The simple answer to the “Science Works. Religion Doesn’t” statement is simply to point out that if “Religion Doesn’t work”, then how could long lasting religions (religions older than 200 years) have survived? If they do not correspond to reality in some way, they should have died the way all delusions and false systems do. False systems (e.g. Marxism) can be extremely successful for a time, but ultimately fall apart since they depend on things that are contrary to reality. This doesn’t mean that all religions are true, it only means that all religions have truth in them (though the truth in non Catholic religions are tainted to a greater or lesser degree according to Vatican II).

I think you have said that “religion works as religion.”

I think the atheist notes that “religion fails as a moral code” and “religion fails as a way to explain the natural world.”

While the Catholic Church has, for several hundred years, not made the latter claim, it still makes the former, and has done itself great damage by failing institutionally as a moral leader.

ARL, religion does attempt an explanation of the natural world. For instance, every religion without exception (to my knowledge), posits a beginning of the universe. Some say there is a creator, some say not, some say a committee is involved. Some say it is cyclical while other say it is a once for all creation. Regardless, there is a beginning for specific reasons within the religion. Up until 100 years ago, science postulated no beginning and used this postulate to “prove” all religions were false. I can come up with dozens of similar examples. To say “science works” is to assume that our current knowledge and assumptions are undeniably true. They are now. They are, however, reasonable working assumptions.

The moral code does not fail. We fail as the weak and fallen creatures that we are. This failure is on man’s part, not on the Catholic church’s part. The church on her part constantly calls us to conversion and holds firm to the teachings of Christ. We her people(all her people, even her ministers) fail her and she the church continues to proclaim Christ and calls us into relationship with him.

@Dr. Mom: I said the Church “failing institutionally” this is a reference to the Church hierarchy’s undeniable failure of leadership in the sexual abuse scandals.  There is a equally an undeniable and long history of similar failures through the centuries.  What I think is great about the Catholic hierarchy is that it can criticize itself—however, in recent years it has not acted in ways that will restore its credibility as a moral leader.

@Ronald Devins re: “...religion does attempt an explanation of the natural world.”  Many protestant fundamentalists believe a dogma that requires a literal interpretation of scripture, and as a consequence find themselves confronted with a world that does not reflect this tenet of their faith. They abandoned faith as faith and continue to try to use observations of the natural world as proof of either God’s existence or proof of specific incidents in the Biblical account of creation.  I perhaps was a bit too subtle in my applause for the Catholic Church’s acknowledgment that science and faith can co-exist.  Some atheists, with _equal_ lack of understanding, try to assert that the natural world proves that there is no God.  I believe both groups have no leg to stand on.

I have no doubt Jesus would bowl a 300 every game :-)

I think you have said that “religion works as religion.”

No.  I’ve said “Religion (and by that I mean “Catholic faith”) works as a way of engaging reality and, indeed, the most important aspects of reality.”  Science is another way of engaging less important aspects of reality.

Science works? It didnt save my father from an early death when his doc told him he’s as healthy as a horse and he went out to his car and dropped dead of a massive heart attach… Religion doesnt work? I guess I’ll have to wait until my death to get that answer…Oh… i pray for my father almost every day…..

“ARL, religion does attempt an explanation of the natural world. For instance, every religion without exception (to my knowledge), posits a beginning of the universe.”

This list of exceptions is not exhaustive: Buddhism, Hinduism, Daoism, Confucianism, Shintoism, Pythagoreanism, Aristotelianism, most Paganisms, half of all Native American religions, Sikhism, Yoruba, etc.

All these are religions which insist on the world not having a beginning, and roughly half of the world’s population subscribes to them.

Thank you, Geoffrey.  As I say, before confidently popping off on “religion”, it would *really* be good if the New Atheist paused, ever so briefly, to consider that he has only the most provincial grasp of what that word means (basically, the Pope, the 700 Club, Jerry Falwell, nuns, rabbis, and some screaming Muslims on TV).  If he really puts on his thinking cap, he ocassionally recalls the Buddha, the Dalai Lama, and some Hindus floating stuff in the Ganges.  Beyond that, not a clue.

From the moment Jesus established the Church, it contained at least one scoundrel, Judas.  Why are people so surprised that it still contains scoundrels?  Jesus never promised that the Church would be impeccable.

And Jesus definitely would be scratch bowler :)

@Geoffrey: Thank you; I was just about to make that point.

@ARL: What an odd undeniable failure that is: His Holiness has personally visited with those afflicted, orders have been reformed, new and rigourous standards have been implemented (for some years now, priests here in Chicago have been removed from their parish immediately after reports of abuse: no investigation, no verification, no nothing), and several of those convicted have been condemned to lives less than delightful.  I would very much, then, like to know what you reckon a deniable failure.

What is more, you, like many others, seem to be of the opinion that the Catholic Church (in the the twentieth century, at least) has done and has had nought else to do but abuse minors and then fail to hide the fact.  The percentage of the clergy actually involved in this activity, of course, is insignificant, and the other 97% have been involved in countless charitable organisations, community-buildings, schools and universities, etc.  The clergy also boasts a wide array of influential ethicists engaged in greatly important moral guidance; I personally have the pleasure of knowing a Franciscan serving on the President’s bioethics council.  So I do not perceive how their work amounts to “failing institutionally as… moral leader[s].”

Such brings me to my final point: the Catholic Church has stood very nearly alone in condemning contraception (Sanger), usury (Bentham), eugenics (Galton), the popular delusion of the intellectually autarkic individual (Descartes, Locke, and beyond), and a host of other evils that previous cultures had no difficulty in perceiving, not just as bad, but as undeniably bad, and which “science” (or perhaps “the scientific worldview”), you will perceive, seemed to think quite jolly.  If that is not an example of the Church “working,” I confess ignorance as to what that phrase signifies.

Well, science does ONLY deal with the “seen,” the “empirical.”

And, our Catholic belief, deals with the “seen AND the unseen” - “all things visible and invisible.”

One does indeed have a larger scope.

For building community and communicating a common cultural vision, religion works better than science.  The concepts of “God” and “afterlife” and “soul” are very appealing to the human physche, whether they actually exist or not.  For explaining mysteries in the natural world, science works better than religion.  Both science and religion are tools which can be (and have been) used for good or evil.  What is certain is that with the growth of humanity’s “scientific” knowledge, the territory owned and explained by god(s) has become smaller while the territory owned and explained by natural phenomena has expanded.  What is also clear is that much of fundamentalism is a fearful reaction to that trend.

I only expect God to be perfect - nothing else and no one else.  Not the Pope, not individual priests, and not myself.  But the Catholic Church (and the vast majority of its members) continues to strive towards being a reflection of God to others around us.  Science, in that it is a part of the same flawed world that we are, has nothing perfect - there are flaws and exceptions to the theories, the rules and all.  And, in that science makes itself known through the intelligence of men (and women) who were made by God, science remains only one part of the world and should never be consider to ‘the world’.

@RickK: Tell me one, just one, Church teaching that has been explained away by “science.”

Manicheans were around for a thousand years, and didn’t mess with anybody’s science. I think your pot shot at the Gnostics is lame. We would have left you alone, and continued attending your mass while secretly disagreing with doctrine, which is what most of us do now. We are the ones you see walking out at the end of the mass when you start to yammer on about abortion or how we should vote against civil liberties and human rights, or the evils of secular humanism. Its so 1980’s, you know.

Two points. First off, there are lots of scientific theories out there. However, “real” scientists suppress those that don’t meet their criteria, something modern society frowns on a religion doing. So of course there are many religions that all claim to have the truth.

Secondly, Catholicism *does* work. If by work you mean get souls into heaven, we have the saints as concrete proof that it works.

Mark: Another brilliant piece, and one argued elegantly from evidence to conclusion—the conclusion being, not that God exists or that the Catholic faith is the Truth, but that the simplistic “Religion Vs. Science” boilerplate is one which is way past its expiration date. Again, my friend, I see you confronting one foe at a time, and I am favorably impressed. Thanks!

Titus,

You missed the point. You could have joined the conspiracy of love. You could have surrendered your soul to the one true God and been fulfilled. I fear you will never be happy, in this life or the next. You can always change your mind. It only takes a desire for eternal joy and a willingness to let God in.

@Mike:

Mike wrote: “we have the saints as concrete proof that it works.” 

Please, please tell me you understand the problem with that idea.

(Answer: You are pulling the empirical, the scientific, into religion.  This is exactly the sort of thing that must be avoided both by the faithful and by the atheists.)

The empirical and the scientific are not co-terminous.  My wife has offered me thousands of empirical proofs that she loves me and is a trustworthy and holy person.  Very few of them would be “scientific” proof of anything.  Saints offer all sorts of empirical proof of their sanctity.  Little of it is “scientifically” measurable.  There are whole regions of knowing that do not lend themselves to scientific measurement but are still empirical proof to people who understand how human beings tick.

Amen, brutha!!

I suppose I shouldn’t mention that “science” as a methodology was largely created by the Church, and to whatever extent that it works is a credit to religion, not a detraction from it.

“SCIENCE” as a competing or even complimentary faith-paradigm has little to offer me in terms of “working” until they find the real Higgs Boson, which they won’t.

Slight quibble.  Science as we know it certainly is part of the patrimony of Catholic Europe, but it wasn’t “created by the Church” in the sense of “created by the hierarchy”.  It is a fruit of the Catholic tradition, but it would be more accurate to say that it sprang from Catholic soil than to give the impression that a bunch of bishops cooked it up.  Most people, when you say, “The Church” think of the institutional structure, not of the entire body of Christ in union with it.

Leo Carton Mollica challenged: “Tell me one, just one, Church teaching that has been explained away by ‘science’”

I didn’t refer specifically to the Church, I referred to god(s).  But since you ask, I’d say you might search the list of Papal apologies for a clue.

@Geoffrey,

Actually read up on those religions and reread what I’ve stated in my post. I have studied these religions, so I don’t speak flippantly or out of ignorance. And as I’ve stated, *all* those religions mentioned do have a beginning. Yes, even Hinduism and Buddhism. As stated, they posit a cycle of universe creation and destruction (in line with the oscillating model of the Big Bang/Big Crunch), but they do posit a definite beginning of our universe. Some versions of Buddhism actually given an estimate of the date of creation. And all native (American, African, and Asian) religions that I’m aware of posit something like an eternal “Great Spirit” or “Old Man” or “Great Giant” which created all things.

Not all religions are empirically verifiable, though at the moment any model that posits a cyclical universe is currently untenable by modern science.

As Catholicism assumes (the two books, the book of creation and the book of revelation) and Dawkins correctly points out, if God exists that has implications on the universe and if those implications have been proven utterly false, the religion would have died off. So Religions that survive *must* work to some major degree.

Mark Shea, it is sad to see that the list of examples of “science” in action that you presented included the four humors, steady state theory, geocentrism, the existence of ether, the existence of Piltdown Man, Zyklon B, and a century of horrors courtesy of science.  What a lovely set of representatives you picked, Mr. Shea.  One my almost think your article lacked the balance you were trying to depict. 

Similarly, your empty, nihilistic version of materialism is a comic book cartoon - a shallow and worthless strawman. 

The evidence of your article indicates you have only the “haziest notion” of what science and materialism actually are.

DA has a series of posts on this subject from the last few days: http://socrates58.blogspot.com/

I’m what you would call an atheist.  Or, if you prefer, an empiricist.  I believe that all claims must be subject to the same examination and scrutiny.  At a minimum, we should be able to observe, record and measure a claim in such a way that it can be independently verified and reproduced, either in a laboratory setting or by making testable predictions.  And we should be cautious about filling the gaps in our knowledge with angels and demons of our own creation.  This approach isn’t perfect, of course, but it ensures that at any given time we have the best information available to us and that we’re constantly updating our knowledge with new information.  It is this (an objective, scientific method), and not prayer or appeal to the supernatural, that builds airplanes and cures cancer.  I think this is the point of saying “science works, religion doesn’t”.  However, I agree, quire strongly, that this slogan is terribly misguided.  Yes, religion makes unsubstantiated claims (the existence of god or gods, virgin birth, etc.).  This is the cosmological side of religion.  However, valid traditions also have a moral and humanistic element.  How do we live in the world?  And how should we treat one other?  On this level religion can, and does,  work.  For one thing, it gives people a way to organize and articulate their morality.  More importantly, just as we exercise to strengthen our bodies; the ceremonies and rituals of religion are a way to contemplate and exercise morality.  In our busy lives, I can see how religious services can be the one hour of the week when a person can really be alone with themselves and contemplate their values.  There is nothing wrong with this.  So, unlike many of the “new atheists”, I’m really not into attacking religion.  Ceremonies are important.  And ritualizing our values is a good way to ensure we live them.  Yes, the religious sometimes (c’mon, you know it happens) attack us (non-believers) and act as though our very existence is an affront.  But I still think it’s better to show the same tolerance that we’d like to receive than to make ourselves a part of the problem.  Obviously, this isn’t always possible, as in cases of physical persecution.  Short of that, we can, and should, learn from each another.

I think I have found something enlightening in my quest for a shared meaning in this conversation:

Here’s a scenario:

I see your wife making you dinner.  You see your wife making you dinner.  We agree your wife made you dinner.  I stop at the conclusion that your wife made you dinner—that’s all I know about the situation.

You tell me this is empirical proof that your wife loves you.

We can agree your wife made dinner, I may agree that this tends to show affection, but there is no proof to someone other than the beloved that the dinner is a sign of love.

I’m using Merriam-Webster’s meaning #3 of “empirical” here: “capable of being verified or disproved by observation or experiment.”

I think you are using Merriam-Webster’s meaning #1: “originating in or based on observation or experience”.

There is a very subtle difference, one means “verifyable” (which is what “concrete” means to me) and the other means “having its beginnings in what may be observed”. 

Two seriously different things!

Love—go figure.

Peace to all!

@RickK: I am quite familiar with the apologies actually.  And not a single one deals with defined doctrine, only the activities of the faithful.

And the “God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob” is/are not (a) “god(s).”  Between the aforementioned Deity and any other being whatsoever, there is and must always be an “infinite qualitative distinction” that refuses to permit Him to belong to any category, including that of “god(s),” and to classify Him thus is to, as G.K. Chesterton stated, “repeat a very stale formula;” consequently, no religion subordinate to Him can be reckoned as belonging to the same genus as those subordinate to Zeus and Odin.

@James George: You may consider yourself charitable as regards religion, but in point of fact you simply either are not being sincere or have not worked through the implications of your beliefs.  You, like Gould and Spinoza, seem to think religion useful (only) insofar as it helps with “values;” such, however, cannot be the case if religious claims are false or otherwise invalid.  The way we ought to organise our “morality” (a word about which I have mixed feelings, to say the least) will be radically different given that belief in God is true or not true, respectively.  And if your claims as to the invalidity of theism/religion are correct, the “morality” fostered by religious belief is horribly, horribly misguided and can be of no use for those who wish to lead a good life.  Nietzsche realised this, as did Sartre, and so does (in a very different way) Peter Singer.  You cannot have your cake and eat it, too: either religious belief is true, or it is of no use at all.  Concerning every claim to the contrary we ought to follow the advice of David Hume: “Consign it, then, to the flames, for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.”

Upon rereading this article I must admit that some of what Mr. Shea says seems, to me, a little divorced from logic.  As a skeptic who doesn’t expect to enjoy a glorious afterlife (or any afterlife at all), I still believe, strongly, that while we’re here, our life does matter.  We matter.  Yes, I think we’re pretty much a “finely tuned bag of chemicals”, as he puts it.  But we still matter.  By virtue of our very existence we matter.  And it’s up to us to make that existence mean something.  These grotesque and somewhat offensive caricatures of what non-believers think tells me something I’ve long suspected.  Mainly, that many believers cling to their faith because there’s something in it for them.  It gives them hope.  Hope that they won’t die.  Hope that they can see their loved ones again.  I, myself, would like nothing more than to see my grandmother again, or to meet the grandfather I never knew (I’m told I’m a lot like him).  However, just because something gives comfort doesn’t mean it’s true.  How stunningly arrogant to think this entire universe was created for our comfort.  Or to define truth based on what makes us feel good.  Please refer to my previous post about the best way to reliably discern the truth.  Now I’m not saying there isn’t an afterlife.  There just isn’t much (right now) beyond anecdotal evidence and wishful thinking to substantiate the claim, and plenty to suggest that our consciousness is born with the physical brain and dies with it.  At any rate, just as atheists need to avoid slandering believers, the faithful need to throw in and recognize that authentic, thoughtful skeptics and non believers are not the terrible threat they’re made out to be.  So while I agree with much of what Mr. Shea has to say (and even defended him in my previous post) I still see through some of his obvious prejudice.  It’s not just believers who are persecuted here.  Mr. Shea, unwittingly, provided a perfect example of the seething distaste he has for me and others like me.  I don’t fully embrace the “new atheism”, but I’m not blind enough to think that it’s just “people picking on religion”.  It is possible, just possible, that there might some element of self defense at work here.

