HAH! I’ve always been amused by these “We won’t believe in a creator we can’t scientifically test; instead we’ll invent some alien kid doing a science fair project [which we can’t scientifically test].”

Sounds like somebody needs to have a shave with good ol’ Occam’s Razor.

The problem with quantum mechanical models for universe creation is that they always presuppose some existing entity to produce the new universe.  But a true account of origins must account for the transition, not from something to something, but from absolutely nothing to something.  As others have pointed out, the laws of physics, quantum vacuums, the spacetime void, etc…all of these things are NOT nothing.  Therefore the claims that these theories prove that “something comes from nothing” are vacuous and absurd.  As St. Thomas Aquinas pointed out, creation also has nothing necessarily to do with time; he held that the world might have been created from all eternity, yet would still have to be created.  Creation means producing the entire substance of a being from nothing, and since the world is filled with contingent beings (beings who do not exist in and of themselves and thus require some agent exterior to themselves to begin existing), those beings ultimately can exist only because of the influence of a non-contingent Being, or a Being Who DOES exist in and of Himself, i.e., a Self-existent or necessary Being.  This proof is entirely independent of whatever quantum theorists may discover about the origins of the universe, since the theistic proofs focus on presently existing facts (i.e., that non-necessary beings exist here and now, despite their lacking any necessary claim to being), not on facts about past history, how the world started.  To paraphrase one Thomistic philosopher, proofs of the existence of God focus not on how things got started in existence, but why, once started, they continue in existence.  The theistic proofs are laid out in detail in this book: http://www.amazon.com/Rational-Faith-Existence-Catholicism-ebook/dp/B0084OTP2S

You are ignorant and your arguments are terrible. It is clear that you have not read the details of the physics or made a concerted effort to understand it. It is probably also true that you have done the same with religion.

Jeff,

I assume that you’re replying to me, although you don’t specify.

Your reply really isn’t a reply to what I said at all, nor do you offer any explanation of why the arguments are “terrible” (although I actually was only summarizing the arguments, not laying them out in detail, which can’t be done properly in a brief blog comment).

I have studied some of the physics, actually, so unfortunately that criticism won’t wash.  Your comments about my approach to physics and religion are gratuitous and unsubstantiated.

But this has nothing to do with physics.  Physics studies material and mobile being, not the nature of being itself (that’s the job of metaphysics).  Therefore it is not possible even in theory for physics to disprove the existence of God or for that matter to specify conditions exterior to spacetime (which is what a creation model would have to do, since creation by definition concerns something which occurs BEFORE space and time exist, or to put it more paradoxically, before there is a “before” to speak of, to paraphrase one physicist-philosopher).  Physicists who attempt to prove that some physics-related cosmic singularity avoids the need for an immaterial Creator expose their ignorance both of physics (which cannot exceed the domain of the material and temporal, by its very nature) and of philosophy or metaphysics (which studies all being qua being, and not only some restricted form of material, mobile, quantifiable being, as in physics).

Perfect Jeff - that’s exactly what those scientists should be told. What a better way to frustrate them then to say they have no clue what physics actually is.

@jeff
Trolling much? :D

It’s preposterous that the universe could come from “nothing” but something as complex as a God (who is immaterial and can somehow magically create things) having no creator doesn’t bother you. Yep.

Michelle:

God is a perfectly simple Being, as St. Thomas Aquinas points out.  Simplicity means to not be composed of parts.  Unlike created beings, who are composed of essence (what makes them to be what they are) and an actus essendi (an intrinsic principle which actualizes their essence), matter and form (the physical “stuff” from which they are made coupled with the way it is determined), or potentiality and actuality (their capacities for various ways of existing, together with the realized instances of those capacities), God is not composed of these or any other parts.  The fact that God’s being is infinite does not mean that He is “complex” in the way you might be indicating.

Further, there is nothing “magical” about the act of creation.  Creation means producing a being’s substance from no pre-existing material, and while finite beings cannot perform this action, an all-powerful Being, having no limits on His power, certainly can.

Your last statement, that God “has no creator,” seems to imply a frequently repeated misrepresentation of the argument from contingency.

The argument does NOT say “Everything has a creator, but God does not.”  That would be an obvious contradiction; if “everything” fits a certain rule, there can be no exceptions.  But that is not the correct form of the argument.

It instead says: “Everything that is not self-existent must have a creator, but since there is and must be a self-existent Being, then by definition He cannot be created (otherwise He wouldn’t be self-existent, contrary to the conclusion).”

I think the scientists have been watching too much Dr. Who.

Folks…

Too much triumphalist attitude, here.

Yes, yes, I know the Space.com article is in egregious error; Stephen Hawking made the same error some time before.

Fine. But do have a little charity for folk raised in a culture so influenced by reductionism and materialism that they can conceive of a brick as a “thing” requiring explanation but are unable to conceive of the laws of the universe as a “thing” requiring explanation.

Once the matter is well-explained, then the error becomes obvious…but far less than 1% of all college graduates have ever had the matter explained to them. Scorning them when they draw what seem perfectly rational conclusions from their ignorance is unkind. Many of them had no philosophy requirement in college at all! ...and some philosophy curricula are better described as a survey of famous instances of unreason than methodology for right reasoning.

Worse, a similarly small percentage of college graduates have an adult-level understanding of the concept of God, despite most of them having been raised at least nominally “Christian.” So an awful lot of folk who say stuff like “The Big Bang Didn’t Need God” are actually saying something more like “The Big Bang Didn’t Need Zeus”...and neglecting to note that in the (adult, informed) Judeo-Christian view, Zeus wouldn’t qualify as divine.

And when such a large proportion of folks trained in the fundamentals of Christianity go away from their training ignorant of the fundamentals of Christianity, ought we conclude it was all the students’ fault? Doesn’t it seem more likely to be a consequence of bad instruction? ...that is to say, of Christians?

Pat says “They want you know know that we absolutely do not need a Creator to have creation.”

But ...

Filippenko stressed that such statements are not attacks on the existence of God. Saying the Big Bang — a massive expansion 13.7 billion years ago that blew space up like a gigantic balloon — could have occurred without God is a far cry from saying that God doesn’t exist, he said.
“I don’t think you can use science to either prove or disprove the existence of God,” Filippenko said.

“The Big Bang could’ve occurred as a result of just the laws of physics being there,” said astrophysicist Alex Filippenko of the University of California, Berkeley. “With the laws of physics, you can get universes.”

Hey Pat, I think you forgot to include that mustard with your pretzel.

So how’s about a quote from the fat man with the cool ‘stache on intellectual honesty?

e.g. “Opposition to an idea based on a misconception is understandable, if not exactly laudable; opposition to an idea based on studiously-maintained ignorance is appalling.”

maybe the reason we haven’t been contacted by extraterrestrial beings is that they are seeking other intelligent life.

Andy S, I don’t understand your criticism. Filippenko is exactly saying that, in order to explain our universe’s existence God is not needed; his rationale is that this universe could have been born from another universe - whose existence he does not explain, btw.
His remarks about the indemonstrability by science of God’s existence do nothing towards any notion that God is needed for the universe to be, so I can’t see where your sarcasm is directed. As I understand it, Filippenko maintains that God may exist, but that is indifferent as far as reality is concerned.
I would like, from a scientist, some experimental evidence supporting such claims; unfortunately I have to studiously maintain that it’s all theoretical speculation - which is welcome if suggested as such and not as the Verb emanating from “the scientists”.

