence that something just popped into existence out of nothing.”

This leaves you with an infinite regress, as surely something as complex as God (by your own definition) would need something more complex to create it. If not, does that mean God is infinitely simple and if so how did He create anything. The only other option is that God “popped into existence out of nothing”, which seems to undermine your initial premise.

God did not just pop into existence.  He is eternal, lives in Eternity and time.  He always was, is now and ever shall be, world without end.  The latter statement is from the Glory be prayer.  God did not begin; he is the first and the last, and there was never anything before him, not even time.

Alan,

If not, does that mean God is infinitely simple and if so how did He create anything.

Actually, that is exactly right.  God is simple.  Infinitely simple.  But this doesn’t mean that he is quaint.

http://www.saintaquinas.com/article5.html

Rev. Victoria is right.  God invented time.  He doesn’t exist “in” time.  For Him there is no before or after.  There is only an eternal “now”. 

One of the greats (Maybe Aquinas) said that God is not “A” Being. He is “BEING” itself.  Eternally simple.  Infinitely simple.  He is existence itself. 

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06612a.htm#IC
‘’
GOOD QUESTION!  It tells me that you really are taking this conversation seriously.  But don’t get too much deeper.  Remember, I’ve had very little philosophy.  lol.  I can always try to find the answer to anything that you ask.  (I just happened to have heard this one recently) but I don’t know how well I can actually discuss something like this.  I fully admit that my brain is small and these ideas are way to big to fit into it!  You start talking Quantum Physics again and I’m gonna have to hire a ghost writer…  ;)

@Reverend Doctor Victoria A. Howard
“He is eternal, lives in Eternity and time.”
Since I was addressing @mk I will apply your argument to our discussion.

Why must the universe have a creator while God is allowed to dodge this logic? Could the universe not equally be viewed as eternal, since we do not understand the state before the big bang? If the regress must stop, what reason is there to believe this regress would lead to your God?

@mk
Your arguments are fine if taken on faith as you suggest all Catholics must do at some point.

“Is it reasonable to believe that He exists given the evidence that we do have”.

No I do not believe it is, the evidence is very clearly on the other side to someone like me. I see virtually no evidence to suggest your God is the God or even that there are any Gods at all. The sheer number of different versions and interpretations of religions/spiritualities over the years make me very dubious that any one is correct. Everything I see tells me they are human made constructs.

Alan,

I see virtually no evidence to suggest your God is the God or even that there are any Gods at all. The sheer number of different versions and interpretations of religions/spiritualities over the years make me very dubious that any one is correct. Everything I see tells me they are human made constructs.

First, infinite regress would only apply to finite stuff.  God is not finite.  Time is an invention.  Space is an invention.  Both are finite.  God is not part of space and time.  Tolkien wrote Lord of the Rings but he is not IN Lord of the Rings.  The ring has no affect on Tolkien.  If you go to the last page of the “Return of the King” and work backwards (regress) eventually you will come to the first page, heck, the first “word” of the story.  But nowhere will you find Tolkien himself.  (no infinite regress because he is not part of the story, but the author of the story.) Because while he “wrote” the story, he is not “in” the story.  He is not subject to it’s laws.  We can know that Tolkien exists because we see his “work”, but if there were no biographies of him, we couldn’t know “HIM”.  We could know some things, some very limited things, “about” him, by inferring stuff from his works.  We could know he has a great imagination.  That he had a working knowledge of mythology. 

But what if Tolkien wrote an autobiography?  Well, we still couldn’t “know him” but we could know a lot about him, because he would “reveal” things about himself.

This is similar to God.  He created the universe and we can start from the page we are on (in time, now) and work backwards, but it wouldn’t be infinite, because at some point we would reach the first “word”...the beginning.  But God is not “in” the story, He is the author of the story, the universe.  We can know things about Him, but we cannot know “HIM”.  Unless of course He chose to reveal Himself to us.  Which He did.

When I said that God was simple, but not quaint, I meant that while He comes from nothing and nothing comes “from” Him, He is not complex, He is also so profound that our brains are not equipped to comprehend Him.

We can know about Him by looking at His creation and by reading His “autobiography”, but we cannot really know “Him”.

“He doesn’t exist “in” time.”
“God is infinitely simple”
“He is “BEING” itself.”
“He is existence itself.”

All of these phrases are what Daniel Dennett would call ‘deepities’, they sound deep and meaningful and they make your brain do backflips, but really they don’t mean anything. Infinitely simple is an oxymoron, vaccuum is infinitely simple (and yet with quantum fluctuations still not really), YOU are also BEING itself and existence itself for that matter. Since you are literally a part and a consequence of the processes of the universe. YOU are stardust being hewn by cosmic rays into temporary shapes that consume things around them in order to maintain that shape. Magical sounding huh, but this is far from a deepity and explains a lot more about our existence than any God or spiritual mumbo jumbo.

“God did not just pop into existence.  He is eternal, lives in Eternity and time.”