@James George: I am afraid you somewhat misunderstand the nature of Christianity and, moreover, “religious belief” in general.  Christianity does not centre upon and derive from a mere hope of meeting loved ones again.  That is, no doubt, why many people retain their Christian heritage, including belief in God, but that is a corruption from an earlier, fuller belief in the Gospel.  And I also have this question for you: why should we care if belief in an “afterlife” is untrue?  Why not simply believe in it and avoid the despair that belief in the contrary tends to engender?  I answer that the question of personal immortality is immensely important because the way in which I pursue God hinges upon it, but aside from that I see no other reason to simply view the question pragmatically.

Leo Carton Mollica; you are wrong.  Your assertion that the claims of religion are either entirely true or of no value whatsoever is arbitrary and artificial.  Really, have you thought about this?  Here’s an example.  We know that people aren’t perfect, right?  They aren’t always right about everything, correct?  They make mistakes, don’t you agree?  But does that mean they aren’t right about anything?  Or that they don’t sometimes get it right or have something of value to offer despite their flaws?  By your way of thinking, a person is either all right, or all wrong and of no value.  Wow!  If you really believe this, you must be a real honey to live with.  I’d hate to screw up around you.  My point is this; why should religion be any different?  Some religion has a lot to offer in the way of moral philosophy (others, not so much), even if parts of it aren’t true.  The fact that I can provide an observable human example of this principle should attest to this.  By the way, I’ve read   Nietzsche and don’t agree with him.

@James George:  I think you do not see my point.  Yes, someone may be wrong about something and not be wholly erroneous, but we must distinguish between error in first and second principles.  Theism demands a wholly different sort of morality than atheism (in Flew’s sense of the word), and if theism is wrong or misguided, the whole of the morality it prescribes is corrupted.  Some secondary points might happen to be true or worthwhile, but that’s incidental: considered as a whole, theistic “morality” in an atheistic world is just wrong and useless.

By the way, what do you take to be the basis of good moral judgement?

BTW, if Nietzsche’s not your style, this might be more up your alley:

http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/200406—.htm

Leo Carton Mollica, I agree with you.  The Christian experience goes much deeper than mere self interest.  Some of the people I love and respect most (including the Grandmother I mentioned earlier) held a deeply personal understanding of the Gospels that went beyond just “looking out for #1.  However, Mr. Shea seems to have been exceptionally emotional and just a little too venomous in his characterization of how I (and others like me) supposedly feel about the nature of our own existence and, yes, this stems from the fact that we (non-believers) threaten them and the hope their belief engenders.  As for your question; should we care if belief in an afterlife is true or untrue?  Why not simply believe in it and avoid the despair that belief in the contrary tends to engender?  Well, to me it’s better to see the universe as it is, rather than cling to a delusion, no matter how comforting.  Atheism doesn’t have to engender despair.  My skepticism has opened a dynamic exciting universe of possibilities and helps me appreciate my life and my loved ones all the more.  By the way, the terrorists who flew into the World Trade Center also believed in an afterlife.  It was, quite possibly, the single biggest motivator for what they did.  Please consider that.

Leo.  Hey, thanks for the link!  I’ll check it out…

@James George
I’m what you would call an atheist.  Or, if you prefer, an empiricist. 

YOS
So make up your mind already. 

JG
I believe that all claims must be subject to the same examination and scrutiny.  At a minimum, we should be able to observe, record and measure a claim in such a way that it can be independently verified and reproduced, either in a laboratory setting or by making testable predictions. 

YOS
My wife loves me.  It’s a lovely day.  Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto is wonderful.  That apple is red.  My mother’s schnitz un’ knepp was delicious. 

Are you really sure that =all= claims should be about bouncing particles?

JG
Yes, I think we’re pretty much a “finely tuned bag of chemicals”.  But we still matter.  By virtue of our very existence we matter. 

YOS
Sounds good; but shouldn’t we should be able to observe, record and measure a claim like that in such a way that it can be independently verified and reproduced, either in a laboratory setting or by making testable predictions? 

Aside from “feeling right” because you have been raised in a culture marinating in Christian values for more than a thousand years, how do you derive “value” from “a bag of chemicals” without, as Stanley Fish put it, “smuggling theology in through the back door”? 

The real problem is that Baconian science has certain limited interests and specific domains, but some folks insist on colonizing all other forms of human knowledge and experience.

Leo Carton Mollica said: ” Theism demands a wholly different sort of morality than atheism”.

I’m sorry, but that’s demonstrably false.  “Theism” gets its morality from precisely the same source as “atheism” - from society and culture.  Atheists are moral or immoral, as defined by society’s standards, in the same ratios. 

Your morals are not divinely proclaimed.  They are taken from your parents and the society around you.  Your conscience speaks with your mother’s/father’s/priest’s/friends’ voices, just like an atheist’s conscience. 

If God were directly setting your moral compass, you wouldn’t have to learn the commandments, would you?

If the Bible was a divinely inspired guide to morality, then your moral code would be the same as 2000 years ago.  But it isn’t.  Your views on slavery, on the roles of women, on animal sacrifice and on just punishment are VERY different than those of the early Christians.

The Bible was written to match the moral code of the society of its authors.  And your moral code is determined by the society in which you live.  That society is informed by the Bible, but it is very much “open to interpretation” and changes as human wisdom changes.

For someone quoting Flew, your understanding of morality seems very immature.

@James George: I wholeheartedly agree that knowledge of the way the world is is a good thing.  However, that stems directly from my belief that God is Primal Truth and that our utmost pleasure and good must derive from knowing Him.  All other knowledge, knowledge of the created order, is good insofar as it “participates” (as St. Thomas would say) in this First Truth’s supreme goodness.  If that were not so, I do not know why to prefer truth over falsity, or even if there could be some real, transcendent “Truth” to know.  (By the way, I, alongside Aristotle and Bl. John Duns Scotus, think all of this is quite independent of belief in an “afterlife.”)

I am aware that wicked people have done wicked things in pursuit of Heaven.  But, just because an end can be pursued ignobly, is it an ignoble end?

YOS - Have you read “The Blank Slate” by Pinker?  I think you’d find it enlightening.

@RickK: So, I am “immature” because I do not think my “morality” (again, not my favourite word) is reducible to the norms imposed by my culture?  I believe that reason dictates, independent of society, that man love God.  If you think me immature for that, Aristotle (Ethica Nico. X:7) and Spinoza (Ethica V:16) would beg to differ.

OK, I’ll start with your statement: “Theism demands a wholly different sort of morality than atheism (in Flew’s sense of the word), and if theism is wrong or misguided, the whole of the morality it prescribes is corrupted”.  Oh really?  Why?  I can see no requirement (other than an artificial insistence that it be so) that this is necessary.  However, I agree with you because you demonstrate an important point; religious values HAVE been corrupted, and in terrible ways.  Pagans in Norway who refused to convert to Christianity were left to drown at high tide.  The aforementioned terrorists (from my previous post) committed mass murder on 911 to appease Allah.  So, yes, theistic claims are probably false, which makes the expression of associated religious values prone to corruption (just like you said).  This doesn’t mean that religion has no value, or that there is no sincere striving for good.  Atheism is also prone to corruption.  I have issues with people who claim to be atheists seemingly because they don’t want to be held to any personal standard.  Just as people like me are confronted by hostile, threatened believers; I’m sure many believers are faced with lazy, thoughtless atheists.  We both need to do better.  Even though there is no evidence (beyond the anecdotal or artificially philosophical) to support the existence of a god; atheism, like theism, is a human invention and open to corruption.  Why not treat others as we would like to be treated and strive to live together?  Why not decide that living in peace together and striving for a better world here and now is a desireable end?

First, I take serious issue with your claim that the existence of God (Who is not a “god,” see above post) is arguable only from anecdote or “artificial philosophy.”  Are you seriously condemning Plato, Aristotle, Poryphyry, Augustine, Boethius, Anselm, Averroes, Avicenna, Scotus, Aquinas, Descartes, Locke, Leibniz, Spinoza, the Deists, Anscombe, Craig, Plantinga, etc., etc. as “artificial philosophers”?  The reason theistic morality must differ radically from atheistic morality is that it posits a different final end than atheistic morality, a different first principle.  For if a Supreme Good exists, of course we must posit Him as our overarching aim.  That is why theistic morality must be radically different.

@James George: I also think you might have misunderstood an earlier remark of mine (this is not, by the way, a critique): when I said that clinging on to belief in God and Christ for the sake of seeing loved ones again was a “corruption,” I simply meant that it was an example of an idea the framework for and context of which had been lost; I was not calling it a “moral” corruption.  That is not to deny that there exist moral corruptions within theism and Christianity: of course there are.  But I was trying to make a different point.  Sorry for not being clearer.

Leo Carton Mollica, you can stop name dropping ancient philosophers who grew up in societies that could no more imagine a deity-free world than they could imagine quantum mechanics.  Unfortunately, Spinoza and Aristotle aren’t alive today.  If they were, I think we’d have a REALLY interesting discussion about human nature, the evolutionary development of the human brain and the structure of mind. 

Once again, the advance of our knowledge of the natural world is filling gaps and offering alternatives to divine power to explain the creation of humanity.

You were right in your earlier post - morality doesn’t come exclusively from society.  The human mind is not a tabula rasa.  We’re born with fundamental structure around which the mind develops.  And neuroscience has demonstrated that some elements of morality are innate, like our sense of when something is unfair.

Again, none of this requires the God of Abraham.

Sorry to offend you .  No, I’m not condemning them as “artificial philosophers.”  They were obviously brilliant, learned men who gave immeasurably to western thought.  However, one might craft an eloquent philosophy as to why gravity doesn’t really work.  Just don’t walk off a cliff to test it!  The nature of physical reality can’t be determined by philosophical arguments such as the demand for a “Supreme Good”.  These may work on paper, but they can’t be substantiated in any real way (remember: observe, record, measure, independently verify and reproduce).  Also, it may not be a good idea to appeal to authority (in this case, the philosophers).  Instead, try to support your arguments with information I can independently verify and reproduce on my own.  Obviously, I accept physical evolution (you may too).  However, I don’t support it by appealing to Darwin’s authority, but by independently verifying and reproducing his ideas.  He made testable predictions that work.  Just a note about my sincerity, because you seemed to question it earlier.  I’m a 20-year military officer.  I’ve fought in two wars and I’m physically disabled because of it.  I served in Afghanistan and Iraq.  I fought to defend a nation of believers who didn’t think like I do.  I worked to build schools where children would learn, among other things, the Koran.  I supported ground convoys to protect Christian service members who wished to be baptized in the Euphrates River (a very interesting experience, actually).  And I’ve come very close to dying myself on several terrifying occasions.  I felt strongly that these were the right things to do, even at risk to my own life.  Have you ever risked your life, even when you didn’t have to, for people and causes you didn’t personally subscribe to because you thought it was the right thing to do?  Maybe you have.  I don’t really know you.  At any rate, I didn’t set out to offend you.  I respect your right to your beliefs and wouldn’t hesitate to fight again to protect them.  However, there are two sides to every story and neither one is the evil, ugly stereotype we make them out to be.  That was really my whole point.

@RickK: I fail to see any argument in that post.  But who needs reason when you have evolution and neuroscience on your side?

RickK
Have you read “The Blank Slate” by Pinker?  I think you’d find it enlightening.

YOS
He’s the dude who says that the concept of human dignity is incoherent, right? 
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JG
However, one might craft an eloquent philosophy as to why gravity doesn’t really work. 

YOS
Who on earth has done so?  Cite an example of a philosopher who has argued so.  (You know.  Empirical evidence.)

And ‘twas yourself who did not believe in immaterial beings.  “Gravity” is one such being.  Only the bodies in motion are material.  “Gravity” is a story we tell ourselves so that it makes sense.  So, is gravity a “force” that mysteriously reaches out and pulls things in?  Or is it a distortion in the field of Ricci tensors that warps space and bodies simply move in “straight” lines called geodesics?
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JG
The nature of physical reality can’t be determined by philosophical arguments such as the demand for a “Supreme Good”.  These may work on paper, but they can’t be substantiated in any real way (remember: observe, record, measure, independently verify and reproduce). 

YOS
You are still confusing a metaphysical or a mathematical proof with a scientific demonstration.  One thing at least the realist philosophers were quite clear on, and that was the distinction between metaphysics and physics. 

JG
Also, it may not be a good idea to appeal to authority (in this case, the philosophers). 

YOS
It is not so much an appeal to authority as it is a cursory way of referring to the arguments they made.  Similar in principle to the footnotes and references oft found even in scientific texts. 

JG
I accept physical evolution (you may too).  However, I don’t support it by appealing to Darwin’s authority, but by independently verifying and reproducing his ideas.

YOS
Really.  You must have considerable time on your hands, and a well-stocked home laboratory.  Do you accept quantum mechanics in the same way?

@James George: I did not mean to offend you, either, and I wholeheartedly agree that most caricatures of nihilistic atheistic materialists on the one hand and science-hating Bible-thumpers on the other are wildly inaccurate.  I’ve known lovely people who fall into the former category and despicable people in the latter.  I have no doubt that you are quite courageous, and from “speaking” with you I know you to be eloquent, understanding, and kind. 

As regards the philosophical point about the existence of God, I believe we have met what Kuhn would call an incommensurability of paradigms.  I simply do not agree that we can only know what is true or false by recourse to empirical observation and verification; I take some (many) things on faith (for example, who my father is), as basic (for example, that there are other minds), and by way of recourse to philosophical/logical investigation (for example, that God exists, or the Pythagorean theorem).  And I disagree that an “eloquent philosophy as to why gravity doesn’t really work” because “against the truth no argument holds.”

And I am, by the way, an advocate of evolution (though not of certain philosophical tendencies that some people think evolution has validated).

Also, I wasn’t trying to argue the existence of a Supreme Good, merely trying to demonstrate that theistic ethics must be radically different from the ethics of an atheist.  My (philosophical) belief in God derives from what would to today be called the “Cosmological Argument,” not the “Moral Argument” advanced by Kant and others (though that argument does hold great interest for me).

@RickK: Sorry I didn’t respond to this before:

“Leo Carton Mollica, you can stop name dropping ancient philosophers who grew up in societies that could no more imagine a deity-free world than they could imagine quantum mechanics.”

In case you did not notice, that list of “ancient philosophers” included Plato (whose master was put to death as a “pure atheist”), Aristotle (same applies to him), Spinoza and Descartes (both of whom were unjustly accused of atheism), the Deists (many of who were contemporaries of David Hume), and people like G.E.M. Anscombe, Alvin Plantinga, and William Lain Craig (who lived around plenty of atheists).  None of this, obviously, proves that theism is true: I could, after all, write up an equally impressive list of atheist philosophers.  My point is merely that belief in the demonstrability of God is not merely a by-product of societies that cannot conceive of atheism and, as such, should be taken seriously.

Leo, it’s been very nice talking with you!  I always enjoy sharing with other people and learning from them.  Hopefully, we’ll meet again on this or similar forums.  Also, I’ll have fun with the link you sent…thanks again for that! 
Ye Olde Statistician, the gravity thing was a hypothetical example.  I never said that anyone had actually promoted a philosophy suggesting gravity doesn’t really work.  Let me check again.  Nope, I never said that!  Obviously, gravity is relative to our perception of it (for a variety of reasons).  The same could be said for our visual (indeed all sensory) perception.  However, I still challenge you to step off your roof and levitate.  I’ll go on record here and now as making the prediction that you could step off your roof a hundred times and not levitate once (barring artificial/technical means).  Does the philosophical concept of “Ultimate Good” make a similar testable prediction?  That was my point.  Note: please don’t step off your roof!  By the way, I’m a meteorologist (that’s what I did in the service) and a PhD candidate, so I do, in fact,  understand the difference between metaphysical/mathematical proof and scientific demonstration.  I’m really not comfortable saying this because it sounds like I’m putting on airs.  Nor do I think that my education “proves” there is no god or that it makes me better or smarter than anyone else.  There are people who run circles around me mentally who (1) have no degrees and (2) are believers.  I know, and greatly respect, these people.  However, I do know the difference between those things you mentioned.  No, I don’t have a well stocked lab in my home.  I wish I did.  However, the fact that we can breed dogs and livestock, not to mention every new discovery in genetics, all strongly support the concept by verifying, in their own way, the predictions made by evolutionary science.  I don’t claim to know enough about quantum theory to weigh in on that (not my field).  But I do accept atomic theory because, well, the atom bomb worked.  Atomic theory said it would.  Sadly, I might add.  I didn’t have to build one myself to draw that conclusion.  There are ways that we can “do science” without actually hitting the lab.  This is the really exciting thing about science.  You can take it everywhere.  Anyway, it’s getting late.  Time to hit the sack…cheers to all.  have a safe and happy weekend!