Cheers.

Paolo, Italy

Hi Paolo,
Thanks for your comments. Let’s allow Filippenko to speak for himself.
“The origin of the laws of physics remains a mystery for now,” he added, “one that we may never be able to solve.”
“The ‘divine spark’ was whatever produced the laws of physics,” Filippenko said. “And I don’t know what produced that divine spark. So let’s just leave it at the laws of physics.”

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/06/25/big-bang-didnt-need-god-to-start-universe-researchers-say/#ixzz1yqXdf18E

As I understand him,the position seems to be that IF there are laws of physics then it is possible to scientifically describe the evolution of a universe from, say, the first microsecond to the present day. Provided that is, that there are laws of physics.

You mistake my anger for sarcasm. Archbold deliberately omits these quotes from Filippenko. He lies and besmirches the integrity of an honest man. He sneers at scientists and yet makes his day to day living from IT (perhaps there’s a non-scientific kind of IT). Maybe he opts for non-scientific dentistry. Maybe he commutes on horseback.
Do a Google on Archbold and Filippenko and decide which one you’d rather have lunch with.
Cheers, Andy

Hey Patrick,
You could really use a proofreader.  :)  I work for cookies and mochas.  Give me a call.

Wow, why isn’t this article called “Catholics say the sillest things”?

Once again, religious ignorance rears its ugly head in the form of complete dismissiveness towards rational argument and scientific evidence. Go out and read a book on theoretical physics and cosmology people. As Dr. Neil Tyson once said, “facts are true, whether you believe in them or not”.

“Oh, by the way? Who created the kid from the other universe with the awesome science lab?”

That’s all you have to say—the argument ends there - no amount of double-talk can cause a normal thinking person to lose site of that. That’s why those who say we arrived at somtin’ from absolutely nuttin’ minus God get so angry - they have no defense when trying to sell this bull-o-ne. Happy atom-searching :)

This article seems very intellectually dishonest. Archbold is really just pointing to counter intuitive ideas and mocking them, all with no discussion of the reasons or evidence that these ideas are considered. I can see Archbold’s historical counterpart sneering at those silly people who believe that the earth is spherical. Of course it’s not! We’d fall off! Perhaps ancient Archbold would also jest at the ridiculous idea that sickness is caused by tiny, tiny animals. Hah! Like things so small could hurt us!

Further, Archbold makes no case for his creator God being a better explanation, and so his article is basically an argument from personal incredulity, coupled with a string of arguments from ignorance. “I find this silly, therefore it can’t be true. Therefore my hypothesis is obviously correct, and all who disagree are denying the obvious. Also, who made the laws of nature? Tides go in, tides go out. . .”

Intellectually honest, fair-minded Catholics and religious believers should be able to see through Archbold’s article as an unbalanced piece of propaganda.

Wrestling Endiku,

Your analogies do not work, since the idea that something can arise out of absolute nothingness is not merely “counterintuitive” but rather absolutely impossible and contrary to the first principles of reasoning.

All finite productive activity presupposes the existence of material “stuff” on which the agent can work.  To say that a universe can “pop” into existence from nothing is to claim that nothingness can give rise to being.  But as St. Thomas Aquinas noted, the activity of a thing, or what it can do, follows from its being (agere sequitur esse).  A thing cannot act unless it first exists.  Therefore it is impossible and absurd to suggest that a non-existing nihil can in and of itself give rise to some positive entity, which is what these unguarded assertions by some physicists can be taken to mean.

There is nothing wrong, then, with the author’s mocking tone adopted towards something which richly deserves mockery; even the charitable St. Thomas, who generally always treated his opponents with respect and refuted the strongest versions of their arguments, on occasion belittled and ridiculed particularly absurd positions.  And the position being treated here (that a substantial being can arise purely from non-entity) is indeed ridiculous and absurd.  It’s not that Mr. Archbold is “not considering the evidence” of nothingness sprouting into being; it’s that there is not and never could be evidence of such a thing, since it is manifestly absurd.  It would be like denouncing someone who refused to believe a biologist’s assertion that he had discovered a four-sided triangular particle under his electron microscope.  There would be no need even to examine his supposed finding, since what he proposes is not even possible.

You are also perhaps unwittingly adopting the false attitude of scientism, whereby you propose that Catholics believe God merely to be a “better explanation” for certain material phenomena, as though theism were a sort of competing scientific theory with quantum mechanics.  To word the objection this way would show that you don’t understand the argument.  Catholics are not arguing that God is a scientific hypothesis to be proposed when we don’t like the opposing physics, but rather, God’s existence can be known with certainty using arguments drawn from metaphysics (which is a more basic and broader source of knowledge than physics) and which occupy a completely different realm from physics.  Put differently, trying to use physics to disprove a metaphysical truth is like trying to use English poetry to disprove a mathematical theorem.  There is a category error there.

Michael, I’m having trouble finding in the article where it says that matter and the universe created itself. It sounds like Filippenko is claiming that the laws of nature are such that we would expect matter and energy to come into existence 13.7 billion years ago without the need of a divine spark, or previously existing matter and energy. That renders your first three paragraphs moot. He did not claim the universe self created, but that it was a result of the laws of nature. It appears you are answering a misrepresentation or a straw man (although perhaps some physicists believe as you claim).

You may follow up with a fair question of where the laws of physics came from, but to think that this question somehow implies the existence of God is an argument from ignorance (tide goes in, tide goes out. . .)

I also find it amusing that you would rule out an idea based on apparent impossibility. Jesus is 100% man, and 100% God. But being 200% of a being is impossible. But this is a “mystery of faith” instead of a contradiction. You might say that there are ways to reconcile this, and that people who dismiss your beliefs mockingly out of hand are being unfair. I would agree. Almost every worldview is likely to imply something that appears ridiculous. Mocking these ideas without examination is just a sign of closemindedness. Unless you think it’s okay for me to dismiss your beliefs out of hand, with severe mockery, I think you need to take back some of your claims.

Lastly, I take your last paragraph to be saying, roughly, that science cannot disprove metaphysical claims. This appears rather obviously false in many cases. A metaphysical belief in a God who always heals the sick would be falsified by the existence of unhealed sick people. Now what physical results the God of Catholicism implies is a tough issue, but in principle, I think it’s clear that certain (not all) metaphysical beliefs are susceptible to scientific falsification. There is no necessary category error here.

Wrestling Enkidu,

I’m not sure if you came across it, but above I pointed out that the theistic proofs concern the existence of presently existing things, NOT the question of when and how the universe came into being.  If we encounter beings existing here and now which lack self-existence, and we do, then they must be accounted for by a Being Who is self-existent.  This has nothing to do with the laws of physics, nothing to do with the age of the universe, nothing to do with the laws governing matter and energy, and nothing to do with quantum mechanics.  You are trying to force philosophers to answer a philosophy question by using physics.  This is like insisting that someone cannot win a soccer game unless he plays the soccer game using a bat, a baseball, four bases, and a pitcher.