... and once you allow that it’s possible that such a being exists, you’ve negated your own argument, which is ‘everything has a cause’. If you’re allowed an benevolent immortal sexist pixie with blueprints containing the exact path of every atom that will ever be, I’m allowed my single quantum particle. 

“Certainly you are free to believe that the world spontaneously came out of nothing”

I believe the universe as we see it took billions of years to shape itself into this form. Pretty much the opposite of ‘spontaneous’.

“NEVER has anything come from nothing.”

We have built devices, particle accelerators, where particles routinely ‘come from nothing’. The whole basis of quantum physics is that ‘something can come from nothing’. Look up ‘quantum fluctuation’. This was modeled by scientists, then seen in the real world. It was a testable prediction, that was tested and proved. 

The point at hand is this: the traditional ‘first cause’ argument is that the only POSSIBLE first cause is a god. That’s not true.

God is not ruled out by quantum physics. It’s very possible that God was guiding the formation of the universe to only resemble one that was formed purely by simple material processes.  If that was the case, the entire universe would essentially be a fake. It has been designed to look like something it isn’t. So let’s test that logically. Tell me: is your God meant to undertake deceptions on such a cosmic scale? Does Catholicism teach that God is the first, and ultimate liar? 

The creationists - and I know Catholics aren’t creationists - believe that God created fake dinosaur bones and buried them to test faith. If you believe that the universe isn’t the product of interactions of fundamental particles in extreme conditions, as has not just been modeled, but observed, and in some cases reproduced in a lab, then you’re basically just saying the same thing.

Catholics never used to be anti-science. I don’t think they are now, as a rule. But you can’t draw a line in the sand. You’re conceding that your God is a testable hypothesis. You’re making scientific claims. All I ask you to do now is keep going. Don’t chicken out, like the last Pope, who begged Stephen Hawking not to investigate the first cause. Why not? Catholicism makes predictions about what we’ll see (and it’s far more sophisticated than Biblical literalism). If scientists discover the true ‘first cause’, they’ll discover God, right? That’s what Catholicism predicts.

Alan,

Now you say that you don’t find it reasonable to believe in God, because there are so many versions of Him that there is no way to know which, if any, are correct.

But you see, that doesn’t make it unreasonable to believe that there IS a God, it just makes it daunting to discern anything about Him.  So you look at each of the Faiths (starting with the major ones) and eliminate them based on what they say or how they came to be.

For instance…polytheism can be eliminated right away because there cannot be many Gods.  Logically speaking, God is that which there can be nothing greater than.  I think we talked about this.  If you have two or more Gods, then they each have the potential to be greater than the other.  But God has no potential.  He will never be any more or less than He is because He is being in itself.  By definition, there cannot be more than one.  As soon as you come up with something greater than what we call God, then THAT becomes God and the former thing ceases to fit the definition.  Do you see what I am saying?

So we can eliminate all polytheist religions.  I mean there could be many gods, but that is not what we are looking for.  We are looking for GOD.

Then we have Pantheism.  There is no reason whatseoever to believe in Pantheism, from an evidential point of view.  Believing that God is everything and everything is God is to believe that nothing is God.  Again, this would make God “part” of the Universe, instead of the creator of the Universe.  It would be to reduce Him to nothing at all.  You “could” subscribe to this theory, but it would be closer to atheism than theism, as it doesn’t make God singular.  It makes Him more of a concept than a reality. 

Of the monotheist religions…well you’ve got Judaism, and of course I accept Judaism up to the time of Jesus.  God was revealing Himself through man for a long time.  Then He took on Human Form, He BECAME man.  He was incarnated.  Game changer.  Now we have God in a form that can be seen.  No other serious religion claims this.  We can now “know” God as never before in History.  Why should we believe that He was who He claimed He was?  Well, that would take a lot more space, but given what the prophets said, the miracles performed, and C.S. Lewis’ argument that there are only four choices for who Jesus was (A lunatic, a liar, a fool or God) it is again, reasonable, to accept that He was who He said that He was. 

You’ve got Islam, but other than one guy claiming one thing, we have no reason to believe Mohammad any more than we should believe anyone else that claims to be God.  There is no evidence.  No collaboration.  If we use Lewis’ arguments on Mohammad, we can comfortably say that he very well might have been a madman, or a fool, or a liar.  His life, unlike Christs, lends itself to any one of those theories.  Jesus on the other hand gave no indications that he was deluded, or insane, or a liar.  Everything about Him, His life, says otherwise.  Not so with Mohammad. 

So if you take all of the possible “faiths” and examine them, only the Judeo/Christian one stands up to scrutiny.

If you study the Catholic Faith, really study it, you’ll see that it is deeply intellectual.  It is not some loosely constructed fairy tale.  We’re not talking little old ladies with rosaries.  We are talking great intellectuals.  From Augustine, to Aquinas, to John Paul II to Pope Benedict, these men and many more, are some of the greatest minds in the history.  Their arguments are well thought out, logical, deep…If you ask it, chances are someone has answered it.  So