Leo - You must know that 300 years ago “atheism” was used as an epithet to mean “someone who doesn’t believe as we do”.  Completely godless atheism is a relatively recent trend in serious philosophical consideration.  As you yourself said, Spinoza and Descartes were called atheists because, by the standards of many in their time, they were.  As I said, I’d love to talk to them today, after showing them what we’ve learned of the origins of the universe and Man.

You would be poorly received by both, my friend.  Spinoza did not think too highly of anything he could not deduce “in geometrical order,” and Descartes was a pious Catholic who made a pilgrimage to Our Lady because of his philosophical discoveries (cf. “Discourse on Method,” First Part).  And there *were* atheists (at the very least in Flew’s sense) in the eighteenth century; ever heard of David Hume?  Atheism was not, of course, a very popular position and was frowned upon by most classes, but it remained quite conceivable.

Furthermore, you have said nothing as regards Socrates’ accusation of atheism in the “Apology,” which makes very clear that Meletus did not think Socrates believed in any gods at all.  So much for atheism being as inconceivable for the Athenians as quantum physics!

Also, St. Thomas makes quite clear that atheism is a conceivable position at Summa Theo. I:2:1.  But, ignorant and deceitful Christian that he was, he must not really have meant what he said.

Even back when I was an Agnostic I didn’t publicly attack religion, for the simple reason that if there was no God then “religion” was the concensus that people reached, after centuries of experience, on how to cope and how to get along with each other.  (As I wrote, I was an Agnostic not an Atheist.)
So religion did “work,” thank you very much.

JG
I never said that anyone had actually promoted a philosophy suggesting gravity doesn’t really work. 

YOS
Then why propose such an assertion?  Clearly, it was to imply that philosophers are utterly silly people.  But without the ugly necessity of actually producing evidence to back it up. 

Leo
I could, after all, write up an equally impressive list of atheist philosophers.

YOS
What do aetheist philosophers think of the possibility of morality?

1. Jean-Paul Sartre held in “Existentialism is a Humanism,” there disappears with God all possibility of finding values in an intelligible heaven. There can no longer be any good a priori, since there is no infinite and perfect consciousness to think it. It is nowhere written that ‘the good’ exists, that one must be honest or not lie, since we are now upon the plane where there are only men.

2. Friedrich Nietzsche wrote in The Twilight of the Idols, “when one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality out from under one’s feet. This morality is by no means self-evident: this point has to be exhibited again and again, despite the English flatheads. Christianity is a system, a whole view of things thought out together. By breaking one main concept out of it, the faith in God, one breaks the whole: nothing necessary remains in one’s hands.”

3. Richard Rorty wrote, in Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, “For liberal ironists, there is no answer to the question ‘Why not be cruel?’ - no noncicular theoretical backup for the belief that cruelty is horrible. ... Anyone who thinks that there are well grounded theoretical answers to this sort of question - algorithms for resolving moral dilemmas of this sort - is still, in his heart, a theologian or metaphysician.  He believes in an order beyond time and change which both determines the point of human existence and establishes a hierarchy of repsonisbilities.”

4.  Also Voltaire did not believe in God but wanted his butler to believe because he thought he would then be robbed less often. And Rousseau thought that a nation needed a religion if it was to accept laws and policies directed at the long term future. Without religion, people would insist on immediate gain, to their eventual cost. Clearly, both men believed that without religion there would be no morality (except among the Enlightened, of course.)

5. Alex Rosenberg, in “The Disenchanted Naturalist’s Guide to Reality,” asserts that naturalism denies the existence of objective moral value, of beliefs and desires, of the self, of linguistic meaning, and indeed of meaning or purpose of any sort. All attempts to evade this conclusion, to reconcile naturalism with our common sense understanding of human life, inevitably fail, and we just have to learn to live with that. A belief in meanings and purposes is what puts us on a “slippery slope” to religion.
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Rick K
I’d love to talk to them today, after showing them what we’ve learned of the origins of the universe and Man.

YOS
See JG for information on the difference between the physics and the metaphysics.  You labor under the notion that all forms of human endeavor are “really” supposed to be natural science in disguise.  They are not.  St. Augustine cautioned that we do not read of Jesus telling us he will send the Holy Spirit to teach us all about the course of the sun and the moon.  “The Lord wanted to make Christians, not astronomers.  You learn at school all the useful things you need to know about nature.”

St. Macrina was told once that the existence of clever mechanical automata at the emperor’s court dispensed with the need for God, so it is by no means a new thing that people think this or that discovery in the physics somehow derails a logical deduction in metaphysics. 

But suppose tomorrow the Big Bang theory or Darwin’s theory or Maxwell’s theory were decisively falsified.  Would you then conclude that God must be necessary to account for the origin of space-time, of species, or of light?  Or would you, like a medieval natural philosopher, proceed to look for another course of nature to account for things?  I would the latter.  But then Darwinian theory (say) is not presently filling a “God-shaped hole” and never has.  eye

I believe that science and religion are like oil and vinegar. Science is all about proof, and in order to believe in a Christian/Catholic religion we must rely mainly on faith, even when reading the Bible.

I can sum it up very simply: Can anyone on here create something from nothing? I mean nothing, not dirt not matter, just plain create anything?
If not,which of course we can’t, then there must be a God.

How can anyone look into the eyes of a baby or a Bengal Tiger and be so narcissistic at to honestly doubt that there is not a God?

I don’t think Buddhism or Taoism is a religion, more a belief system.

It is amazing how many modern “freethinkers” live in a dead-end 19th century philosophical cul-de-sac and don’t even know it.

Mr. Dunn, there’s an enormous (shall I say “god-shaped”) hole in your argument.  You say that since we can’t create something from nothing, there must be a god.  And not just any god.  Not Odin.  Not Zeus.  But the God of the Bible.  Basically, if we don’t understand something it must be god, right?  Let’s extend this to other areas of human knowledge.  Two thousand years ago we didn’t understand mental illness.  It was “self evident” that these people were demonically possessed.  Mental illness could be upheld as “proof” of god (or, in this case the devil) because there was no other explanation.  Of course, we understand differently now, so the utility of mental illness as proof of the supernatural is greatly diminished.  The gaps in our knowledge are just that.  Gaps.  The only thing we can honestly say is “we don’t know-let’s try and find out”.  Filling these gaps with god is convenient, but lazy.  And you look silly when that “gap” is filled with a new scientific discovery.  At its best, religion can (and should) go beyond substituting for our present ignorance.

James, Thank you for your honesty! That is OK that my thinking sounds silly to you.  Faith is the basis of my religion which was founded on Jesus Christ, but continued by man, man fails. Over the centuries it is up to us to keep the belief and faith, not walk away every time the 3% of our priests fail us with abuse.
Religion and God are two different things as well. There is no gap for me, I believe that the bread and wine are transubstantiated into the Body and Blood of Christ, can I prove it NO, does it change in form, NO.  Do I still then need proof, NO! I believe, that is faith.
In the New Testament Jesus himself says,“this is my body”, ah I believe Him, I would rather be safe than sorry, that is all the faith I need.

Ye Olde Statistician, the gravity example was meant to demonstrate that metaphysical philosophy can’t make testable predictions about the physical universe.  Nothing more.  I never said I thought the philosophers were silly.  I don’t feel that way.  In fact, I’m pretty sure I clarified that with Leo last night when I said the philosophers were obviously “brilliant, learned men who gave immeasurably to western thought.”  I think you read more into my post than I intended.

To quote you James:
“Basically, if we don’t understand something it must be god, right?”

Well James, Are you saying if we can’t understand something, let’s prove it? That is the scientific approach, won’t work! Can’t prove the negative!! You will never see God until you chose to find him in things in your life, like a kind person, a troubled teen who needs help, a women in a crises pregnancy….we have to find Him, He knows where we are.

Won’t believe until u see,sounds like doubting Thomas, oh that’s right, I can’t prove Thomas exists either, so I say he does, you say prove it.  I is an argument that will never be solved until our last day and I would rather meet mine believing.

Mr. Dunn, I have no doubt to your honesty and sincerity as well.  And I assure you I don’t think that “you” are a silly person at all.  However, the same faith that leads you to Christ leads the Hindu to Brahma and the Moslem to Allah.  And all the while, everyone is offending Thor by worshipping other “false” gods.  Do you see my point here?

First of all it’s Mrs. Dunn and yes I do see your point, but I am not putting anyone’s faith down. I am just trying to explain that a belief in God, with a capitol G can not be proven.  Yes we can believe in the Bible and that can be our basis for faith.
Not one other prophet died and resurrected, not one but Jesus Christ. What point am i missing James?  I am not putting anyone down, it sounds like my belief is offending.  I am not into your ok I’m ok, I am more into lets try to follow a set of rules, the 10 commandments.  Let’s have culpability, I don’t feel the need to hide the fact that Jesus Christ is the one and only Savior. If it offends anyone else on their religious belief that is not my problem.  I studied many religions, and they are beautiful, they worship in wonderful ways, but they are not worshiping the one true God.  That is my belief, no one has to buy into it.  When their god resurrects to save me, then I will seriously look deeper into it. Did I answer ur question, because I am not sure I did and I want to.

Mr. Dunn, for the record, I don’t say “there’s no god”.  Absence of proof is not proof of absence.  I only say that in the absence of evidence, why not just admit that we don’t know?  Don’t fill the gaps with something that can’t be substantiated.  I’m assuming your “faith” doesn’t extend to astrology or tarot cards.  Most likely, because your religion says they’re wrong.  But, hopefully, also because you apply some sort of objective test and demand reasonable evidence to support these claims.  You do this is every other part of your life, why not extend it to all parts of your life?  By the way, at the end of our days I’m sure God will be suitably impressed with your calculated decision to believe just to save your own hide.

Ha, That was not fair! I do not just believe in God for that reason, although I must admit it is part of it.  There are really not atheists in a foxhole.
I most certainly do believe in astrology and tarot cards and mediums, but I believe they are from demons. No I am not a fundamentalist either, I just believe that Satan has a lot of people convinced that he does not exist, but he does.  Evil is alive and doing well. 
I don’t see why you feel the need to attack someone who has a different belief than yours.  I never put anyone’s belief down, I just took the time to show you my belief.  Do I think if you are not a Christian or a Catholic you will be damned? Of course not, I do not judge a soul.  Gandhi is a most amazing prophet and was a wonderful person, and so was Buddha, but they are the little g’s we can prove them, we can’t prove the big G.
So I chose to believe, not just to save my hide, I want to believe! What a horrible life this would be if there were no after life with God. It’s Mrs. Dunn

First, sorry Mrs. Dunn.  Wow.  See, I just assumed you were male and that was wrong.  Thanks for setting me straight.  However, you totally missed the point.  I’m not talking about offending other religions.  I’m talking about how you see it as self evident that your belief is true based on faith, even though someone else’s sincere, honest faith leads them in another, contradictory direction.  You’re not offending me.  I don’t believe in any of them.  I think my last post may have addressed your most recent one.  For the record, I don’t really think your faith is calculated or insincere.  I don’t even know you (and yes, demanding evidence is the basis for things like fairness and justice).  I was just making a point…

It’s ok, I am not offended. I gave you this answer as i believe it to be, name me one other god who resurrected?
I also stated that I do not believe that if people chose to not believe in the God i believe in they are condemned. 

I guess it is how we are raised as to what we believe.  At some point we reach an age where we research on our own, there are many streams to the ocean.  How can I answer your question really?

Different cultures believe differently, that is why it is not up to me to judge their soul or where they will end up in the afterlife. I can’t answer your question, I don’t know! I would fall back on the culture avenue, and I think “G"od would take that into consideration as well, do u agree?

Mrs. Dunn; first, I’m not attacking your beliefs.  I’m just holding a different opinion.  I don’t expect you to change, and I don’t look down on you for believing as you do.  But you did start a threat expressing your beliefs and why you thought the opposing view was wrong.  Of course I had to weigh in.  No atheists in foxholes?  Interesting.  I’m a 20-year military officer who fought in two wars and have, on several occasions, come very close to death.  My perspective with respect to God hasn’t changed out of any sense of self preservation.  At any rate, I apologize if I offended anyone.  That wasn’t the point.

someone mentioned - I believe it was one of our atheist posters - that Mark Shea must be seething with animosity towards atheists - That is patently untrue…his article targets the sloganeering that takes the place of actual thinking and discussion as we are doing on this thread - with (for the most part)thoughtful posts from both philosophical camps….I follow Mark’s writing very closely on a weekly basis so my defense of him is based on regular scrutiny:)That’s all I wanted to contribute but kudos to all participants - I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading this exchange ...

George, Thank you for serving our country, I applaud your courage, I have children older than you, you must be quite a wonderful person.
You did not offend me and I am sorry if i offended you, I just don’t know how to answer your question.

I would have to just leave it as a cultural difference. Again, I am not condemning anyone either.  The foxhole phrase was not to hurt but to explain fear, which I have, I want to go to Heaven.  I am sure you know fear though, I applaud your bravery Mr. George

I also follow Mark’s writings and agree with you Melinda

The Greek god Adonis, like Jesus, was born of a virgin, died and was resurrected. The Egyptian Osiris also died and was ressurected.  Am I to believe in them as well?

James, I don’t know what you are to believe, I am only telling you my beliefs! Did Adonis die and resurrect for our sins? Did he preform miracles?  Bottom line, do you believe in the Bible?

Mrs. Dunn, thank you for your kind thoughts.  Yes, it’s been fun.  Hope eveyone has a safe and happy weekend!

Mrs. Dunn, before I go I want to answer your last question (don’t want to appear rude and leave you hanging); no, I don’t accept the Bible as literal truth with regards to supernatural claims.  Saying these things happened is not the same as proving they did.  The Bible is set against a historical backdrop, so there are many references to real people, places, things and events.  However, the historical existence of Ceasar (which can be independently verified by such diverse things as coinage and public monuments) is not the same as believing in the ressurection, which is taken on faith alone.  Hope that answers your question.

Well I understand where you are coming from better, but let me ask you something, how do you know for sure that Caesar is the person on the coins. How do you know he ever really existed? Really, don’t quote text books, cause the Bible is a text book too then. You won’t leave me hanging.

Can you prove to me that the person on the coin is Ceasar? Not just by books because the Bible is also a book, written by man, inspired by God

JG
You say that since we can’t create something from nothing, there must be a god. And not just any god. Not Odin. Not Zeus. But the God of the Bible.

YOS
Pretty much.  No such claims were ever made for Odin or Zeus.  None of their stories depict them as creating.  Briefly, thus:
The essence of a thing need not exist.  We all understand the essence of a unicorn - its properties and powers.  But a unicorn does not possess existence.  The same is true of all material beings, which come into and pass out of existence.  We say their existence is “contingent.”  They don’t =have= to be. 
Now for something contingent to exist, it must receive its existence from some thing that already exists, since a cause cannot give what it does not possess in at least an eminent sense.  But an essence cannot receive existence from itself, since that which does not yet exist cannot cause itself to exist.  Now, if it receives its being from a prior contingent being (i.e., another whose essence need not possess existence), the existence of that prior being must be caused by another, and so on.  But there cannot be an infinite chain of contingent beings any more than there can be an infinite chain of forwarded emails.  That is, there may be infinitely many such beings, but being itself must ultimately come from a being whose essence just is to exist; that is, a non-contingent [or “necessary”] being.  (In an analogical sense, there must necessarily have been an original content provider to the infinitely forwarded emails.)  This necessary being IS essentially existence.  That is, it cannot not exist.  That would be like saying Existence does not exist.  We may refer to such a being as Existence Itself.  If it could talk, it would call itself I AM.  All other properties follow logically from this and other similar deductions.

Thus a being who creates from nothing is different =in kind= from beings that transform one something into another something; e.g., a quantum state into a universe or an ape into a man.  These may be accommodated by the common course of nature—once there are natures. 

JG
Basically, if we don’t understand something it must be god, right?

YOS
No.  According to the medievals, God had endowed natures (i.e., “forms,” or “essences”) with the power to act directly one upon another.  This is what is called “secondary” or “instrumental” causation.  But instrumental causes like F = G(M*m)/d^2 need their existence explained by a prior or “first” cause which is itself uncaused. 

Compare the music of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A, which is created by a basset clarinet.  But the clarinet is only an instrument, and in truth Sharon Kam is creating the music and, were she to stop doing so, the music would cease even though the clarinet (and its reed and keys and holes) continue to exist.  (In another sense, of course, Mozart created the concerto, but we are speaking of its present existence embodied in sound waves.)  Anyone who thinks that the science of acoustics and the physics of vibrating reeds explains the existence of the music has not understood the music. 

JG
metaphysical philosophy can’t make testable predictions about the physical universe. Nothing more.

YOS
Why should it need to?  Justice, beauty, mathematics, etc. do not make claims about physical bodies in motion, either. 

JG
I only say that in the absence of evidence, why not just admit that we don’t know?

YOS
Because we can know things in other ways than the study of particles in motion.  That is a worthy study, limitless in some ways, but it is limited in what it can discern, like a man whose only instrument is a telescope.  He will never discover microbes or the acid test. 