You again misstate and erect your own straw man in supposing that the theistic proofs imply a “from the gaps” argument, as though theists prove the existence of God because they cannot account for certain material phenomena.  I have already explained why this is a blatant misrepresentation of the theist position.

Your misrepresentation of the Christian doctrine of Christ’s divinity is still more bizarre: “Jesus is 100% man, and 100% God. But being 200% of a being is impossible.”

Catholics do not claim that Christ is 200% of a Being, but rather that He is one Person with two distinct natures.  Being of this sort is not something that you mathematically add together.  You are 100% human, and also 100% animal.  Have I just spoken contradiction by asserting this?  Of course not, because one of those descriptions gives your genus and the other your species.  You have failed to make a distinction.  St. Thomas Aquinas devotes no less than 26 questions of his Summa to questions regarding the natures of Christ and related matters; flippant comments such as yours do nothing to engage those replies.  I have also not argued that the quantum scenario in question is “apparently” impossible, but that it is altogether impossible even in theory (for which see prior comments).

You are also mistaken to imply that I have dismissed the notion of a quantum fluctuation from “nothingness” producing the universe “without examination.”  I maintain, for reasons stated in a prior comment, that the very notion is question is MANIFESTLY absurd, not because theists haven’t studied it, don’t understand it, and so forth, but because the idea of absolute nonentity of itself giving rise to positive entity implies such a blatant contradiction and runs so contrary to fundamental principles of reality and reasoning that any scientist who consistently adopted such a position would be obliged to surrender the very possibility of science, logic, and thought altogether, since this position denies the foundation of such inquiry: the principle of non-contradiction.  This is a further point regarding the relationship of physics and metaphysics.  Since metaphysics implies something which applies to the whole range of existing things (that’s why metaphysics is called the science of being qua being), whereas physics is the science of being qua quantifiable, measurable, material, mobile being, therefore physics takes its principles from metaphysics and not vice versa.  Being considered wholly is more general than being considered as measurable and quantifiable.  For example, although the famous quantum “double slit experiment” appears to suggest that light is both a wave (and thus a non-particle) and a particle (and thus a non-wave) at one and the same time, metaphysics shows that this is impossible, since a thing cannot be and not be at the same time in the same respect.  If a physicist denies this principle, claiming that physics has “falsified” metaphysics, he also renders his own discipline impossible by depriving himself of the use of a principle which he needs to think, reason, experiment, and/or articulate any finding he happens to make at all. 

Hmm. I’ll take your points one by one.

1. I’m not sure what you’re talking about here. I was responding to the article above, as well as the space.com article. The article above does relate to the laws of physics and quantum mechanics, and I responded to the comments of the article author.

2. Once again, I’m responding to the article, not to the entire bulk of Christian theology. I know that many arguments are not God of the gaps arguments, but Archbold didn’t make those arguments. The comments made by Archbold, if they are an argument for God (maybe he’s just being pithy), do constitute a God of the Gaps argument.

“The universe spontaneously created itself out of nothing. How? The rules of physics were already in place. Well, who made the rules?”

This leading question obviously implies that God answers the “who” question, and because of that, insofar as it is an argument, it is an argument from ignorance.

3. I’m fully human and fully animal because humans are a subset of animals. Are you saying humans are a subset of Gods? Doubt it, so your analogy fails. Being God and human are, on the face of it, mutually exclusive, so on a basic reading of it, it appears that one would need to be 200% of a being to be fully God and fully human. Again, I understand much ink has been spilled on this issue, and there may be resolutions, and that is my point. Apparent contradictions are not always so.

Further, you make my point for me. You believe that Aquinas is worth reading, and he devotes “no less than 26 questions of his Summa to questions regarding the natures of Christ and other matters. Flippant comments such as yours do nothing to engage those replies.” Exactly! Archbold’s comments are similarly flippant, and you can bet there is a huge amount of writing and speaking on the very ideas that Archbold flippantly dismisses! How amusing.

4. I didn’t claim that you personally have dismissed anything “without examination.” My claim was that the above article did so. The findings were dismissed without examination by the article. It was basically “this sounds dumb, so it must be false.” Perhaps Archbold does know his physics very well, and has good reasons to dismiss some of the conclusions he mocks. But the above article does a serious disservice to serious inquiry. It simply points and laughs, “flippantly” dismissing the findings of a serious and respectable field.

I appreciate the back and forth. Not sure if I have the time (or will) to follow up. Thanks for an interesting discussion though.

I recall many years back, 9th grade, Catholic private school, during discussion on ‘evolution’, a Catholic priest summarily dismissing evolution stating; “if you wish to believe that your uncle was a monkey”.  That seems to be the gist of much of the commentaries. I would think that an earnest reply might end with;  we just don’t know. I would think that Michael would come up with someone more recent than Thomas Aquinas, or science since Natural Law Philosophy.  Science is NOT a wish, but an earnest search for what is, and whenever possible a rationale for it. All too often we limit our objection to reductio ad absurdum, refusing to note we equally dwell in the folly of faith.

Michael,

I could read you all day!  :)

I would argue that it is incorrect to state that the laws of physics existed before the universe.  The laws are mearly a description on the way the universe normally behaves.  Before the universe you could argue that nothing existed.  The existence of nothing means there are no laws which in turn means that anything is possible.  You could also argue that some other (unknown) existed before the big bang where the laws of of physics would in turn be totally different.  Under either set-up you cannot argue either for or against the existence of God.  Scientists shouldn’t argue either way as it isn’t something that you can test or model.  Christian believers should not mock the scientists either for an argument that God was needed to trigger the creation of the universe.  After all the bible doesn’t give a scientific explaination as to how things came into existence. It mearly argues that it was God’s will.

Who created the laws of physics?

Note the weasel words: could have.  Lightning could strike.  I could win the lottery tomorrow.  But nobody is approaching me with investment schemes just yet.  “Could have” is not the language of observation.

This article did not advance the discussion a tiny bit. What Filippenko did was justify his laws-of-physics slight of hand by appealing to the sophomoric “dilemma” of who created the creator, showing that he is either ignorant of or ignoring Aristotle and two millennia of Christian response to that.  But hey, it got a headline and impressed those who think that sophistication is holding cool opinions rather than engaging in careful thought. They are better of resuming their search for ET.

momofthree, ought to read the above post of Al Rose.  ‘Laws of physics’ are not created, but an observation and deduction of science. The ‘affirmations’ above are proofs of nothing, certainly not a god.  Religious beliefs are beyond the point of rational discussion. A major obstacle is belief requiring no burden of proof. Philosophizing a ‘must be’ or ‘there could be no other’ for a god only recognizes a limitation to our knowledge. All too often we are left with an empty bag…“the core beliefs having no mechanism, which can be tested and revised, so each generation of believers is condemned to inherit the superstitions and tribal hatreds of its predecessors”.

The complaints that “the scientist didn’t say this disproved God” may be right. Most of the really stupid stuff in the article was NOT quoted, but the writer of the article “explaining” what the scientist said. It could very well be the scientist who said smart things only to be betrayed by a science writer who wanted a good headline. However, to say “something came from nothing because laws of physics (which are something) existed”, is just absurd. What he was actually trying to say is that there may have been SOMETHING before the Big Bang and from that SOMETHING the Universe was created.