E.g., mathematical theorems are true in the absence of physical evidence.  They are not based on observation of physical bodies, but rather the contemplation of Platonic ideals.  That the interior angles of a plane triangle sum to 180 degrees is true even if there were no physical triangles in existence. 
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JG
However, the same faith that leads you to Christ leads the Hindu to Brahma and the Moslem to Allah. And all the while, everyone is offending Thor by worshipping other “false” gods. Do you see my point here?

YOS
1. Allah is the same God, seen from another angle. 
2. Brahma is part of a Trinity differently understood from both the Neoplatonist or Christian Trinities.
3. Thor was never conceived as a creator or uncaused cause.  Nor is there any evidence he demanded exclusive worship or demanded anything at all of men.  Like other pagan gods, he was simply a force of nature than men supposed they could placate with sacrifices. 

If something is true, why be surprised if others have caught glimpses of it through the fog?

“The Greek god Adonis, like Jesus, was born of a virgin, died and was resurrected. The Egyptian Osiris also died and was ressurected. Am I to believe in them as well?”

“The phenomenon, admitted on all hands, is this:—That great portion of what is generally received as Christian truth is, in its rudiments or in its separate parts, to be found in heathen philosophies and religions. For instance, the doctrine of a Trinity is found both in the East and in the West; so is the ceremony of washing; so is the rite of sacrifice. The doctrine of the Divine Word is Platonic; the doctrine of the Incarnation is Indian; of a divine kingdom is Judaic; of Angels and demons is Magian; the connexion of sin with the body is Gnostic; celibacy is known to Bonze and Talapoin; a sacerdotal order is Egyptian; the idea of a new birth is Chinese and Eleusinian; belief in sacramental virtue is Pythagorean; and honours to the dead are a polytheism. Such is the general nature of the fact before us; Mr. Milman argues from it,—‘These things are in heathenism, therefore they are not Christian:’ we, on the contrary, prefer to say, ‘these things are in Christianity, therefore they are not heathen.’ That is, we prefer to say, and we think that Scripture bears us out in saying, that from the beginning the Moral Governor of the world has scattered the seeds of truth far and wide over its extent; that these have variously taken root, and grown as in the wilderness, wild plants indeed but living; and hence that, as the inferior animals have tokens of an immaterial principle in them, yet have not souls, so the philosophies and religions of men have their life in certain true ideas, though they are not directly divine. What man is amid the brute creation, such is the Church among the schools of the world; and as Adam gave names to the animals about him, so has the Church from the first looked round upon the earth, noting and visiting the doctrines she found there….

The distinction between these two theories is broad and obvious. The advocates of the one imply that Revelation was a single, entire, solitary act, or nearly so, introducing a certain message; whereas we, who maintain the other, consider that Divine teaching has been in fact, what the analogy of nature would lead us to expect, ‘at sundry times and in divers manners,’ various, complex, progressive, and supplemental of itself. We consider the Christian doctrine, when analyzed, to appear, like the human frame, ‘fearfully and wonderfully made;’ but they think it some one tenet or certain principles given out at one time in their fulness, without gradual enlargement before Christ’s coming or elucidation afterwards. They cast off all that they also find in Pharisee or heathen; we conceive that the Church, like Aaron’s rod, devours the serpent of the magicians. They are ever hunting for a fabulous primitive simplicity; we repose in Catholic fulness. They seek what never has been found; we accept and use what even they acknowledge to be a substance. They are driven to maintain, on their part, that the Church’s doctrine was never pure; we say that it can never be corrupt. We consider that a divine promise keeps the Church Catholic from doctrinal corruption; but on what promise, or on what encouragement, they are seeking for their visionary purity does not appear.”

—Ven. J.H. Newman, “Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine,” VIII:12

Sorry this is so long, just couldn’t resist! ;)

OK, YOS….I am the one that said that since we can’t create something from nothing, there must be a god…..etc. but cap G

I was following you completely,which I thought was amazing, but I lost a little.
No, Allah is not the same god seen from another angle nor is Brahma, they were not God and became man for us. They did not die and resurrect for us to have eternal life. Not one single god ever did that, so I don’t agree with your summery. 
Am I correct is saying that you feel there is a universal force and all people’s gods are the same?

@Ye Olde Statistician: I think you might have misunderstood me: I was just saying that there have been a number of great atheist philosophers and that my giving a list of theistic ones did not prove theism to be true.  If I was not being clear, I am a Roman Catholic, and I am inclined to believe you on the whole amorality/atheism connection, though I am aware that several (brilliant) people disagree with me on that.
(P.S. Voltaire was a Deist.)

@Mrs. Dunn: See “Nostra Aetate,” Sec. 3.

YOS, I agree 100% on the atheist philosophers, I just lost you a little and wanted to relay to you what I was getting out of your post, to see if I was understanding you.

JG
The Greek god Adonis, like Jesus, was born of a virgin, died and was
resurrected. The Egyptian Osiris also died and was ressurected. Am I to
believe in them as well?

YOS
A closer examination of those stories reveals that they are no such thing.  The parallels are superficial and do not endure close scrutiny. 

There is nothing unusual about dying and being resurrected.  Lazarus died and was resurrected.  A friend of mine died and was resurrected.  But I know of no one else who pulled the trick off by himself.  Even Oswiry needed Isis to collect the pieces and sew them together.  And Oswiry was never supposed as an historical person in an actual time and place. 

DD
No, Allah is not the same god seen from another angle nor is Brahma, they
were not God and became man for us. They did not die and resurrect for us to have eternal life. Not one single god ever did that, so I don’t agree with your summery.

YOS
Say rather that the muslims and Hindus do not see the complete picture rather than that they see other gods.  If there is a God, there can be only one.  Hence, if others catch a [possibly distorted] glimpse it must be a glimpse of that one God.  See the Catechism of the Catholic Church for details. 

DD
Am I correct is saying that you feel there is a universal force and all
people’s gods are the same?

YOS
No.  That their understandings of the one God are different and possibly garbled. 

@Leo
I understand, but it amused me to note that those atheist philosophers who have given the matter serious thought cannot derive from their atheism the moral law which Christians believe lies in everyone’s hearts (Romans 2).  The “English flatheads” derided by Nietzsche were the English atheists who supposed they could dispense with Christianity and still retain Christian mores.  This is what Stanley Fish called “smuggling in theology” through the back door. 

A Deist is an atheist who believes in God.

* Part three goes on to say that the Catholic Church regards the Muslims with esteem, and then continues by describing some of the things Islam has in common with Christianity and Catholicism: worship of One God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, Merciful and Omnipotent, Who has spoken to men; the Muslims’ respect for Abraham and Mary, and the great respect they have for Jesus, whom they consider to be a Prophet and not God. The synod urged all Catholics and Muslims to forget the hostilities and differences of the past and to work together for mutual understanding and benefit.
Leo,
OK, Is this not exactly what I was posting? I know they have respect for Jesus and hold Mary in high esteem, but as a Prophet not a God. So you agree with this # 3 that they were Prophets but not the one true God?

YOS, No you are completely wrong on my post! I believe in One God. I actually agree totally with your last post! ONE GOD many gods….

I am Roman Catholic

I wrote a response to this - actually directed to the Hawkings remark - here: http://jandyongenesis.blogspot.com/2010/06/hawking-science-works.html

The gist is that science does work! We must decide WHICH science(s) to use when studying Genesis, which is foundational to all of the Bible and biblical faith. Appropriate sciences are cultural anthropology, linguistics and migrations studies. These fully support the biblical record!

@Mrs. Dunn: You stated that “Allah is not the same [G]od seen from another angle,” my point was merely that NA seems to disagree.  I’m not trying to provoke an argument, just to give Muslims their due.

@YOS: First of all, that’s quite an interesting definition of Deism!  Second, I wholeheartedly agree with you on the tendency of serious atheists to fail in giving adequate accounts of morality or goodness.  BTW, have you read Alasdair MacIntyre’s “After Virtue”?

@DD
I understand.  I was trying to point out that if there really is only one God, then other folks are not seeing other gods, but only partial glimpses—perhaps even distorted glimpses—of that one God. 

This is not true of the ancient pagans, who raised mere things—thunder, sunshine, etc.—to the status of gods and gave them sacrifice in the hope of placating them.  That was mere superstition, and by Paul’s day, the Greeks had pretty much figured that out and were groping for the God behind the gods.  The Romans, whose native gods were much stranger, had adopted the Greek gods and were caught in the same philosophical trap.

@Leo
No I have not, but perhaps I will look for it. 

For the full monty on that argument, I cut and pasted from here:
http://m-francis.livejournal.com/148010.html

@YOS: Thanks for the link.  I strongly urge you to get the book, perhaps from a library.  If nothing else, it was one of the two or three most influential books on moral philosophy written in the last half-century.  For a similar argument, you might also try G.E.M. Anscombe’s article “Modern Moral Philosophy” (link below).

http://www.philosophy.uncc.edu/mleldrid/SzCMT/mmp.html

I teach college Philosophy and Ethics and require my students to read Anscombe, one of the most balanced and brilliant philosophers of the 20th century.

The proof for an afterlife are not a matter of science, but of historical record. Scientists love to argue about things they cannot proove or disprove due to the limitations of the scientific method, but they have absolutely no grasp of historical record, especially ones that are observed by eyewitnesses, ironic given that scientists require observational evidence to proove things, yet ignore it, and yet believe in evolutionary fantasies that have never been observed and can never be tested or even given a rational explanation for.

The first thing to do is show non-believers and so called agnostics that they have no ‘neutral ground’ on the matter of origins, they have nothing whatsoever, and fill that gap with made up stories that are more appealing to them despite lack of any scientific grounds and contradiction of emperical evidence. There is no purely naturalistic explanation for the existence of anything whatsoever! Any event being set into motion requires a Prime Mover who is Himself unmoved and the beginning of motion to set any event in action. Also unscientifically verifiable things such as logic, thought, love, etc. that we all admit exist based on intuition and our conscience offer significant grounds that their origin must also spring form a source that has all this in abundance. It is therefore a scientific statement that the source of all that is must be something that posesses all these things as a prime cause that must be extraordinarily greater than the effects. This is defined as ‘God.’ The fact anything exists at all testifies to this being.

Turning back to the record of History and eyewitness testimony we can know that the Catholic Church exists and we know with certainty its record stretching all the way back wit its martyrs saints, mystics, miracles, triumphs and failures which testify of and center around events of serious significance, belonging to its founder, Jesus Christ. Christ made proclamations of who He was, that He knew God, that He was God, and then proved it by His death and Resurrection, giving strong testimony to the afterlife and knowledge of that afterlife and humanity’s role in it. There is no other religion or system that can match this. And anyone who unbiasedly examines and critiques this will have to conclude that there is at the very least nothing to contradict it, but the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor that such events are indeed true, or else, everything that historically happened afterwards is completely irrational and makes no sense for no reason whatsoever. But doubter, atheists and agnostics conveniently ignore this historical record and others like it that involve the miraculous. The most recent example of historical precedence was the Miracle a Fatima, to which thousands testified to its truth including atheists and communists too who were dumbfounded!

The fact is that we know there is a God is because He took the trouble to reveal Himself several times over from eyewitness testimony from the Old Testament to the New Testament, to the Church records of saints, mystics and apparitions several times over. But all this is brushed aside and conveniently ignored by sceptics who assume without reason that they are without merit or fabrications despite all the evidence to the contrary and despite having no evidence to contradict any of it.

Christ knows what mankind is like and ultimately left it up to their own belief to be saved or not. He isn’t bothered in answering questions where the answers are obvious. It is no use to convince men who are determined not to believe. An atheist once said that even if a miracel were to happen before him of such extravagance, he would not believe it, preferring to always defer to a faith based proposition that someday someone will discover a naturalist explanation for it. So not even miracles that defy nature will be of any use to men such as these. They are committed to a rival system of beliefs, that promises answers that cannot be known and that someday will come, no different from what they accuse Christians of when they believe in an afterlife and Christ’s Second Coming.

The irony is nothing whatsoever to do with science. What they refer to as ‘science’ is really a competing religious philosophy, often accompanied with its own scientifically unverifiable naturalistic and materialist dogmas with scientists and phds as the priestly authority with everchanging, revised and updated textbooks as sacred scriptures that they proclaim as inerrant, until the next edition which may clarify or completely discard older supposedly ‘factual’ beliefs. So they are really saying that “Our religion works, yours doesn’t” but out of all religions, theirs is the one that least works, offers no hope for the sufferring, offers no consistent meaning for ones existence or life, and is really only one that can be apreciated by the upper classes or the well-to-do because it’s of no worth to the downtrodden and suffering man, and offers no reason to follow any code of morality, if they can even define one that is meaningful in their own system of belief. The fact that what they believe in changes on a whim given some new ‘evidence’ that requires a new interpretation shows that it is wholly unreliable and grounded in nothing that is certain.

Science is a method that gives you data. But this data is interpreted to fit the ideology and philosophies of men, and those are and always will be assumptions, never facts, but beliefs about things they cannot ever observe or test emperically because it is scientificaly impossible.

Let me start by saying that I am Catholic and hold to the faith.

“Science works, religion doesn’t” is, I believe, a slogan that grows out of the apparent ineffectiveness of prayer in solving problems. The most obvious situation is medical: If I have an illness or injury and pray for healing, it is probably not going to make the illness or injury go away. In fact, if it did, we’d call it a miracle and it would be a source of wonder. On the other hand, using the discoveries of science might well heal the injury or cure the disease.

Millions prayed for deliverance from the Black Death, and died. Science can cure the bubonic plague with antibiotics. I’m pretty sure sort of thing is the source of the slogan.

Johnno Thank you!

Johnno.  I normally try to show a little restraint and temperance in these discussions.  In this case, I’ll show the same degree of temperance that you did.  First, I’m assuming you picked up on my earlier posts about life after death.  Leo and I had a very interesting conversation, and while we still had a difference of opinion the exchange was interesting and enlightening to us both.  I personally learned a lot.  In that discussion I tried to convey that life after death can’t be proven beyond subjective human experiences (i.e., dreams, revelations, etc.).  Maybe these things really are proof of an afterlife.  Maybe they’re just dreams or physiological responses to trauma (in the case of NDE).  Because we can’t independently verify or reproduce the phenomenon or make testable predictions (I’ll assume you understand what I mean by that), we can’t be certain.  We can either withhold judgment (and belief) until we have more conclusive evidence.  Or we can rely on faith, which is equally subjective.  I choose the former.  You, apparently, choose the latter.  As for “evolutionary fantasies” you, my friend, are simply wrong.  Biological evolution and the underlying genetic and environmental basis for it are well understood and well documented.  Both in the modern world and in the fossil record, I might add.  The presumption that evolution happens has formed the basis for many technologies that could only work if evolution were true.  For instance; agriculture, antibiotics (medicine), dog (and livestock) breeding, etc.  Even the search for oil and precious metals is based on an evolutionary understanding of life.  in particular, oil, which has a biological origin.  Again, these practices and technologies wouldn’t work if the fundamental assumptions of evolution weren’t true.  Are you so staggeringly ignorant of what’s happening in the world around you that you think scientists are basing a vast, multidisciplinary effort (that yields fruit, by the way) based on a lie they perpetuate just to avoid belief in god?  This is silly.  No, it’s ridiculous.  Saying it hasn’t been observed or verified isn’t enough, Johnno.  Please demonstrate, in some detail, why any of the things I said are wrong.  Now, that said, there are many, many scientists (and many Catholics) who accept both god (on faith) and evolution (on the basis of evidence).  The two are not incompatible or mutually exclusive.  Your apparent need to a literal interpretation of Genesis and, in particular, the Old Testament, indicates you might have some Protestant leanings.  This is NOT meant to offend any Protestants out there.  Just an observation.  My point is that “science” is not a rival religion competing with god.  It’s a way of approaching reality and acquiring/processing information.  I’m a professional scientist, and I’m sorry to say your understanding of the process is pretty off-base.  And no, Johnno, scientists do not proclaim to be “inerrant”.  I’m sorry, but here you’re either extraordinarily ignorant or just lying.  A FUNDAMENTAL tenant of science is that all claims and all information must be subjected to continuing scrutiny.  This is exactly what science does.  A new technological breakthrough might enable further investigation (for example, a new machine for sampling the environment).  This, in turn, will lead to updated and revised knowledge.  If scientists really did claim to be inerrant, this would never happen.  but it does.  And it’s this way of approaching information that has allowed up to achieve our present level of technology.  No doubt you enjoy the benefits of science even while disparaging the people (and the process) that gave it to you.  Do you, or someone you know, owe their life to a medical breakthrough?  That life-saving capability wasn’t invented by someone who thought science was a foolish, unreliable enterprise designed to reject god.  You owe every profession scientist, regardless of their religious affiliation (because there are many believers among them), an ENORMOUS apology.  As for the “historical” evidence.  Eyewitness accounts of people who lived thousands of years ago, preserved only in the written record of their particular religion are naturally suspect.  Even the more recent Fatima apparition only demonstrates that (possibly) something happened.  The camera is never rolling, and the miracles never seem to happen in the laboratory.  I know you think this is because god wants us to exercise faith and free will.  But the pagans also experienced apparitions and apparent miracles that grounded their own belief.  And these were equally subjective.  How is this any different?  Am I saying it didn’t really happen?  No.  It very well could have.  It just seems to me that it doesn’t take much to convince you of something.  Wanna buy the Brooklyn Bridge, kid?  I’ll sell it to you for fifty bucks!  Of course, you don’t just believe anything you’re told.  Maybe just the things you want to believe are true.  Things that give hope and meaning to your life.  Things that make sense of a troubling world.  Talking on this blog has shown me that believers aren’t just deluded fools.  And I don’t think you’re a fool, either.  Believers are educated, intelligent and decent people who have a point.  But so are non-believers.  We aren’t the ugly stereotype you sometimes make us out to be.  As a non-believer, I entered this thread defending Mr. Shea.  please remember that (and please go back and read it).  And maybe bone up on your science a little…

Excellent post, Johnno.

The supposed randomness of the universe and creation of life that many atheists hold is nonsensical. If the universe and creation of life is random, then their thoughts are too…..

liseux, so good to hear the voice of reason again~

Again I fall back on “Create something from nothing.”, make your own dirt, not the dirt God used to make Adam.

What more proof then 70,000 people witnessing the sun spin and dance at Fatima?

Johnno, u still rock.

James George is just plain wrong on several counts: People were finding oil long before evolutionary biology, or geology were being taught in our universities. So were exploring for precious gems, gold, were being mined, copper, bronze, steel,were being manufactured, coal was being mined,plants were being hybridized, animals were being bred. Electricity was running in our homes, telephones were being used, airplanes were flying. The list is endless…The progress of technology in no way depends on an “evolutionary” understanding of the universe. People have always known that things under go change over time: that is not the equivalent of an “evolutionary” understanding of the universe. Your just playing with words here. Just for the record, I’m a theistic evolutionist. 
  “Scientist do not proclaim to be inerrant”: Wrong again. Our current Global Warming debate is due in large part to the obstinate refusal of these “scientists” to admit that their theories may be wrong,and in fact they do think that they are “Inerrant”.

James George is just plain wrong on several counts: People were finding oil long before evolutionary biology, or geology were being taught in our universities. So were exploring for precious gems, gold, were being mined, copper, bronze, steel,were being manufactured, coal was being mined,plants were being hybridized, animals were being bred. Electricity was running in our homes, telephones were being used, airplanes were flying. The list is endless…The progress of technology in no way depends on an “evolutionary” understanding of the universe. People have always known that things under go change over time: that is not the equivalent of an “evolutionary” understanding of the universe. Your just playing with words here. Just for the record, I’m a theistic evolutionist. 
  “Scientist do not proclaim to be inerrant”: Wrong again. Our current Global Warming debate is due in large part to the obstinate refusal of these “scientists” to admit that their theories may be wrong, and in fact they do think that they are “Inerrant”.

Jim; sorry, but you misunderstood.  Yes, people have been discovering oil long before evolutionary theory was taught.  However, the modern petroleum industry DOES exploit knowledge about geological strata and the fossil record to locate oil reserves.  That was my point.  I guess you aren’t familiar with the petroleum industry.  The same goes for other precious metals.  Both industries keep geologists on the payroll, and these industries are far more effective because of that knowledge.  As for claims of inerrancy; you’re overlooking something important.  Individual scientists may believe strongly in their own positions (i.e., global warming, etc.), but others may disagree.  There is considerable debate in every scientific discipline.  This debate is healthy.  Eventually, new research puts old debates to rest and everyone moves on.  There was much debate about plate tectonics.  Only in the last two decades did new research and findings put the issue to rest (well, mostly).  When I refer to “science”, I’m talking about the discipline as a whole and over time.  Apparently, you don’t any scientists either.

Jim,

Man has a limited amount of knowledge, it is not the knowledge that God has.  We think way too much of ourselves and understand way less then we think we do.  What I don’t get is why someone who does not believe in God, capital G, is on here a Catholic site and arguing, not that I mind, I always love a debate, I just don’t get it.
Why, since u know there is no God would you waste your time trying to prove the negative?
I hope you one day will believe in God though, I really do~

Mrs. Dunn.  This is an open forum.  The whole point is debate and discussion.  If it were a private chat room I would stay away out of respect for the wishes of it’s members and, because I wasn’t invited.  Even thought I don’t accept the existence of God, I don’t try to insulate myself from people who have different opinions.  Interestingly, Christians are ever present on similar, athiest sites.  In my mind, they’re welcome.  For the record, I don’t “know” there’s no God.  I just know that there isn’t currently any evidence, beyond subjective human experiences, to verify the fact.  Therefore, I withhold judgement…but in doing so, I can’t (and don’t currently believe).

Well James, I am glad you are on here debating, I just hope for your sake that one day you come to realize that there really is a God.  We will all die one day and I would rather die believing, not just for the reason you stated to me earlier, but def out of fear. It is better to be safe then sorry~

D. Dunn, you indicate that fear is a driver for your belief.  You re-phrase Pascal’s Wager when you say “It is better to be safe then sorry”. 

But believing in God has never made people “safer”.  When a disaster occurs, it affects people equally, regardless of their belief.  While being part of mutually-supportive religious community has a positive impact on average logevity, so does being a part of any mutually-supportive community. 

But knowledge - real knowledge, not theological - CAN reduce fear.  How much do you fear aquiring a fatal infection when you cut yourself?  How much to you fear being swept up in a hurricane or otherwise hurt by random weather events?  How much do you fear that you or your loved ones will die in childbirth?  How many babies in your extended family died before reaching their first year?  Now, how do you think you would have answered those questions 500 years ago?

You probably live in a community that experiences less fear, on average, than at any time in human history.  Average global life expectancy is higher, infant mortality is lower, and the fraction of the global population involved in or displaced by war is lower.  Don’t get me wrong - I’m not saying it is good or even remotely satisfactory compared to what we could achieve.  But great strides have been made in reducing suffering and fear.

Do you think it is faith in God that got us here?  I rather think that our current relatively low level of fear is a result of our expanding knowledge - of the natural world, of other people and cultures, and of our place in a global community.  Humans are more likely to fear what they don’t understand - and visa versa.

I can’t help but conclude that God’s role in actually reducing fear is similar to that of a teddy bear or a rabbit’s foot - to provide imagined security.  But can’t we find a way to focus all that energy, all those resources, all that wealth on achieving REAL progress against the root causes of fear and suffering?

RickK, U misunderstood, my fear is that when I die if there is a God, which I believe there is, I would have rather believed than not.  I am not talking about fear in our everyday life, as well as fear is not the only reason I believe in God.
There is proof that God exists, ie:Fatima, Lourdes etc…
I fear many things, which goes against what God wants for us, but it does not mean that every bad situation or tragedy I blame on God.  I don’t need the proof that some need to validate their belief in God.
I believe in good and evil, I wonder, do you believe in evil?

James George: I do understand the fact that geologist were and are a necessary part of of the petroleum industry, but are you implying that people who take a literal interpretation of Genesis are incapable of being geologist,finding deposits of oil,minerals,or being animal husbandmen, or agronomists? I can’t believe you mean that.
The word evolution is frequently used without qualification. Are you saying that a belief in “Darwinian Evolution” is a necessary precursor to a successful career as a petro-geologist? I’ve seen this argument used before to insist that only people who are educated as evolutionists,(meaning Darwinian Evolutionists), are capable of functioning in our modern technological society. Recently this argument was made before the Texas Board of Education, ostensibly to exclude any teaching of Intelligent Design in textbooks-to insist that there is only one acceptable understanding of biology, that is the evolutionists view. The actual reason is much deeper and involves worldviews, secularism, the nature and sources of morality,“separation of Church and State” (find that in the Constitution), etc.
  Lastly, I am aware of how science works, all science is tentative, but that’s not my point. Many Scientists, the ones who get their names in the paper, are interviewed on TV, write books, understand science, and by extension themselves, as having the only road to “Truth”, and in that sense they do feel that they are “inerrant, infallible”, this arrogance is not something exclusive to some religious believers.

@ ARL
“I said the Church “failing institutionally” this is a reference to the Church hierarchy’s undeniable failure of leadership in the sexual abuse scandals.  “

Then science is a HUGE failure as well in that respect, since 1 out of 4 children in PUBLIC SCHOOLS (where religion has no word to say) in America are abused before the age of 18.
In this comparison then science works even worse than the ‘institutional failings’ of the Church, since public schools are RIGHT NOW abusing children and young people in higher number than some priests did in 30 years and 30 years ago… yes many many kids will be abused next yea in public schools, while people spit against priests who are probably already dead. Great way to ‘save the kids’ hey!

Then should we abolish public schools and public education?
Or should we abolish all newspapers for being biased and hiding abuses in schools?

Another example is the medical world, where also many abuses, mistakes and horrors take place…. Does this mean we should abolish healthcare?

These arguments against religion or the Church are frivolous and hypocrite. It’s like little kids saying ‘he started it’.

Of course no surprise that ‘new atheists’ come out with puerile arguments, the *Prophets of their religion*, the ‘divine Dawkins’ and the ‘divine Hitchens’ are masters at puerile and futile arguments.

Ismael, You can add 52 million babies that have been killed in their mother’s womb to the list!!!! That is abuse to baby, mother sometimes father.

“the modern petroleum industry DOES exploit knowledge about geological strata and the fossil record to locate oil reserves.” 

The fossil record was known before Darwin and Wallace came up with natural selection.  It is not necessary to suppose that [[new species emerge because populations breed to excess and the survivors in the ruthless competition for resources are marginally more fit]] in order to note the empirical relationship between strata and fossil types and the related existence of cap rocks to trap the oil.  One need not have any biological theory whatsoever to make empirical use of the data.  Cases are best not overstated. 

For that matter, it is good to maintain the distinction between the facts [evolution] and the theories proposed to explain those facts [Darwin’s natural selection, Kimura’s neutral selection, Shapiro’s information-theory model, Mendel’s genetics, epigenetics, etc.]

It takes more faith in to believe that life evolved from random events than to believe in an all-powerful God and in his revelation to us.

“It takes more faith in to believe that life evolved from random events than to believe in an all-powerful God and in his revelation to us.” 

If evolution proceeded from random events, there would be no coherence to the species and life would appear chaotic.  But there is no randomness to natural selection.  Quite the contrary, natural selection “points toward” the end of better fitness for a niche.  This is an indication of the telos in nature that Aquinas argued from in his Fifth Way. 

He did not make Paley’s probabilistic argument, in which God is reduced to a mere efficient cause in rivalry with other efficient causes in the world.  He argued from the **order** of the natural world. 

IOW, any scientific discovery of the order of the world is another evidence for the Aquinas’ Fifth Way.  That is, Darwin’s laws, to the extent that they are laws, are an argument in favor of God; whereas supposed exceptions to the order of the world are arguments against him.  Paley and his successors are victims of the post-Newtonian view of matter as “dead.”

Natural selection goes only so far to explain evolution within species. It cannot account for the sudden appearance of new species on the time line of fossils, nor can it account for one species evolving from another, as Darwin hoped fossil evidence would one day prove.

Ain’t happened.

I agree that Darwin’s “laws” support that God created the world and its creatures. Darwin was just finding the leftover fossil evidence.

Ye Old Statistician, you’re point is very well taken.  But please remember that when I originally said these things, I was responding to Johnno’s statement regarding “evolutionary fantasies that have never been observed and can never be tested or even given a rational explanation for”.  This statement led me to believe (perhaps erroneously) that he is an Old-Earth Creationist; i.e., someone who thinks the earth is 6,000-10,000 years old and that all life on earth was created at once, in its present form, over six literal days.  Obviously, if this were the case our geologic strata, fossil record and, yes, oil would be very different than what we actually observe.  There are Creationist arguments to the contrary, but they are based on an incomplete or inaccurate understanding of geology; in particular, the assertion that our entire fossil record and geologic column can be attributed to a single worldwide flood.  Now, let me be clear: I understand that a great many Catholics (including contributors to this post) accept evolution based on the evidence, and see no incompatibility with their faith.  Even the Holy Father has expressed that no such conflict exists.  In fact, some very important discoveries in this field were made by Catholic scientists.  Yes, a Creationist can work in the petroleum industry and locate oil.  However, they would need to square their beliefs with what they actually observe.  More than one former Creationist has entered the geosciences, gone to work in the industry, and been forced to change their minds.  At any rate, the reality of our geologic situation is just one example of the “proof” Johnno claims is lacking.  That was my point.  And I’m certain any Catholic (or other believer on this site) who accepts evolution on the basis of the evidence would have to agree.  And no, YOS, the rejection of Intelligent Design is NOT based on the presumption of inerrancy or secularism.  It is based on several facts:  First, when confronted with the unknown or (apparently) unexplained; you can’t just say “God did it”.  That’s lazy, and it doesn’t encourage further investigation.  And going from “I don’t know” to “I know God did it, and not just any God, but the God of Abraham” without covering any steps in between in staggeringly dishonest.  First, you have to demonstrate that, in the face of the apparent complexity of life, there really are only two options; God or natural, unguided evolution.  Next, you need to demonstrate that this creator is, indeed the God of Abraham and not Brahma or some other deity.  But Intelligent Design, by statement and implication, skips these steps and proceeds directly from an unknown to a detailed explanation without providing any body of intermediate supporting evidence to get you there.  More importantly (and this is really, really important); science isn’t just a body of knowledge.  Not really.  Science is the process and methodology used to arrive at that knowledge.  And a big part of the process is not just to observe, record, measure, independently verify and reproduce.  An essential (and required) part of any scientific theory is that it be falsifiable.  This means that not only must you be able to support it with evidence; but you must also be able to demonstrate specific ways in which the theory could be proven wrong.  In the case of evolution, this would include things like finding fossil humans in Cretaceous sediments, etc.  If you don’t have evidence to support your claim, and you don’t have some concrete and humanly possible way to falsify that claim, then it doesn’t meet the minimum definition of science.  The fact is; evolution is not incompatible with belief in God (all you theistic evolutionists out there feel free to back me on this one).  However, it IS incompatible with a literal interpretation of Genesis.  So what intelligent design is really trying to do is (by implication) dress up the Story of Genesis and attempt to pass it off as valid science.  Now, you might argue that Intelligent Design doesn’t specify who this “creator” is; however, when you look at the demographics of the movement it becomes obvious what’s happening here.  By the way, because evolution does not, in fact, deny the existence of God (or even comment on it one way or another) it can’t possibly be an attempt to impose a “secular agenda”.  Again, you need look no further than this post to see that many believers accept evolutionary science.  When you read Intelligent Design literature you get two things; first, a detailed rundown of just how complex even a simplest cell really is.  But unless you can demonstrate that life can’t possibly arise through natural processes, all you’ve done is state the obvious; that life is complex.  There’s a step missing here.  Next you get an explanation of the statistical improbability of life arising by chance.  Now just because something is improbable doesn’t mean it’s impossible.  If you have a 1 in 1,000,000 chance of something happening, and you make 1,000,000 attempts then, statistically, it will happen once (1 in 1,000,000, remember?).  There are literally billions and billions of star systems and planets in our universe.  This equates to billions and billions of “attempts” to produce life.  But we are the only planet (that we know of) that has produced life, which is consistent with the idea that while the rise of life through natural processes in possible, it is statistically unlikely, and therefore, extremely rare; much like winning the lottery.  This is the reason why Intelligent Design is rejected in schools.  And it’s also the reason why it’s rejected, sometimes vocally, by some Catholic thinkers…

ARL, here’s a thought.  If you have a wife and you see her cooking dinner, it means that you have a prior relationship with her.  You met, dated, fell in love and got married.  This implies days, weeks, months and years (20 very happy ones for me, by the way) of life together.  During this time both of you (hopefully) have demonstrated your love for one another.  When you lost your job and she stayed up all night reassuring and supporting you; that was a demonstration (shall I say, evidence) of her love.  When you got sick and she argued with the Doctor about your treatment because she was worried about you; or when she rode with you in the ambulance and slept in a cot next to your hospital bed for two days; she was demonstrating (again, this is a form of evidence) that she loves you.  Every act of support and personal sacrifice that married couples give to one another is “evidence” of their love.  Now if you come home and find your spouse in bed with something else you would, rightly, draw the conclusion that they didn’t love you or, in the very least, didn’t value your marriage commitment.  My point is this; empirical evidence isn’t just something you do in the lab.  It’s something we do every day just by seeing and hearing things, reading books or even just talking to people.  We collect information all the time.  We see cause and effect at work, and we make “testable predictions” that guide our future actions.  When you touch a hot stove and get burned you observe that touching a live burner is very, very painful.  You make the “prediction” that if you touch that glowing red element again, the same thing will happen; and you would be right!  In this sense, we are all “empiricists” and “scientists”.  We don’t always appreciate that what we call “common sense” is actually (1) observation, (2) drawing conclusions from repeated observations, (3) seeing cause and effect relationships, and (4) making decisions based on the information we’ve gained.  It just happens so quickly and instinctively for people living in the world and experiencing it with all of our senses that we don’t recognize it as a formal process of reason.  Scientists, on the other hand, have formalized this process via the scientific method.  And modern science tackles more complex and less obvious issues like atomic theory and genetics.  Obviously, it takes more data and (often) specialized equipment and facilities to do this sort of work.  But at its heart; it’s little different from touching that hot burner.  Now, this has nothing to do with the existence or non-existence of God.  This applies equally to believers and non-believers alike.  And this sort of thinking is not opposed to, or mutually exclusive of, either religion or the belief in God.  However, part of this process is also making sure we have enough information and that we’ve eliminated other possible alternatives to the conclusion we’ve reached.  For instance, a believer might say that since we exist; there must have been a creator (First Cause).  They take it as self-evident (I’ve seen this view expressed often).  However, have other possibilities been considered and eliminated?  At least, the more obvious ones?  If not, we’re basing the “self evident conclusion” not so much on what we’ve found in the way of evidence, but on our lack of knowledge.  By this I mean upholding gaps in our knowledge as proof of God; when all it really proves is that we don’t know something.  Of course, believers will say that there are other ways to “know” things (i.e., faith, personal revelation, etc.).  I can respect that.  But whatever we conclude about God; believers and non-believers alike can agree that evidence and empirical data does play a role (and has a place) in our lives.  Even if we disagree on exactly what that role is (or should) be…

Scobyn23: As a theistic evolutionist I have no problem with evolution, but I would like to recommend a book to you, “Signature in the cell”, Stephen Meyer.There is much more going on here than you give credit for. Brian Greene writes in his book, “The Fabric of the Cosmos”,” As for what concepts take over (on the Planck scale)one possibility that jibes with the explanation above for how string theory meshes quantum mechanics and general relativity is that the fabric of space on the Planck scale resembles a lattice or grid with the “space” between the grid lines being outside the bounds of physical reality.” (pg. 350-51) Now that is metaphysics. While Greene is certainly no religious believer, as far as I know he’s an agnostic or atheist, the statement points to the basic problem of naturalism.
  Francis Collins, William Dembski, Michael Behe, and many more have moved from a position of naturalism to one seeing the need of something outside of the natural universe to uphold it all.