Does that disprove God? Nope. Could it be true? Maybe, but we’ll never know because this isn’t science. Scientific theories can be tested; this musing cannot be tested.

Ever since Father Lamaitre’s theory of the “Primeval Atom” or “Big Bang” (as other scientists called it mockingly) was proved true, atheists have been trying to find a way to fit it into their world view. It makes it all the more amusing because Catholicism doesn’t NEED a Big Bang; God’s existence is evident even if the universe didn’t have a beginning. But it is a rather nice beginning; “Let there be light; and radiation decoupled from matter and continued through space to be known later as Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation”.

Pat, great piece, except for one thing: Chesterton never said that quote that you use. That quote is a cobbling together of parts of quotes by Fr. Brown from two different Fr. Brown stories, but as it is use by you and numerous other people, Chesterton never said or wrote it.

If you like I can try to find some even better Chesterton quotes about scientism that he actually did say.

Yours,
Sean P. Dailey
Editor-in-Chief
Gilbert Magazine

I must compliment Michael in his analysis of this issue and say that several of his opponents on this blog are way off base. Clearly, the researchers who posit the universe coming from “nothing” define “nothing” in a way that it is, in fact, “something”.  Sadly, the researchers do not address the issues in a complete way but have an almost juvenile understanding of the logic. Perhaps it is only a remnant of their superficial philosophical education. I have degrees in both physics and astronomy and have worked as a physicist for my entire life.  But so often, scientists doing decent science and horrible logical philosophy disappoint me.

I love the idiocy of this and similar arguments. The fallacy that you can create a universe by “twisting space and time” ignores the fact that space and time only exist in the universe!  God is infinite and eternal solely because He is outside space and time and so is not subject to time and space.  Presupposing space and time before the universe does not answer anything but only complicates the problem exponentially and only to make yourself feel better in your willful act of denial of the existence of a Creator.

I see a combination of confirmation bias and bad logic—“If it doesn’t exist, it isn’t in the realm science; therefore, if it isn’t in the realm of science, it doesn’t exist.”—with bad journalism and worse writing. Personally, I’ve become accustomed to a misleading headline used to lure an unwary reader into reading a story whose text contradicts the headline, and/or whose text clearly misrepresents the subject matter. (Of course, being accustomed to it doesn’t mean I like it.)

This is hilarious!  I actually found myself laughing out loud.  Here’s why - for the last 500 years or so, modern science has been slowly replacing the answer “God” with actual answers! 

THEY WILL CONTINUE!!

But, the real offense in logic is how someone can so arrogantly make the “leap of faith” required and jump to the Christian god!  So, I know the argument of First Cause - which indicates that something needed to be there to create the initial spark, right?  Well, who created that creator?  Does that creator live among other creators? See, the problem is two-fold - if you have to inject a creator into the argument, then you have to ask more questions, and not stop at simply invoking a god (hint: this is unnecessary).  Secondly, even if you forget the 1st problem, you still have to account for somehow going from this question of what created the initial spark to backing up a claim that the christian god is actually that spark.  That makes zero sense at all, unless the burning bush has been found and no one is telling me!

Theists do make a mockery of serious inquiry, logic and reason because they always start with the a priori assumption of a preexisting “God”.

Scientific explanations make no a priori assumptions apart for one: The Universe is open to inquiry.

The claim that “From our current knowledge of the physical laws of the Universe we can deduce that no magical thinking is necessary for the Universe to pop into existence.” is truthful and should not be threatening to believers or deserving of such childish mockery. Surly faith does not need scientific validation — in fact wouldn’t scientific validation be the death of faith? You can’t believe in a fact can you?

Cichawoda,

Scientists do have a priori assumptions as well; several in fact:
1) The Universe is not a divine thing which will be insulted (and smite us) because of our study
2) The Universe is reasonable and logical - it’s laws are observable.
2) We are capable of understanding that reason and logic and thus studying it will yield understanding.

Thou must know thy metaphysics before beginning thy study of physics.

Manny,

If you want a longer treatment of the theistic proofs, a book was recommended earlier (here’s the link: http://www.amazon.com/Rational-Faith-Existence-Catholicism-ebook/dp/B0084OTP2S), but here is a (very summary) version of just one of them:

1. A contingent being is capable either of existing or of not existing, e.g., any human being now alive did not exist 200 years ago, and therefore his prior non-existence shows that he is not necessary and self-existent (otherwise he would have existed 200 years ago as well, since what is necessary exists always).

2. Contingent things, by definition, are therefore not self-existent (if they were, they wouldn’t be contingent).

3. What is not self-existent, exists because of something other than itself (what is not self-existent, by definition, is other-existent)

4. But to exist because of another is, by definition, to have a cause (that’s simply what “cause” means).

5. Not every entity can be a caused entity, that is, not every entity can receive existence; as one philosopher put it, there must be a Being Who does not receive but only gives existence, or else there won’t be any existence available to be received. 

6. A Necessary and self-existent Being must be one, infinite, eternal, immutable, just, merciful, omniscient, omnipotent, and good.

a. A necessary and self-existent Being must be eternal, since what exists necessarily must exist always and cannot begin to be in time (otherwise it wouldn’t be necessary). 

b. If self-existent He must be infinitely perfect, since none of the perfections of being can be external to a Being Who is self-subsistent Existence (St. Thomas, ST I, q. 4, a. 2).

c. If infinite He must be one, since as St. Thomas shows, there cannot be two infinitely perfect Beings; otherwise, in order to tell them apart, one would have to possess what the other one lacked, which means that the one who lacked would not be perfect. 

d. The infinitely perfect Being must also be omniscient, omnipotent, just, merciful, and good, since these are all perfections, and an infinitely perfect Being by definition cannot lack any perfection.  All of this is also stated (in different terms) in the Bible.

Unfortunately, Manny, your post once more exposes the illogic of scientism by yet again assuming, even though prior discussions pointed out the falsity of this claim, that theists have EVER simply taken God to be a synonym for gaps in our knowledge of the natural world.  God is by definition an omnipotent, spiritual, immaterial, eternal, immutable Being Who exists outside the spatio-temporal limits with which natural science deals, and therefore your laughter might more fittingly be directed at your own misapprehension of theism than at the imagined ignorance of your opponents.

You also confirm that you have little to no experience with the traditional metaphysical proofs of God’s existence, since any reputable summary of the same disposes with the tired, overused, oft-refuted idea that theists have EVER contended that “Everything needs a creator.”  Atheists or agnostics seem to credit themselves for great wit and imagination when they pose the objection “If everything needs a creator, why doesn’t God?”, but in reality such an objection is like a giant red flag to the theist which shows that his opponent has little to no depth in the argument.  To modify an analogy from one contemporary philosopher, in metaphysics this objection has the same force as an anti-physicist ridiculing the solar system model of atomic motion on the grounds that it is absurd to conceive of tiny universes of electrons orbiting around inside everyday objects.  Such objections do not reveal any flaw in the original argument; they show that the mocker has never carefully studied the question.  Theists do not claim that God needs a creator, because the original premise is not “Everything needs a creator.”  Please study some of the relevant literature before mocking your interlocutors.