“a great many Catholics (including contributors to this post) accept
evolution based on the evidence” 

Heck, Augustine said so 1500 years ago. 

“It is therefore, **causally** that Scripture has said that **earth** brought forth the crops and trees, in the sense that it **received the power** of bringing them forth.  In the earth from the beginning, in what I might call the roots of time, God created what was to be in times to come.  (De Genesi ad literam, Book V Ch. 4:11

“when confronted with the unknown or (apparently) unexplained; you can’t just say ‘God did it’.”

“We marvel at something when, seeing an effect, we do not know the cause.  And since one and the same cause is at times known to certain people and not to others, it happens that some marvel and some do not.”
(St. Thomas Aquinas, On the truth of the catholic faith against the gentiles) 

“[They say] ‘We do not know how this is, but we know that God can do it.’ You poor fools! God can make a cow out of a tree, but has He ever done so? Therefore show some reason why a thing is so, or cease to hold that it is so.” (William of Conches)

“I propose here… to show the causes of some effects which seem to be marvels and to show that the effects occur naturally…  There is no reason to take recourse to the heavens, the last refuge of the weak, or demons, or to our glorious God, as if he would produce these effects directly…” (Nicole d’Oresme, Bishop of Lisieux, De causa mirabilium)
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“Next, you need to demonstrate that this creator is, indeed the God of Abraham and not Brahma or some other deity.”

Not as difficult as it may seem, if one employs logic and reason. 

+ + +
“Intelligent Design…” 

People like Paley, Behe, Dawkins, etc. make the same basic errors of metaphysics.  Current “ID” is theologically unsound long before it is scientifically falsified. 

“Falsifiability” has been adopted so warmly that I wonder how many know that Popper’s programme was to sabotage the notion of positivist scientific certainty.  Geocentrism was “falsified” by Aristotle and Archimedes.  Darwinian evolution cannot be falsified. 

“In the case of evolution, this would include things like finding fossil humans in Cretaceous sediments, etc.” 

Not so.  One of the following would be accepted. 
1. It is redeposition of fossils.
2. It is dated mistakenly.
3. It is fraudulent. 
4. It is evidence of time travel. 
5. Our earliest ancestor appeared far earlier than once thought. 

Notice that all examples of “possible falsifications” are essentially absurd, and involve events too outré to be taken seriously. 

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“then it doesn’t meet the minimum definition of science.”

But neither metaphysics nor mathematics are natural science, and there is no reason why they should be. 

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“Now, you might argue that Intelligent Design doesn’t specify who this “creator” is; however, when you look at the demographics of the movement it becomes obvious what’s happening here. By the way, because evolution does not, in fact, deny the existence of God (or even comment on it one way or another) it can’t possibly be an attempt to impose a “secular agenda”.

However, when you look at the demographics of the evolutionist movement it becomes obvious what’s happening here. Sauce for the goose.  The atheist Michael Ruse once usefully distinguished between creation and creationism and between evolution and evolutionism.  Mary Midgley wrote a nice book, _Evolution as a Religion,_ which she dedicated to Charles Darwin, “who never said such things.” 

It would not be fair to judge a scientific theory based on the believes of laymen who champion it.  That some atheist object to the Big Bang and theists generally accept it does not make the Big Bang theory true or false. 

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“And it’s also the reason why it’s rejected, sometimes vocally, by some Catholic thinkers…” 

Almost.  What’s rejected is the “argument from probability,” which is invalid.  “Creation” and “design” in theology have different meanings than the common usage.  In terms of the Clarinet Concerto in A, the analogy is Sharon Kam:clarinet::God:evolution.

Excellent article, Mark!

I’d like to suggest another angle.  The slogan may mean:  “Science works, magic doesn’t.”  C.S. Lewis - and others - have pointed out that modern science emerged at a time when intellectuals were deeply involved in the occult as a way to gain control over nature.  (A good example is Paracelsus who blended occult practices with experimental medicine.)  In the long run, of course, experimental science “worked” while magic faded. 

The Catholic Church is on the side of science in as much as we have always opposed the occult.  But many people confuse our belief in the efficacy of prayer with “magic.”

Genesis asserts a fixed order in creation that involves God-established boundaries between God and Man and between Man and other creatures. Catholics will have to decide how and/or whether this biblical claim is true.

“We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary” Pope Benedict XVI, Sermon at the Mass for the inauguration of his pontificate. “Evolution has become a first philosophy, that claims to explain the whole of reality.“Cardinal Christoph Schonborn, Introduction to Creation and Evolution.
  In a previous post I said that the real debate between “evolution and ID” is one of opposing world views. A secular world view uses a purely materialistic theory of evolution to promote the idea that humans are just another animal, having no “unique intrinsic” value of their own. As such we are our own “superman” autonomous,self-creating, and self-ruling. We decide what is right and wrong. Man is just a blank tablet. If we promote abortion, so be it, if we promote capital punishment, so be it. Sex out of wed-lock, same-sex marriage, wars, whatever. Supposedly the only caveat is “don’t hurt others”-says who? If a person can muster enough votes to send illegal immigrants to a Gulag, who’s to say it’s bad. You may say it’s inhuman, who are you? Just another voice amongst all the other babble. There is no measuring stick. Non. Survival of the species, so what? What right do we have to exist that super-cedes the right of any other species? Maybe we should be extinct. Do words like “rights”, “should” have any meaning in philosophical context that denies any and all “purpose”, “meaning”?
A completely materialistic understanding of evolution, and be extension all of reality, leads to exactly this end.
ID is not theologically bankrupt.It’s silly to even say so. Wisdom 13: 1-9, Wisdom 11:20, Gen: 1-10,this list is endless. You need to re-think that.
Here are two more reading suggestions: “Chance or Purpose” Christoph Cardinal Schonborn, “Creation and Evolution”,A conference with Pope Benedict XVI in Castel Gandolfo.

YOS; the presence of an authentic human population that clearly originated in the Cretaceous, coupled with indicators of human interactions with dinosaurs, etc.; one that places humans ahead of their supposed primate ancestors and which exists completely outside of any apparent evolutionary lineage leading up to it in the fossil record (especially considering that other life forms DO show such a progression) would blow holes in the idea of human evolution.  Let me explain:  First, to say that human ancestors (and by that I mean hominid ancestors) could simply reflect the redeposition of fossils presents some compelling problems.  To begin with, it would be very difficult to “redeposit” a younger fossil into an older sediment.  The older sediment has already mineralized; there really isn’t any way to de-mineralize it to allow a later fossil to become “redeposited” for want of a better term.  Right off the bat, finding a human fossil in Cretaceous sediment would most certainly throw up some red flags.  Now, there are processes where new sediments accumulate over an uneven surface and fill in the depressions; creating the impression of two adjacent layers protruding into each other, but this can be easily identified because the sediments are of differing composition and accumulate through differing processes.  Even so, there’s another problem.  The dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago.  That’s 64 million years before the first hominids.  In geologic terms, that’s a hell of a lot of sedimentary layers between the two species.  There’s no way (even by the process listed above) that a Quaternary sediment would come in contact with a Cretaceous sediment (too much in-between) without clear and evident signs of dynamic, morphological processes (such as folding, etc.).  Even then, the fossil human would very clearly belong to a later strata.  No mystery here.  When a fossil “belongs” to its strata, you can tell.  Not just by the mineral composition of the fossil itself, but by its surroundings.  Furthermore, sediments are more than just rock.  They’re indicators of the environment present at the time (desert, shallow inland sea, etc.; these things are very different in that they produce and leave different sediments).  And they’re also indicators of the life present at that particular time.  Not surprisingly, marine sediments contain fossils of marine life.  You don’t find fossil elephants that originate in marine sediments any more than you find whales in desert sediments.  The fossil environment is consistent with the fossil environment it’s found in.  Which leads to my next point.  Humans are primates.  There is substantial genetic (and fossil) evidence to support that.  In fact, the fossil records documents hominid evolution quite nicely.  We can see the emergence of the earliest primates and their evolution through time (as revealed in successive strata).  This is so consistent across the entire planet that any deviations would stand out like a nuclear blast.  A human fossil that “belongs to” and clearly “originated in” the Cretaceous would most certainly falsify evolution because it would have humans existing before their supposed ancestors!  Discovering a consistent pattern of human population and distribution; complete with artifacts such as tools and burial goods, or indications of interactions with dinosaurs, etc.; the presence of any of these things would certainly be an indication that human evolution is, at least, deeply flawed.  As for the idea that a fossil is dated mistakenly, well, you’re right; that is pretty far-fetched considering all the factors that MUST come together to date it correctly.  In any event, we’re talking about a difference of 64 million years, YOS.  Of course, the fossil could be fraudulent.  This would be identifiable because it would show numerous signs of it; consider the problems of dating and placement I’ve already addressed.  Another good example is Piltdown man, which was a outright hoax.  That hoax didn’t survive even basic scientific scrutiny, and it was the scientific community that exposed it.  At any rate, faking an authentic Cretaceous burial and fossilization would be pretty much impossible.  Of course, as you’ve said; it could be an indication of time travel.  This is clearly pretty wonky.  However, consider this.  Humans do exist in the fossil record; not in the Cretaceous but in the Quaternary, where they belong.  There are many hominid and human fossils; just like there are many dinosaur fossils in their respective periods.  If human fossils were found in the Cretaceous; if humans were a viable species in that period, we’d very likely find more of them.  We sure find a lot of dinosaurs.  After all, why would humans be fossilized in great numbers in the Quaternary but not in the Cretaceous?  And you’d probably find artifacts and indications of burials, etc.  Why would humans leave artifacts now but not then (relatively speaking).  You might even find human remains in coprolites (fossilized dung).  No creature lives in isolation in their environment.  There are always clear signs of the interaction.  Finally, to say that maybe our earliest ancestor appeared earlier than previously thought presents a problem.  First, the entire chain of primate evolution would need to shift backwards in time.  We can’t have humans in the Cretaceous and primates in the Quaternary.  That’s putting the cart before the horse, and it would seriously damage the reliability of evolution as a means of explaining human development.  Remember, a LARGE range of factors need to be consistent and present, both spatially and temporally, to properly date a fossil.  Any deviation from this would have enormous implications for the science.  And no, YOS, metaphysics is not science; so let’s not try to dress it up as science and pass it off a such.  Teach it in a separate class.  And no, mathematics isn’t ‘science” either, but it’s a tool of science; hell, it’s a tool for quantifying any and everything.  But that doesn’t change the fact that intelligent Design misuses probability.  Again, why try to pass it along as a science?  Finally (my hand hurts), you say that the “creator” of Intelligent Design can be identified as the God of Abraham using logic and reason.  You make this claim and completely fail to back it up with any sort of explanation.  Is there a reason for that?  Now I do agree with you that intelligent Design can be rejected on the basis of Argument from Probability.  That was kind of my point.  However, it is also suspect for the other reasons I mentioned.  And yes, some Catholic thinkers (especially those with the appropriate disciplinary backgrounds) DO reject it for these reasons as well.  Father George Coyne, Director of the Vatican Observatory, rejects it for a variety of reasons; some of which neither of us have identified.

Jim, thanks for the book recommendation!

“ID is not theologically bankrupt.It’s silly to even say so. Wisdom 13:
1-9, Wisdom 11:20, Gen: 1-10,this list is endless. You need to re-think
that.” 
 
There is a sort of bait-and-switch that goes on with ID that plays off the equivocation of “intelligent” and “design.”  But ID the scientific theory is a specific set of hypotheses, not a blanket statement that the world is created.  Creation has nothing to do with evolution.
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“Humans in the Cretaceous.”

The fact that one must resort to absurd “falsifications” like this merely emphasizes the essentially unfalsifiable nature of the theory.  As it stands, no one must even demonstrate an actual evolutionary pathway.  All they need to is pick a trait for a modern species and tell a “Just-So Story” of how it came about.  There need be no evidence that it did in fact come about in such a way.  People like Gould and Orr were very impatient with that sort of “adaptationism.”  A truly scientific falsification would be to identify some trait or organ that could not possibly have evolved via natural selection; i.e., through the competition for resources among conspecific breeding to the utmost. 

And you misjudge the ability of the true believer to dismiss contrary evidence.  Redeposition may not make much sense; but it need not.  It need only be asserted repeatedly.  Science by Consensus.  Beside, the Prof. X is a closet creationist and planted the fossil” is a much easier sell.  Remember Piltdown Man! 
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And no, YOS, metaphysics is not science; so let’s not try to dress it up as science and pass it off a such. 

YOS
I wouldn’t.  Scientists are notoriously inept at metaphysics.  One should never let amateurs teach such things. 

JG
And no, mathematics isn’t ‘science” either, but it’s a tool of science; hell, it’s a tool for quantifying any and everything. 

YOS
Mathematics is a field in and of itself.  That natural sciences aside from Darwinian theory find it useful is fine.  But its methodology is deductive, like metaphysics; not inductive like physics. 

JG
you say that the “creator” of Intelligent Design can be identified as the God of Abraham using logic and reason.  You make this claim and completely fail to back it up with any sort of explanation.  Is there a reason for that? 

YOS
Insufficient space in a commbox.  Aquinas spent some 500 pp developing it.  To abbreviate the argument would leave too many leaps.  But if you wish: it can be shown deductively from the contingency of material being that a being must exist whose essence just is its existence.  We can call this being Existence Itself.  If it could talk, it would call itself I Am.  Which the G of Abe did.  Further, it can be shown deductively that such a being must be purely actual; and from this it follows that there can be only one, that it is immaterial, that it is eternal, that it is outside of space and time, that it is the first cause of all powers (hence, all power-full) and the source of all goods (hence all-good).  And since one of these powers is human reason, and there must be in the cause something analogous to the effect, there must be in the Being of Pure Act something analogous to reason: intellect and will.  Given that, then this God realizes as the subject of the two predicates and as the object of each.  That is, God as knower and known, God as lover and beloved.  The subject being the same we call the Father, as the object of knowing, the Word; as the object of desire, the Spirit.  Because he is purely actual, each of these three is fully realized, even though there is only one. 

I mean, this is shaping up pretty much in like with the traditional God, ne c’est pas?  I’ve had to omit the details and am just sketching in a fairly long and detailed serial argument.  Hope it helps.

YOS; there’s nothing wrong with the concept of falsification I described.  It’s a requirement of all scientific branches; even the ones you agree with.  And it’s an accepted requirement by Catholic scientists as well (there’s some good Jesuit literature on this).  As for the evolutionary pathway; it’s not just one “trait” that defines the progression, but a whole set of interconnecting traits, from brain size to the development of binocular vision to upright walking that corresponds to the smallest functional changes in foot morphology, etc.  And these complex, interrelated changes (seen in stages in the fossil record) correspond to appropriate changes in the surrounding physical environment (and we can observe how similar organisms respond to these change today in modern environments).  Yes, it would be one thing to cherry pick a single trait in isolation without respect to anything else, but I’m sorry YOS; that’s not what happens.  As for the organ issue; your whole argument seems to be: we don’t understand how organs or physical structures evolve now, so it must be impossible.  You’re setting yourself up for a fall should new scientific evidence emerge.  Powered flight was once thought impossible.  That’s the problem with basing a positive conclusion on a lack of evidence!  As it stands, there’s an ENORMOUS body of work on the very subject.  Just because you aren’t familiar with it doesn’t mean it’s not there.  As for redistribution; I had no idea you were a geologist!  Obviously, then, you’ve read the peer-reviewed literature.  In which case you know that scientists aren’t “asserting something repeatedly”.  They’re in a constant state of lively debate and are pressed to provide reams of supporting evidence.  Consensus is only reached when a claim consistently and repeatedly holds up to scrutiny and passes certain tests (i.e., getting consistent results from experiments, or being able to make accurate predictions about the future behavior of a substance based on what we propose is true about it).  Of course, you already know this, so I’m baffled that you brought it up here.  As for your logical argument; a few points.  First lets tackle “we can deductively from the contingency of material being that a being must exist whose essence just is its existence”.  Oh really, why?  Because we “deduced” it?  We can deduce a lot of things.  Is every deduction correct?  Why is this one correct and others not?  And how are we able to make critical distinctions about this deduction against alternatives?  Now let’s examine” Further, it can be shown deductively that such a being must be purely actual; and from this it follows that there can be only one, that it is immaterial, that it is eternal, that it is outside of space and time, that it is the first cause of all powers (hence, all power-full) and the source of all goods (hence all-good)”.  Again, how?  Why?  You take it as self-evident without answering these simple questions.  Holy (no pun intended) cow!  Talk about making repeated assertions!  I’m a little surprised that you aren’t seeing how this is what YOU are doing here.  I’ve been far from complete in my defense of evolutionary theory, but I’ve provided far more in the way of supporting argument for my “assumptions” than I’m getting from you.  It’s all very poetic, but without support, it’s empty.  Define “essence”.  Can we observe it?  Measure it?  Sample it?  Can we make testable predictions about the future behavior of this “essence” in response to certain stimuli.  Indeed, what stimuli (if any) are reactive with this essence? Do changes in adjacent physical matter alter this essence in any way?  You get the point.  I’m sorry if I’m being rough here, but these are valid considerations.  For the record; I’ll say it again.  I don’t claim that there isn’t a God.  I only say that there isn’t any evidence (beyond subjective human experience and, apparently, poetry) to support the claim.  Therefore, I withhold judgment.  In doing so, I don’t currently “believe”.  I bring this up again to avoid being accused of rejecting God outright, and to make it clear that I don’t think that “absence of proof is proof of absence”.  But the unknown is just that; the unknown.  We can’t fill it with angels and demons of our own making.

In other words, James George, you are agnostic. Viewing data through the agnostic lens does lead to conclusions such as your’s. Agnosticism is not objective in investigation of the data.

Alice; you may be right.  I may be agnostic.  But consider this; you can’t claim to “believe’ until you claim to “know”.  I claim no such knowledge, hence, I can’t believe.  That makes me an atheist.  By the way, I’m not sure how starting with the preconception of God and fitting everything else around that qualifies as “objective”, if that’s what you’re implying.  As I said, I don’t begin with the assumption that God doesn’t exist; just the (truthful) knowledge that there doesn’t appear to be any objective evidence to support it.  In the absence of evidence, I withhold judgment.  This sounds like the very definition of objective to me. To quote the dictionary: undistorted by emotion or personal bias; based on observable phenomena.

YOS; after my last post I was a little troubled.  I still agree with what I said, but I felt badly about my attack on your philosophy.  You see, we all experience life.  And we all experience moments when we catch a glimpse of something vast, beautiful and magnificent behind the facade of things.  These are profoundly personal and heartfelt experiences.  Is it God?  Jesus?  That doesn’t interest me, and I don’t try to answer the question.  It’s too much like trying to impose my own will upon the Universe.  I’d rather take it on its own terms; surrender to its will.  You see God.  So be it.  You see Jesus.  We all have our own relationship with the universe.  Jesus was no less a part of it.  I realize that the great philosophers also experienced this.  And, YOS, I understand that they devoted their entire lives to capturing and expressing it.  To discount their work is to discount their humanity; to make light of the tremendous feeling and power of their experiences.  To someone like you who has studied these things, and who has felt them and correlated them to your philosophies; my criticisms must seem ridiculous.  And you have a point.  You really do.  But YOS; there is also a world of form and structure.  Matter and energy.  It is not an illusion.  It is not peripheral to the truth.  It is the truth; as real as our feelings and experiences.  And philosophy.  First, let me say that science and religion (faith? spirituality?) are separate things.  No finding of science will ever prove or disprove the existence of God.  And no philosophy can tell us anything about the nature of physical reality.  I’ve made great pains to express how my lack of belief in a literal God is not based on any scientific knowledge.  Science DOES NOT have the power to do this.  Even if we did evolve through blind chance and out of nothing; this does not contradict or eliminate God in any way.  Perhaps it’s just the way God meant things to work.  Of course, many atheists think otherwise.  But they’re wrong.  That said; we need to understand that science and religion really are two different things.  YOS; you say a number of things about science that troubles me.  You maintain that scientists just make repeated assertions with no basis in reality.  You say this, apparently, to discredit science as a viable explanation for anything because you presume, wrongly, that is somehow competes with religion or the idea of God.  It doesn’t.  Or perhaps you say them to elevate philosophy as the only valid expression of truth.  But are you a scientist YOS?  Do you know any scientists?  Well, I AM a scientist.  And over the past twenty years I’ve personally known and worked with literally hundreds of scientists across the country, indeed, around the world.  I’ve seen firsthand how we, as scientists, take great pains to support our claims and test our conclusions.  I’ve seen cherished hypotheses discarded under the weight of competing evidence, and I’ve known the thrill of watching an idea “pass the test” and hold up to repeated scrutiny.  Science isn’t a passive exercise, YOS.  Its success (or failure) usually becomes readily apparent in practice.  As a meteorologist, I’ve spent several years developing techniques for making monthly and seasonal rainfall predictions on the U.S. Great Plains.  There were many dead ends and false leads but, eventually, I developed a method for making 30 to 90 day rainfall trend predictions with 90% accuracy.  This was based on what we already knew about the dynamics of the atmosphere and the climate system.  And it was checked against literally 60 years of data.  I still check it against current data every month (no scientific test ever really ends).  The fact that this technique works at all validates and verifies the presumed knowledge behind it.  Remember what I said about testable predictions?  This is an example.  Even when the technique doesn’t work, I can usually understand (and explain) why.  I can tell you with 90% certainly how next month’s rainfall will deviate from the climatological norm.  And I can tell you, in advance, when this technique won’t work.  No, it isn’t perfect.  But it’s still useful to a number of applications (agriculture, military planning, etc.).  And it is based on tested and proven concepts of how the environment operates.  This is just one example of the sort of work scientists do every day.  As a scientist working from the inside, your criticisms appear ridiculous and, simply, wrong; much like my criticisms of philosophy must seem to you.  The problem is that, as a scientist, I might try to evaluate philosophy in the same way I evaluate science.  That’s a mistake.  Philosophy is evaluated differently.  You, as a philosopher, may try to approach science as you do metaphysics.  This is also a mistake.  Science demands its own approach.  Both endeavors look ridiculous when they tread on each other’s territory.  We must approach each, like the Universe itself, on its own terms.  This thread was originally about science and religion.  I entered the debate defending Mr. Shea (and other believers) against what I saw as a thoughtless an unfair generalization (i.e., that science works, religion doesn’t).  Fairness is for everyone.  Not just the ones we agree with.  However, I couldn’t help but notice that Mr. Shea levied some equally ugly generalizations about non-believers as well.  As both a scientist and a non-believer I felt compelled to weigh in.  Neither one of us is the ugly stereotype we make each other out to be.  Individually, yes (there are many unpleasant and, frankly, repulsive people on both sides of the debate); but on the whole we’re all people with a full range of thoughts, feelings and life experiences.  If we could just remember that, life would be better.  The propagation of non-belief is not, in my opinion, a valid cause for atheists to undertake.  To presume that we can (or even should) enter the hearts and minds of all people and turn them to our way of thinking is not only unrealistic, but arrogant.  And it’s somewhat mean-spirited.  Everyone has their moment when the still, quiet voice (whatever they presume it to be) speaks to them.  To seek the elimination of this deeply personal and heartfelt exchange is, frankly, terrible.  A more appropriate cause would be to spread an interest and understanding of science and reason.  Like I said, belief and science are not mutually exclusive.  And this ongoing thread, alone, has demonstrated that scientific understanding is sorely lacking and badly needed.  The same goes for religious zeal.  I don’t think conversion is necessarily the best goal.  Short of coercion (which is wrong) this won’t always happen.  Believers should, instead, foster the sort of contemplation and self-examination that leads to the spiritual experience.  Even when you fail to gain a convert (be ready for this), at least you’ve expanded some horizons.  This is also needed, and it has its own inherent value.  In the process, we come to understand our shared humanity and stop playing the eternal “my way is better” game that plagues us as a species.  At any rate, I’ll be the first to apologize for what I feel was a somewhat reckless attack on your philosophy, even if still disagree with some of your conclusions.  However, these posts are very time-consuming (I tend to write novels).  It takes time away from my wife and family and other pursuits that need my attention.  I won’t be back unless something really catches my attention.  It’s been fun and I’ve learned a lot from all of you.  I hope you’ve learned from me too.  Goodbye.

First lets tackle “we can deductively from the contingency of material being that a being must exist whose essence just is its existence”. Oh really, why? Because we
“deduced” it? We can deduce a lot of things. Is every deduction correct?

YOS
Sure.  If the premises are true and the form is correct. 

As I said: it’s hard to condense hundreds of pages of close reasoning into a comm box.  Shall we try to explain Cramer’s transactional theory of quantum mechanics?  Milne’s kinematic theory of relativity?  Why should this be any simpler? 

Here’s the rough outline: 
Def.: A being is something that possesses existence. 
1. Nature comprises beings that are “generated and corrupted,” that is: come into being and pass out of being. 
2. Thus, nature comprises beings that are possible “to be or not to be.” 
3. That which is possible not-to-be at some time is not.
4. Therefore, contingent being could not always have existed. 
5. Therefore, if everything is possible not to be, then at one time there could have been nothing in existence.
6. That which does not exist cannot bring itself [or anything else] into being, because something that does not [yet] exist cannot act.  (As yet it is no thing.) 
7. Therefore, that which does not exist only begins to exist by something already existing.
8. But supposing secundum argumentum that at one time nothing existed, then nothing would exist today, which is absurd. 
9. Therefore, not all beings are contingent, but there must exist something the existence of which is necessary.
10. But every necessary being either has its necessity caused by another, or not.
11. It is impossible to go to infinity in necessary things which have their necessity caused by another (previously proven wrt efficient causes.) 
12. Therefore there must exist some being having *of itself* its own necessity, and not receiving it from another, but rather causing in others their necessity.
12. This is a being whose essence (nature) just is to exist.  Call it “Existence Itself.” 
14. Comment: to say that “Existence Itself does not really exist” is pretty iffy.
13. Existence Itself (“I AM”) is what men call God. (Why is it called God?  500 pages of detail.)
+ + +

“such a being must be purely actual; and from this it follows that there can be only one, that it is immaterial, that it is eternal, that it is outside of space and time, that it is the first cause of all powers (hence, all power-full) and the source
of all goods (hence all-good)”. Again, how? Why? You take it as self-evident without answering these simple questions.

YOS
I’ll sketch a few. 
1. Existence Itself cannot come into or pass out of existence. 
2. But everything material is contingent.
3. Therefore, Existence itself is immaterial. 

1. Time is the measure of change in contingent being.  (Say, cesium decay in a clock.)
2. But Existence Itself is a necessary being, not contingent. 
3. Therefore, Existence Itself is outside of time. 

1. Motion [or change] is the passage from being potentially X to being actually X. 
2. Everything that is moved is moved by another. 
3. In an essential series of movers, subsequent movers receive their power to move by the concurrent action of a prior mover.  E.g., the motion of the shoulders in a golf swing is due to the concurrent motion [contraction or expansion] of the muscles; these in turn to the concurrent motion of the nerves [electrical impulses]; and so on.  The clarinet receives it power to play Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A from the concurrent fingering and breathing of Sharon Kam, famous clarinettist.
4. Therefore, all intermediate movers [causes] can be regarded as “instrumental” causes.  Like the clarinet, they have no power to act, unless a prior cause is acting on them at the present time.
5. If there were no first mover in such a series, none of the “instruments” in an essential series would posses the power to act.  [“Prior” need not mean prior in time.  An eternal foot pressed into the eternal sand is the prior cause of the eternal footprint.  Even an infinitely forwarded email must have a first cause in the writing of the contents.] 
6. Therefore, for an essential series of movers, there must be a first mover. 

1. Suppose first mover were contingent.  Then there would exist some potency in it. 
2. But then it could be moved by another, and would not be a first mover. 
3. Therefore, the first mover is purely actual. 
4. Therefore, the first mover is the necessary being [above]

1. Suppose there were two beings of Pure Act.
2. Then, by the principle of identity, there must be something distinguishing them. 
3. Therefore, one would lack something which the other possessed. 
4. But a lack is a potency. 
5. Therefore, one of the two would not be Purely Actual. 

It goes on from there; and the details and illustrations have been mostly omitted; but this should give you an idea why I did not try to answer all those simple questions. 
+ + +

there’s nothing wrong with the concept of falsification I described.  It’s a requirement of all scientific branches; even the ones you agree with.

YOS
It’s modus tollens from formal logic.  Popper was consciously trying to undermine scientific certainty.  The problem is that a theory like heliocentrism could be falsified by Aristotle and Archimedes for a thousand years—and it still winds up true.  See Duhem’s essay “Some Reflections on the Subject of Physical Theories” (1892) for the weaknesses of Popperism.  Written before Popper!  Many conclusions of science—Newton’s division of light, Galileo’s lunar mountains, Harvey’s circulation of the blood—are not actually falsifiable.  White light =is= a spectrum; there really are mountains on the moon; the blood does circulate as Harvey said.  Heavy bodoes fall to earth at the rate of 32 ft/sec^2.  Species whose essences we grasp intuitively as similar prove on close examination to have very similar genomes. 

My objection to Popperism—strangely embraced by so many scientists—is that it reduces science from certain knowledge to educated opinion.  It is really only the physical =theories= that get falsified: Aristotle to Buridan to Newton to Einstein.
http://nekhbet.com/popper/index.html

+ + +
As for the organ issue; your whole argument seems to be: we don’t understand how organs or physical structures evolve now, so it must be impossible.

Yos
No.  “Impossible” is not the only alternative.  But I observe that not all physical motion is explained by gravity.  Electromagnetism plays a role.  (And the nuclear forces at the small scale.)  So it would not surprise me if there were other processes at work in evolution.  Kimura’s theory, Shapiro’s theory, epigenetics, etc. 

+ + +

Define “essence”. Can we observe it? Measure it? Sample it?  Can we make testable predictions about the future behavior of this “essence” in response to certain stimuli.

YOS
Why should we?  Can we measure love or justice?  How much does a right triangle weigh?  What is the length of beauty? 

An essence is a nature or form.  It is what a thing is.  It need not have existence (let alone length or weight).  Consider the essence of a unicorn.  You grasp what it is immediately.  But it does not exist. 

For inanimate physical objects the form or nature or essence can be grasped clearly.  Sodium and chlorine are made of the same stuff: neutrons, protons, and electrons.  But their natures differ because of their form; that is, the number and arrangement of these parts.  Notice that the form is an arrangement of physical parts but is not itself a physical part. 

The Moderns declared that there were no essences, but then acted as if there were.  Fortunmately.  If there was no essentially human nature, then in virtue of what are all men created equal?  Without formal causes, we could make no sense out of emergent properties.  Sodium and chlorine have properties that protons, neutrons, and electrons do not. 
+ + +

But YOS; there is also a world of form and structure. Matter and energy. It is not an illusion.

YOS
Of course.  You are very close to an Aristotelian-Thomist understanding there.

+ + +
And no philosophy can tell us anything about the nature of physical reality.

YOS
But it can tell us that there =is= a physical reality.  (You cannot empirically prove the existence of the physical world without circular reasoning.)  It tells us that physical bodies =have= natures.  It tells us that these natures can act directly upon one another as instrumental causes.  It tells us that the world is rationally ordered, and therefore accessible to human reason.  It tells us because there is telos, or finality in nature, that there are natural laws.  And so on. 