Cichawoda:

Your claim that theists a priori “presuppose” the existence of God is completely false.  St. Thomas Aquinas explicitly rejects St. Anselm’s a priori proof and contends that no such proof is possible.  The traditional theistic proofs are a posteriori, i.e., drawn from the first principles of reasoning (on which scientists depend just like philosophers) and from observed facts about the material world (the existence of motion, causality, contingency, gradated perfections, intrinsic finality, etc.). 

Your claim that science makes only one a priori assumption is also false, but adherents of scientism (note: scientISM, not scienCE) most certainly make a very glaring and false a priori assumpion: reductive materialistic science is the only and/or primary way of discovering truth about the universe.  As another commenter has aptly queried elsewhere, could you please supply us with a procedure for a scientific experiment to prove that science is the only or primary way of knowledge? (You won’t be able to, since such an assumption is philosophical and not scientific). 

Your description of faith is also incorrect.  Faith is not a blind and irrational belief as you portray it.  “You can’t believe in a fact?” you ask.  Nonsense.  Of course you can.  Catholics believe that it is a historical fact that Christ rose from the dead.  Faith involves assenting to the testimony of another person on the basis of that person’s reliability.  When the person is a finite and error-prone person, like a scientist, your faith is human, and therefore open to falsehood, although not necessarily unreasonable.  The vast majority of your scientific knowledge and that of even many scientists is likely the product of an act of faith in other scientists’ credibility, since no one can individually perform each experiment necessary to validate each horn of scientific progress.  Yet no one accuses these “believers” of being unreasonable in their human faith.  But when an assertion comes from an infinite Being not capable of error, there is an act of divine faith which gives entire certainty.  Catholicism deals with beliefs in the truth of actual and undeniable facts.

Lady Cygnus,
Metaphysics? what are the achievements of Metaphysics vs Science in the last 400 years since they both seem to pursue the same questions?

#1 is nonsensical, #2 and #3 restate “The Universe is open to inquiry”

The only thing each one of us can be completely sure of is that there is an “I” because that “I” is having an experience — everything else is built from that. Is there a Universe outside and independent of my personal experience? Are there other “I"s and do they experience a similar external Universe, etc, etc. — to even start asking any questions I must make the assumption that the Universe is open to inquiry.

Science as opposed to Metaphysics has, over the past few centuries, made great progress in answering many basic and detailed questions about the Universe. The only reason these answers may feel threatening to believers is if they are not satisfied with just faith and seek some kind of material confirmation of it. Its seems once faith becomes rooted in empirical truth it stops being an article of faith and becomes fair game for scientific inquiry, research and experimentation.

Michael you have a troublesome use of the word ‘faith’.  Faith is a belief which exists in the absence of empirical data. It seems that you are confusing ‘faith’ with the word ‘trust’. Returning to your example of a reliable scientist, who has an excellent record of success e.g. a surgeon whose operations have an exceptional success rate, you then would be apt to trust that surgeon would have a similar outcome on you. Whether ‘faith’ is irrational would be another argument. Faith in a resurrection is belief without evidence. You, however, trust that the believers saw what they claim to have seen.
There is no denying that the origins of a god began with superstitions and myths. Any school child of today would laugh at the science of Aristotle and Aquinas. Primitively, gods caused the thunder, it rained when a god was pleased, and during a drought that god needed to be appeased. A god required a sacrifice; initially the Hebrew god required the sacrifice of the first born. Sons of God (angels) in the Hebrew Bible came to earth, impregnated women a fathered a ‘race of giants’. That god evolved as man’s knowledge progressed.  Why would an absolute, all loving god require any sacrifice, let alone be worshipped. Scholasticism, Natural Law Philosophy and its science was fixed and unchanging, taught in our universities.  Thankfully, the Enlightenment put an end to the superstition and myths of religion, replacing it with science and reason.
At the time witches, sorcerers, magicians and evil spirits and angels were the lore of the day. What is sad is the counter enlightenment of the church in the 19th century with the syllabus of errors in 1864, doctrine of infalliblity 1870, and the sins of Modernism with Pius X. The church used the Second Vatican Council as a rotary circle as it conducted an end run with John Paul II. The spirit of anti science and anti intellecutalism is now rampant in this world.  We have one poster relying on a statement that he is a scientist and thusly ought to be believed.  Yet ‘Answers in Genesis’ claims to have geologists, cosmologists claiming that the universe and all in it is only 6 thousand years old…this is science.
So other than 95 per cent of us belonging to the religion of our parents; what else can we go on.  What is reliable. How do we test postulates.  Can any religion undergo the same scrutiny as does science. “A rational person can knowingly will himself to believe a proposition for which he has no evidence. Are we locked into ‘epistemic closure’ accepting only posts which affirm viewpoints already held…may they take a trip on the “Mobius strip”. The question: why is there something and not nothing…is the question of the ages, and might not never be answered. But to make ‘bitter mockery’ of alternative thoughts on this blog is shameful and not progressive….

Since Michael is tendering a book suggestion, I shall also make a rendering. First, I would like to state that I as do others wish for an all loving god, would hope for a reunion with lost loving relatives…but that is a wish. In study, I have loved courses in metaphysics and theology and apologetics.  That is not enough, as I’ve left the weight upon me of indoctrination. The old mantra must prevail;  a wise person seeks the truth where the truth lies [sic], not where s/he wishes to put it. He who believes without knowing is foolish. Learning is as much art as it is science.
Book: GOD and the Folly of Faith…Victor Stenger, the incompatibility of science and religion.  Suggested only as a counter to that suggested above. Thinking must not stop with FAITH, thinking out not stop with belief.

I have to second that suggestion - I found that book and God: The Failed hypothesis, also by Victor Stenger, both to be excellent.  I find it very funny how people can rattle off St. Thomas, as if were talking about real contributions.  I simply think religion is man-made, clearly invented and is a FAILED, ancient science. Think about how religion looks today? Why would truth need to be reformed? Simple answer, it was never truth.  I will not waste my time reading religious nonsense when I haven’t read all fantastic books on all the sciences available.  Don’t get me wrong, the bible should be considered an important book from our bronze age.  But, a magical book inspired by gods with messages from beyond?  I grew up Pentecostal, which is code for crazy.  We spent 2 days a week in bible study, no other books allowed.  I always felt alone in my thoughts then, always looking around and thinking..“do these folks really think these vents happened only a few thousand years ago? Where did all the magic go?”  I was kid, it took me years of privately shedding my religious thinking. 

The most likely answer is simple, religion is obviously invented balderdash.  Science is our best course in the hopes to answer the big questions.

If religion and science are so incompatible why is there a list a mile long of Catholic clerics who were also scientists? Why does the Catholic church support an astronomical observatory? Why does it support research in many other fields of scientific inquiry? Why are there thousands of Catholic scientists, doctors, engineers and teachers in the world today? You have to completely ignore all evidence to state this. If it were really incompatible then none of this would exist.

Yes, a crazy pentecostal sect might be incompatible with science, because they’ve separated themselves from the ancient traditions of the Church, but Christianity is not. Science comes from Christianity. Even the Scientific Method itself was initially formed by Catholics (Grosseteste and Bacon). Since we are doing book recommendations, I hear both Jaki and Rizzi (Science before Science) have good books on this topic.