IOW, no science can deduce or prove its own assumptions.  It must assume them.  Natural science is no exception.  Philosophy supplies (or, in wicked hands, demolishes) those axioms. 

+ + +

But are you a scientist YOS? Do you know any scientists? Well, I AM a scientist. And over the past twenty years I’ve personally known and worked with literally hundreds of scientists across the country

YOS
Oh, my.  Argument from authority.  My degrees were in mathematics, the masters being in general topology.  I have worked primarily in applied statistics.  Oddly enough, I too have worked with hundreds of scientists.  A former fellow student and former employee is a cosmologist.  A colleague is a chemist.  I’ve consulted with NASA, IAEA, pharmaceutical, chemical, and other industries, although my personal interests have lain more toward the hard sciences - physics and its friends - than with squishy metaphysical things like theories of evolution. 

As the great statistician George E. P. Box once said: “All models are wrong.  Some are useful.”

YOS; thank you for answering my questions!  It seemed rude to just leave you hanging after taking the time to write it all out for me.  I think my previous (and not exactly final) post addresses where I stand with respect to these philosophical arguments.  Please refer to it again.  Obviously, all philosophies are attempts to describe observed aspects of the world/universe/etc.; with respect to a wide variety of experiences (even the subjective ones are powerful and very real; though often misinterpreted).  I still think you make way too many asserted conclusions that aren’t bridged appropriately.  But, oh well.  We’ll never get anywhere with that.  Incidentally, you still owe me an answer to how the logic you provided proves this creator you speak of is the God of Abraham; but that’s another story.  And no, YOS; I’m not arguing from authority.  But the things you said didn’t square with what I’ve observed in my own experiences as a scientist.  Like it or not, my own experiences are just as real and meaningful as yours ( I didn’t think we were in competition).  I was just establishing my qualifications to speak on the matter (science) from a first-hand perspective, and providing context for what I was going on to say next.  And I took great pains to cite, in detail, specific examples so that my argument could be judged on the merit of the information provided, and not simply on the fact that I was a scientist. Hopefully, you see this.  Statistics, huh?  Well,  that explains your screen name.  Awesome!  Are you teaching currently?  My degrees are in meteorology and physical geography (B.A./M.A.).  I’m working on the PhD (Natural Resource Science).  Who knows, I may even finish it!  Anyway, please take to heart the things I said about bridging the gap between belief/non-belief and the very real goodwill we should all hold for each other.  This is more important than anything else we discussed.  Thanks again!  I’m sure we’ll meet on the forum in the future (most likely between semesters).

Scientists claim that man is nothing but an accidental accumulation of odd material put together during a very brief fragment of time, doomed ultimately to disintegrate. The human body, they say, is composed of one octillion atoms, and three trillion of such atoms would form the period at the end of this sentence. They add that an atom is not actual material. If enlarged to one hundred meters in diameter, its contents would amount to waves moving with the speed of light, or faster, and the socalled material in such an extended atom would be no more than a pinhead.

Scientists do not tell us what man is. Jesus Christ does. And He tells us how to live. That our thoughts and deeds must follow the example He gave during His short Journey on earth. That as children of God we have been given eternal life through His death and resurrection.

Christ could have saved the octillion atoms found in His human form. He could have made a compromise with Satan. He could have retracted His teachings and denied His heritage before Pilate. He could have surrendered to the momentary doubts on the Cross and shown Himself to be another ordinary bewildered mortal. But Jesus chose to do otherwise. He accepted the Cross and left it as an example of Manhood.

There is no greater Love than the Cross. There is no greater Holy Day than the Resurrection.

Freely translated from:
Libor Brom. Utokem. Mnichov-Hartford-Melbourne: Komenskeho Svetova Rada, 1983.
EASTER by Prof. Dr. Ing. Libor Brom

Rafael:

“Scientists” are not a monolith.  Please don’t attribute to all scientists the shallow atheistic materialism of some scientists.  It only feeds the lie that a believer in Jesus Christ must somehow be opposed to Science in order to be faithful to Jesus.  That is not Catholic faith.  It is American fundamentalist Protestantism.

I’ve sifted through the comments and I find that overall, there are people in two different camps. But what saddens me is that there is room for both. After all, for Christians, God made Science. And for atheists, if you want to make science your god, you can, but recognize that science won’t make you happy. Understanding science will give you knowledge, but it won’t fill the void of human longing. Only God can do that.

I have a blog that presents science and faith as complementary parts of life. Philosophical and analytical banter is included in comments when warranted as well. If you are looking for a balance between science and faith, feel free to visit.

http://lorettaoakes.blogspot.com/

Dear Mark, thank you for your last comment on the 21st! Very true!

Actually this article proves the Atheist’s quote precisely.  The author spends the entire time defining religion as something that can prove anything.  When in fact the only thing he says it can “prove” are a bunch of silly hypotheses that have no real meaning, or definition.  It’s all spiritual woo.

As Thomas Paine once said:
The study of theology, as it stands in the Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authority; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and it admits of no conclusion.

My goodness, Andy, even with Tom Paine’s help, that’s a lot of factual error to pack into a single post!

“atheists, if you want to make science your god, you can, but recognize that science won’t make you happy”

Why do people count on God to make them happy?  Why can’t life, love, other people, family, and interests make them happy?  Aren’t the world and the human race and the wealth of human social interactions enough?  Are they so unsatisfied by reality that they must invent divine myths to achieve fulfillment?

Why do people count on God to make them happy?

Because they are made for communion with Him.

Why can’t life, love, other people, family, and interests make them happy?

They can, in a limited way.  But we are larger than these things and long for more.

Aren’t the world and the human race and the wealth of human social interactions enough?

No.

Are they so unsatisfied by reality that they must invent divine myths to achieve fulfillment?

The real question is: why is it that the overwhelming majority of the human race *is* obviously unsatisfied by these things, while a small minority of materialist ideologues labor to blind themselves to that fact?  Also, what is it about materialist ideologues that is so hostile to myths, divine or otherwise?  Mythmaking is a very respectable human activity.  Questions like your only serve to further persuade me that evangelical atheists suffer some sort of emotional/affective personality disorder that makes it difficult for them to relate to normal human beings.

“Science works, religion doesn’t”

Well science certainly works, its put men on the moon and probes on mars, its cured diseases, made clean drinking water and transportation much easier.

What does religion try and accomplish?  And whatever that is, does it succeed?  I mean even AID’s works…  Although I don’t like what its trying to accomplish…

I think its a general statement theists are taking too serious.  But for the most part, without getting very technical, science works and religion doesn’t.  Just check out this article…

http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-city/index.ssf/2010/07/post_2.html

There are hundreds of stories like this, and they all end the same.  Prayer and faith don’t work, doctors and medicine do.  Certainly, religion tries to work here, and it doesn’t.

If you’re going to test the power of the creator, then you better watch the time, the fact is that no one, and I mean no one will have more power or less failure when the dis respect the quickness of the mortal soul.  How you can walk, and eat without the GOD that so much gave you a bread crumb or those legs that you walk on (Hm mm?  So you think that some magical positive aspect of the GOD that you are disrupting). When you wish ill will on GOD’s people ill will comes back, Look “no no no no” one going to ever tell me that GOD doesn’t look at the world, YOU EVER DISRESPECT MY FATHER IN HEAVEN SO HELP ME GOD, ALL COMES BACK AS ALL COMES AROUND, NO ONE AND I MEAN NO ONE IS GOOD ENOUGH FOR THE GOD THAT SO SAVES U FROM THE FIRE OF HELL.  One day you’ll face the Creator, and when you do be prepared, he knows all, before, after, and now.  Look here is a story about how GOD Is not real, If you destroy what GOD has created something of yours will be destroyed, You want to mess with the perfect GOD you do that, even writing about him, and reading how people created the UNIVERSE is strange, no one and I mean no one can live without GOD, no animal no UNIVERSE, living thing, will survive.  Go ahead test the GOD, and give credit to the Human that so called created all animals and holds the water to into the millions of miles of the hole in your HEAD.  Just one day, you ask this so called GOD to not allow you to drink or eat, or anything what will happen?  Ask yourself?  Hell’s Gates are easy to enter give yourself all the credit, and no explanation to the, and Believe me there is a Hell, and no it’s not the EARTH!  Who the hell do you think you are judging others, are you so great that you can judge others for their sins?  TRUST ME AND I MEAN TRUST ME, only GOD knows the HEART, and would not even judge HITLER. You don’t know who Is going to hell, would you just one day live without GOD and see.

Mark Shea said: “Questions like your only serve to further persuade me that evangelical atheists suffer some sort of emotional/affective personality disorder that makes it difficult for them to relate to normal human beings.”

And comments like that demonstrate that strong religious faith doesn’t necessarily make someone a nicer person.

Mark asked: “Also, what is it about materialist ideologues that is so hostile to myths, divine or otherwise?”.  Because truth is important.  When people use “myth” to deny facts, to deny demonstrable truth, then the myths become lies.

As for humanity’s clear affinity for religious myth - since when is “we’ve always done it” a valid argument?  By that logic, slavery, witchcraft and beating women are also important elements of human culture, to be cherished and preserved.

Yes, humanity needs mythos to feel comfortable just as they need logos to feed and clothe everyone.  Now that we’ve learned so much about the scope of this wonderful universe, the complexity of our natural world, and our place within it all, how unfortunate that so many of us are mired in the mythos of wandering tribes from 2500 years ago.

I think we can do better, and the first step is embracing truth.  You seem to think we can never do better than the authors of the Bible, and that we must embrace those ancient myths.  That’s the difference between us, Mark.

Rick: And comments like that demonstrate that strong religious faith doesn’t necessarily make someone a nicer person.

Talk like an adolescent, receive the rebuke an adolescent deserves.

Rick: Mark asked: “Also, what is it about materialist ideologues that is so hostile to myths, divine or otherwise?”.  Because truth is important.  When people use “myth” to deny facts, to deny demonstrable truth, then the myths become lies.

First, you clearly have not one clue what a myth is, what it does, or how it functions.  Second, the mythic language sometimes used by Scripture denies not one demonstrable truth, unless you are the sort of flat-footed boob who thinks that Genesis obliges us to believe in talking snakes.  The core essentials asserted by Gen 1-3 have almost nothing to do with science, so there is nothing going on there that conflicts with “demonstrable truth”.  Oh, and by the way, your own brain-dead materialist philosophy is in much more trouble when it comes to finding truth.

Rick:  As for humanity’s clear affinity for religious myth - since when is “we’ve always done it” a valid argument?

Since the human race decided to do much of its primary moral navigation by means of tradition.  Obviously tradition is not an infallible guide.  But the notion “if old, then destroy” has been the source of vastly more mischief.  Till you know what myth is, you would be ill-advised to wantonly destroy it.

Rick: Yes, humanity needs mythos to feel comfortable just as they need logos to feed and clothe everyone. 

To feel *comfortable*?  My dear young sprout, you really are an adolescent, aren’t you?  Run along, grow up, suffer some pain, and come back in about 20 years when you’ve grown a brain, a heart, and some cojones.  You don’t know a thing about life.

Wow, that’s the most condescending and personally insulting post I’ve seen in a long time, Mark.  I’m sorry if I hit a nerve.

Since nobody else is reading this, since your irretrievably biased view of science is as source of evil rather than as a tool wielded (for good or ill) by people who went to the same churches and lived in the same communities you did, and since your personal insults are contemptible, there is no point in continuing.

Well done, Mark. Maybe he’ll stop spewing. If not, it is time to ignore such trollishness on this topic.

Good for you Mark, don’t cast your pearls before swine.

“Rick: Yes, humanity needs mythos to feel comfortable just as they need logos to feed and clothe everyone.

To feel *comfortable*?  My dear young sprout, you really are an adolescent, aren’t you?  Run along, grow up, suffer some pain, and come back in about 20 years when you’ve grown a brain, a heart, and some cojones.  You don’t know a thing about life.”

Mark, Thank you for this ingenious paragraph.  I will use it on some of the loons I happen to run into who r so left that they actually think evil does not exist.  You are a genius!! Perfect lines!!!!!

RickK:
since your irretrievably biased view of science is as source of evil rather than as a tool ... 

YOS
Your reposnse is comforting mythos, not logos.  You have not read (or have not understood) what Mr. Shea actually wrote.

You are all wrong.
Jesus was an impostor. He was not God, he was a simple Jew gone astray. There is only one true God, the God of the Jews, and this is evident from the real Bible, which you call the “old” testament. It is the only TRUE testament. The “new” testament is false. Jesus did not die and resurrect. Those who have apparently seen him resurrect, either lied or were observing a trick, or maybe they were hallucinating. Jesus did not perform miracles. Only God performs miracles.

Gives you an adrenaline rush to rebel that way, doesn’t it?

Anthropology, linguistics, climate studies, molecular genealogy, and archaeology say you are wrong.

http://jandyongenesis.blogspot.com/2010/01/blood-and-crosses.html

Anthropology, linguistics, climate studies, molecular genealogy, and archaeology were all created by God. God gave the Jews the Bible, and the Oral Torah, which teaches us that he is the one true God and there is none other, certainly not Jesus. It says so, plain and simple: “For you are a holy people to H’ your God, and God has chosen you to be his treasured people from all the nations that are on the face of the earth.” - from all the nations, including Christians, Muslims, Pagans, Buddhists and every other non-Jew.

Let us identify some flaws in your thinking.

The oldest known religion is that of the Horites who Jews call “Horim.” It involves all the elements at the core of Christianity. Therefore, Messianic expectation did not originate with the Jews.

The Jews are a mixed people. Gentile converts to Judaism have intermarried with genetically Semitic Jews.

The Sephardic Jews who came to the American colonies intermarried with Indian populations and with African slaves. These Jews are called “Melugeons” and the majority live in Kentucky and Tennessee.

Ashkenazi Jews have Nilotic genes and show evidence of gene flow from Slav, Scythian, Hunnic-Bulgar, Iranian, Alan and Turkic peoples.

Dr. Harry Ostrer, director of the human genetics program at the New York University School of Medicine, compared the genetic makeup of Jewish populations from around the world with African populations. He found that modern Jewish populations have African ancestry. David Reich, associate professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, decided to explore further and found that modern Jews can attribute about 3 to 5 percent of their ancestry to sub-Saharan Africans.

Who do Jews reject Jesus as Messiah? On the bases of the majority view of the Sanhedrin. Gershom Gale, of the Jerusalem Post, has written: “When the Sanhedrin was first established and empowered by God (as described in the ‘Old Testament’), the Creator made it clear that all God-fearing Jews must honor every majority Sanhedrin ruling, on pain of death. I suggest that the real reason the Jews (who only days before had welcomed Jesus as Messiah) shouted for his death was that they had in the meantime learned of the Sanhedrin ruling in his case, and chose to honor God’s eternal Law. Of course, God realized humans are fallible. That’s why He provided at least four legal (ie. God-approved) means of redress in the event of Sanhedrin error. But until and unless one of those means is invoked and the earlier ruling is overturned, that ruling must stand, and must be honored by all God-fearing Jews.”
Many prominent Jews of Jerusalem, such as Joseph of Aramathea (“hari-mathea” means Horite priest of the line of Matthew) and Nicodemus risk defied the Sanhedrin at great personal risk. Why would they do this if the evidence of the Sanhedrin were above doubt?

Even Gamaliel, a member of the Sanhedrin and one of the most respected rabbis, advised the Sanhedrin not to persecute the Apostles because “if this enterprise, this movement of theirs, is of human origin it will break up of its own accord; but if it does in fact come from God you will be unable to destroy them. Take care not to find yourselves fighting against God.” (Acts 5:34)

The fact that other religions or cults share elements with Christianity (Horites are not the only ones, see for example http://listverse.com/2009/04/13/10-christ-like-figures-who-pre-date-jesus/) only proves that the Jesus story is a scam, a fable passed around different cultures of the old world. Some misguided Jews heard it in neighboring areas and started telling the same tale about one of their own. It is simply false.

The fact that some crazy people tried to defy the holy Sanhedrin doesn’t make their ideas true. The fact, in itself, doesn’t make their ideas false either, but it doesn’t make them true. And why would the holy Sanhedrin, with its God-given wisdom, rule that Jesus was a fake, if he wasn’t?

As for Gamaliel, there is a well known Christian myth saying he was secretly a Christian. Total nonsense, of-course, but (maybe being of the Hillel house - he was Hillel’s grandchild), he was merciful and wanted to spare the apostles. That doesn’t mean he approved of them.

I never claimed that Gamaliel was a Christian. I don’t believe he was. Nor do I believe that the late Rabbi Kaduri died a Christian, even though he left a signed note indicating Messiah’s identity: Yeshua - Jesus. His manuscripts, written in his own hand, have cross-symbols painted all over the pages. Whether or not he believed in the Incarnate Son who died on the cross to save repentant sinners and rose to defeat death, only God knows.

I am simply saying is that these wise rabbis kept an open mind and will receive greater mercy on the Last Day than those who have hardened their hearts. You might want to keep that in mind.