Lady Cygnus, read the book and come back to me…or would you like to defer to the minions of Sunday churchgoers, who leave Sunday mass, and leave it all there for that one hour. The issue is not a numbers game, counting Catholics with science degrees. The issue is God, creation of the universe, and what religion has to say about it or what science says. Science does not bamboozle me.  It has testability, peer review, methodology, falsification etc.  Religion has fixed, unchanged dogma of scholasticism and Natural Law Philosophy, and worst of all the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, which overrules any contrary opinion. Religion does not incorporate, adapt, adjust to include new findings. Need an example, the church continues to authorize exorcisms, believes in demons, angels, even guardian anglels, visions and apparitions, miraculous healings none of which is evidentiary.
Science of yet has not ruled out the existence of a god;  only to make it unlikely, as it fills in the god of the gaps. Physics further has in focus a number of possibilities for the universe coming to being, all within the realm of laws of physics…a mind must always be open to learning.  The legacy of the church has always been an obstacle to this learning, and that negative spirit is more active than ever.

I keep coming across the use of the word ‘metaphysics’ here.  I’ve never met a metaphysicist.  Are you all being serious?  There is no such thing. Stop being silly.

Walter, does it count if I read part of The God Delusion? Based on the reviews it sounds like the same kind thing with twice the bite to make the approving reader feel superior.

Manny, metaphysics is a subset of philosophy, thus most who study existence and our knowledge of it are called philosophers. Aristotle was a metaphysicist if you would like.

I was hoping to find something interesting here o possible some ne ideas. Instead, I find a bunch of childish nonsense. There is nothing in physics that claims the universe sprouted from nothing. In fact, it’s doubtful for “nothing” to exist. On a large scale, the vacuum of space can appear as nothing when on a quantum scale, it is very volatile…with “nothing” being a minimal energy state in a spectrum of shifting states. In this context, the Uncertainty Pinciple allows for particles to “appear” to an observer and then disappear again.

You are right Michael, physics is not in the business of disproving the existence of god…neither is it in the business of disproving the existence of giant fire frogs laying eggs that become new universes.

“why is there a list a mile long of Catholic clerics who were also scientists” — for the same reason there are so many Protestant scientists — there are a lot of at least nominal Christians in the world. Less than 100 years ago the Western world was 99% Christian.

Religion is incompatible with science because religion is magical thinking. Every possible argument presented ends with some form of abracadabra — God did it!

What is the point of doing all the hard work of science when according to Christianity at any point, on a whim God can change the value of pi? Aren’t you just better off doing as little as possible waiting to either die and meet this special being or having him come down and smite all none believers?

Cichawoda,

Is there an argument anywhere in there, or do you believe that by merely repeating the words “magical thinking” over and over again, your derision will succeed in making falsehood to be true?

Your contention that primarily only nominal Christians were the real scientists is false, absurd, and indicative that you have no real familiarity with this subject and are making up your criticisms out of your apparent hostility towards Catholicism and/or theism rather than any real knowledge of the subject:

Famous Catholic astronomers:

Gassendi (a priest)
Cardinal Nicholas de Cusa (a cardinal)
Piazzi (a monk)
Fr. Boscovich (a priest)
Fr. Secchi (a priest)
Fr. Copernicus (a priest)
Fr. Riccioli (a priest)
Fr. Picard (a priest)

Catholic chemists:

Basil Valentine (a monk)
Lavoisier
Dumas
Minkelers

Catholic physicists and mathematicians:

Pascal
Coulomb
Gerbert (a monk)
Fr. Grimaldi (a priest)
Fr. Clavius (a priest)
Bonaventure Cavaliere
Fr. John Buteon (a priest)

Catholic biologists/medical specialists:

Fr. Kircher (a priest)
Fr. Mendel (a priest)
Blessed Niels Steensen (a bishop)
Linacre
Carnoy

The books from which I took those names also list, in other fields, Mariotte, Caselli, Lemaitre, Just Hauy (all priests), Galvani, Volta, Torricelli, Pasteur, Schwann, de Chauliac, Morgagni.  And the list could be extended for some time.

Poor benighted Catholics, eh Cichawoda?  Prehaps if you had been there you could have informed them that scientific acumen ought not to be found among devoutly Catholic people (including priests and monks!), since their achievements spoil the fun (and accuracy) of propagating wild concoctions like your own.

Catholics do not believe that God changes the value of pi; they believe that He is rational and works according to fixed and discernible laws or regularities in nature (that’s exactly why science flourishes among Catholics, rather than Moslems or other groups, since it is Moslems—not Catholics—who hold to a voluntarist/“pure will” idea of the divine nature). 

In all seriousness I suggest trying to do a bit of study on these subjects; the more you attack Christianity from your position of ignorance, the more you expose that ignorance, the more you embarrass yourself, and the less you indicate the presence of the sort of humility which suggests a good faith effort or desire to learn what is true.

Walter Rogers:

Your strategy resembles what some have termed “buckshot debate,” whereby you load your rhetorical gun with a large assortment of anti-Catholic falsehoods, misrepresentations, and threadbare cliches and then spray them in every direction hoping that one hits the target.  I don’t have any inclination to pick through your long list of wild and strange accusations trying to glorify the Enlightenment and modernity while trashing things you quite evidently don’t understand, but I will reply to a few points:

1. It makes little sense to discuss Catholic theology with you in any great detail until you abandon your apparent adherence to the false system of scientism, which holds that science is the primary or only valid method of knowing truth (which by the way is a philosophical and not a scientific claim, and therefore self-contradictory) and that all non-scientific disciplines ought to be held to scientific standards (falsifiability, etc.).

2. Your definition of faith is flatly wrong.  Faith is an assent to divinely revealed truth and is eminently reasonable, since a divine Being cannot lie or deceive.  This is not “trust,” which has an emotional connotation, but rather an intellectual act founded on the common sense knowledge that an infinitely truthful Being always tells the truth.

3. Catholics do not argue that God is simply an explanation for certain metereological phenomena which we don’t understand, nor have they ever argued such an absurdity, and therefore your attempt to provide a mini-sociological history of pagan polytheistic religions is wholly irrelevant to the subject of the Catholic religion (which, being the only true religion, is the only one I am now defending). 

Catholics believe, as the First Vatican Council taught, that the existence of God can be known with absolute certainty using arguments drawn purely from the light of reason, and not requiring faith.

Once we prove the existence of God, we show that He is:

a. capable of revealing truths about Himself
b. that such revelation can be recognized by signs evidently of divine origin (such as miracles and prophecies)
c. that God not only can but actually has revealed truths about Himself, which are found in the Catholic Deposit of Faith. 

I cannot summarize 2,000 years of theology in a blog comment, so if you want a complete exposition of all those proofs, you’ll need to do the research (the book I mentioned earlier is one possibility, but there are others). 

4. Your criticisms of St. Thomas Aquinas, Scholasticism, St. Pius X, and the natural law are also not correct.

I said nothing about Aristotle’s science, but rather about his metaphysics.  Scholasticism is not a “dogma,” but a system of philosophy.

It is absurd to imply that dogmas must be wrong or objectionable because “fixed and unchanging.”  The multiplication tables are also fixed and unchanging; do you believe mathematicians are also irrational and superstitious? 

Fixed and unchanging laws of nature, moreover, are those on which science itself depends!  It is precisely because the natures of material beings are in some sense fixed and unchanging that scientists can construct reliable theories describing different natural systems.  That’s what a scientific law purports to be; a fixed and unchanging description of some regularity in nature which governs the behavior of a natural being.  The atomic numbers and structure of various atoms, for instance, or the fact that some form covalent bonds and others ionic bonds, etc., these sorts of things are fixed and unchanging.  If they were not fixed and unchanging then we would have no scientific knowledge of them and would be unable to predict, for instance, that oxygen and hydrogen will always form water when combined in certain ratios under certain conditions.  Strangely you level criticisms at Scholasticism which, if true, would decimate the very natural sciences which you hold dear. 

Is the Pythagorean theorem “falsifiable”?  Of course not, and it doesn’t have to be, since not all domains of truth are supposed to be falsifiable in the first place!  To say otherwise is again to hold that natural science is the sole valid source of truth.  It is like claiming that because hockey players do not score touchdowns, therefore hockey is not a valid sport.  Your scientism is simply not defensible.

5. One of the tenets of Modernism is to hold that dogma “evolves” and that immutable truths are not mutable.  This is absurd on the face of it because if God has revealed that something is true, quite clearly it cannot “evolve” anymore than the rules of basic arithmetic can “evolve.”  If Christ rose from the dead, and He did, then clearly this truth cannot “change” 2,000 years later.  If it was true then, and it was, then it is just as true now. 

You are in error if you imply that divinely revealed truth is a sort of academic roundtable discussion which the big bad CDF is “stifling.”  Divinely revealed truth is not an opinion presented to you by God for your approval or rejection, but rather a certain truth revealed by a Being Who cannot spin falsehoods.  The CDF censures people because the denial of Christ’s divinity or Resurrection is not merely a “contrary opinion” but rather a blatant falsehood.  It would be similarly absurd to criticize an association of mathematicians for “condemning” the “contrary opinions” of a group of nominal math teachers holding that odd numbers can be evenly divided by 2.  If a priest denies the Resurrection, for instance, the CDF very justly condemns this heretical teaching and demands that the person retract.  Otherwise he cannot continue to identify himself as a representative of the Church and a Catholic, since the most fundamental criterion for being Catholic is that one actually professes Catholic belief.

6. Here is a particularly bizarre statement of yours: 

“Religion does not incorporate, adapt, adjust to include new findings. Need an example, the church continues to authorize exorcisms, believes in demons, angels, even guardian angels, visions and apparitions, miraculous healings none of which is evidentiary.”

In other words, according to you, religion is false, because it’s not science!

Walter Rogers, the arithmetic tables also do not “adapt and adjust to include new findings.”  Therefore arithmetic, multiplication, and long division must be false!

The chemical formulas of molecular substances do not “adjust to new findings” either; therefore chemistry must be false!

Your comments about exorcisms are false.  Christ Himself performed exorcisms and spoke of angels and demons as real beings.  There are real exorcists today in the Church who have performed exorcisms and have observed the preternatural phenomena associated with demonic possession (e.g., preternatural strength, knowledge of esoteric languages, etc.) and which are not and cannot be explained by appeal to psychiatric phenomena.  You might consider listening to the talks of one such exorcist or even contacting him, as he has spoken on the subject at length here: (scroll to the “spiritual warfare” section): http://www.sensustraditionis.org/multimedia.html.

That particular priest holds multiple academic degrees and appears as unsuperstitious a person as you’ll find, and he has performed exorcisms.  It would also be absurd to suggest that angels, which are immaterial and spiritual beings, could ever be subjected to scientific “findings,” since immaterial beings cannot be measured or put under a microscope.  What would you like the Church to do; grab an angel by the collar and stuff him into a particle accelerator? 

That’s more empiricism from you, and you seem to reject all of this as ridiculous not based on any proof or “evidence” from science, but simply because you personally happen to find it ridiculous.  I personally happen to find your criticisms ridiculous, but unlike you I’ve provided evidence for my claim.

Your claim about miracles is equally preposterous; Lourdes has over 66 confirmed miracles examined by medical professionals/doctors.

Fatima was likewise a recent miracle (October 13, 1917) observed by 70,000 people, including atheists (look up the anticlerical newspapers of the time showing that even unbelievers admitted that a spectacular event had occurred).

Miraculous healings have unquestionably occurred, even in our own day, and are easily verifiable as such.  Consider, for instance, Padre Pio’s healing of a congenitally blind girl who lacked pupils in her eyes and yet was enabled from one instant to the next to regain her sight, or Padre Pio’s healing of a man (Giovanni Savino) who had his eye blown off in a dynamite explosion in February 1949.  His eye was miraculously restored even though the socket had been an empty, bloody, explosion-bombed pulp.  His atheist doctor was so astonished by the obvious miracle that he became a Catholic.  You can see the photo of the blind girl here (scroll down): http://www.michaeljournal.org/stpio.htm

I give you the same suggestion I gave to the previous poster: please do a bit of study, but especially more than a bit of prayer.  Your brazen and false attacks against Catholicism don’t make you appear scientific, rational, and sophisticated, but rather show that you really don’t know what you’re talking about.

I think it is fairly clear by now that Philosophy, as we’ve known it, is dead.  Today, only philosophy based on science gets traction for a reason.  It is pretty much the last breath.  I like many philosopher’s today, well about 3 or 4, I guess. 

Also, I find this physics-phobia alarming, but not surprising.  That is just wrong.  It’s wrong and its suspicious to say the least.  Why would religious take offense with this specific science.  Why?  Other science fields don’t bring on such odd behavior among religious.

I also find quoting ancient thinkers in this opportunist way just silly.  I mean, seriously - Isaac Newton gave us so many advances in real science, it is insane. But, he also spent the last decades of his life chasing alchemy.  There are no supernaturally insightful people in our history.  that should be evident.  Maybe Einstein.  Just kidding.

Manny, I’m not seeing a physics phobia in this thread, but a bunch of people who love God and REAL physics. However, there is a God-phobia to be sure.

Further proof needed? I, an unmarried Catholic woman who loves her faith, majored in Astrophysics in college. Even though I hated working in academia and now work with computers, I still have fond memories of studying physics. I’m afraid the only phobia I have is of advanced calculus, but everyone in that class did.

Michael, quite a lengthy posting tooting your own whistle on providing evidence, yet you presented none. Mathematics and chemistry you cite as an apologetic of religion for not adding ‘new findings’ia sort of dwelling on foolishness. The legacy of the church is and has been obstinancy and recalcitrance to adjust and adapt and attest to new learnings.  If science has not added to the ‘periodic table’, there was no need to, the same would be true of your sophomoric arithmetic.
The Enlightenment, indeed has been critical to ending superstition and myths of religion, particularly as it weighed upon the use of reason. We can thank Descartes, Spinoza, and Newton for getting the ball rolling. It was Descartes, who announced the break with scholasticism.  By the seventeenth century scholasticism was linked with efforts by the church to maintain the ‘truths’ of revelation. During the period of Enlightenment was a learned engagement of determining what the ‘truth’ is. What was ‘orthodoxy’ in the mid 17th century was considered by mid 18th century as superstitious foolishness. Spinoza challenged a world belief full of witches, goblins, angels and demons. Fortunately, Kant insisted upon the virtue of ‘maturity’, using the well known Latin motto; sapere aude - dare to know. A demand for ‘profile in courage’ to exercise one’s intelligence without the guidance of (church) mandates. But, the obstacle then and continued in the present church is ‘don’t think’ ‘obey’.
For the bitter woes of superstition were without a doubt present during the Lifetime of Jesus. One would certainly think that the ‘Word’ becoming incarnate would not suffer a loss in IQ. That godman would know that ‘epilepsy’ is a medical condition. Sickness today is known by any school age kid as a medical condition, not induced by sin or possession by a devil. The Tx is not ‘go and sin no more’.
If those who recognize Bayes’s Theorem, would look at all these magical thoughts and apply a realistic mode.  What do any of us see in our environment, not devils or angels. In the Hebrew Bible the sun was stopped so in light the battle could continue to be fought. At Fatima 70 thousand people saw the sun dance in the sky.  However, that global event was not seen elsewhere, no scientific sightings, no impact on the planetary orbits. If the sun surely did not move in the sky, the people seeing it were deranged.  The same acclaim noted in the Hebrew Bible; the sun ‘never moves’ and need not be stopped. Church people, are obviously, intoxicated in myth.
More Christians killed fellow Christians the century before and after Chalcedon 451 CE, regarding the nature of Christ. The decision that Christ was fully human and fully divine with out division. Now what would the relationship be between the two natures; which prevailed.  Which nature was tempted by the devil, which one had faulty medical information. His mother was called ‘Theotoku’ or god bearer.  The argument prevailed whether a god could have a mother, see Anastasius and Apollinarius and others who argued its cause…Mary the mother of Jesus, was she the mother of the human nature only…not according to Chalcedon.
Of substance was these arguments were bereft of modern medicine, science and based solely on myths carried over from ancient superstitions. Alas, not much has changed in the church, and it position is self-inflicted wound stemming from the First Vatican Council, 1870 and infallbility, setting its feet in cement. No, the church does not adjust or adapt from the top. It has to be forced from those who refuse to succomb as do the pew people;  the non thinking mindlessly obedient.

Walter, it’s Theotokos not Theotoku. Actually, I just accidentally removed notifications and needed a reason to post to put them back on. The stream of nonsense you wrote doesn’t really deserve comment.

Michael,
“Your contention that primarily only nominal Christians were the real scientists is false, absurd” — that is not the statement I made. I said “there are a lot of at least nominal Christians” so the nominal status is their minimal commitment and yes today studies have shown that in most modern communities religious adherence is on the most part superficial and cultural. I also said that “Less than 100 years ago the Western world was 99% Christian.” which clearly answers you question. What choice did Copernicus have? BTW — being burned at the stake or tortured is not considered a choice.

“Magical Thinking”— thinking, similar to a normal stage of childhood development, in which thoughts, words or actions assume a magical power, and are able to prevent or cause events to happen without a physical action occurring.

All religions from the Rainbow Serpent to The Bridge to Total Freedom are basses on magical thinking, the idea that we can somehow emotionally bargain with the Universe for outcomes in our favor. The details of the Catholic Church’s constant attempt to get science to stop investigating so that God can eek out an existence is surmised with John Paul’s request to Stephen Hawking — “It’s OK to study the universe and where it began. But we should not inquire into the beginning itself because that was the moment of creation and the work of God.”

But why not the Gnostic view and another 100 Gods? Why not the Rainbow Serpent or Theta? The choice is arbitrary and ultimately meaningless to anybody but the believer.

Science has no problem with simply stating the truth — there are thing we don’t yet know and there are things we might never know but so fare humans have not come up with a better way of finding out about the real/material/common world than the scientific method. For all the 100s of years of its metaphysical musings religion has very little to show. Science on the other hand, if devils are shown to be something more that products of our imagination, may be able to count how many of them can dance on a pin and than put them to good use in the service of man kind.

Michael,
“please do a bit of study, but especially more than a bit of prayer.” — explain how prayer is not classical/clinical magical thinking?

Lady Cygnus,
“there is a God-phobia to be sure.” which God/Gods are we talking about? Yes, personally I have a hard time understanding why believers of one set of fantastical beings and events would deny the existence of somebody’s different set of fantastical beings and events.

Sure, you feel a strong affinity to your set of beliefs but you have to admit that somebody can feel the same irrational commitment to their own set of beliefs, right?

Science transcends belief systems in that it specifically deals with what is empirically provable and common not just to all humans but to the real/material Universe as a whole. The beauty of the scientific method is that even if we meet aliens we will be able to find that unmistakable common ground through science. Believers can’t even find common ground within the same religion — doesn’t that alone give you the creepy feeling that your beliefs are just in your head and have nothing to do with our common reality?

Even if it was discovered and proven that the Universe was created by some being why would that make it/him/her a God? And, how would we determine whose God it would be?

Lady Cygnus, apparently your level of expertise expires with pointing out typos. Magical thinking is nonsense, mindless acquiesence is nonsense. I doubt you have the intellectual acumen to address any of the ‘folly of faith’...a belief void of empirical data. If your position is to ‘believe regardless’, simply so state. If you endorse an anti-intellectual posture so do it. Science’s position is not ‘out’ to get the church, but to observe, study and get to the truth. When in error it quickly adjusts and incorporates new information dismissing the old. Does the church do such. During the Second Vatican Council, Ratzinger informed Pope Paul VI not to relax the restrictions on contraceptions, as his commission voted to do. Ratzinger’s point was the church could not afford to change its mind and admit error…Now we are in the midst of the church attacking nuns, intellectuals, and all who dare think…‘sapere aude’.

“If you endorse an anti-intellectual posture so do it.”

I think you missed the comment where I said I majored in Astrophysics. Basically it was a BS in physics minus a lab or two, plus several math and astronomy courses. I graduated with a B average. My friends often tell me that I present an argument like a cold, calculating computer. Perhaps that’s why I’m still arguing with this thread, you are basically saying that I don’t exist and I’m waving my arms saying “but I’m right here!!”

Yet none of this will be enough because both of you have fallen into the “No True Scotsman” fallacy. Rather than look at the REASON and LOGIC behind your opponent’s belief system you are trying to say they could never be logical to begin with. You are in essence saying:
- Position X is logical
- No true logical person could believe position -X
- Thus all arguments for position -X are illogical

It is clear from your comments that you have NO CLUE what Catholics actually believe. Stop hiding behind a logical fallacy and actually try opening your mind to learning something new. You may in the end still believe that Christianity is false, but at least you will realize that smart, scientifically-minded individuals have reasons for what they believe.

Lady, I do not doubt you have a degree in what you claim. All I am saying is that there is no evidence of it in your discourse. Yet, you claim I have “NO CLUE” what catholics believe. Well after a ten year accumulation in religion and theology and philosophy from noted catholic institutions, I indeed am informed regarding catholicism. There is no fallacy presented, since my rebuttal can be reduced to; Prove it.  Whenever anything is affirmed the burden of proof is on the maker of the affirmation, not in the counter statement that you did not.

Lady Cygnus,
“scientifically-minded individuals have reasons for what they believe” — nobody said you don’t have reasons for your beliefs, I’m sure everybody has some “reasons” to believe in all kinds of superstitions because that is what religions are based on. Its just that all belief in the end is simply magical thinking.

You might even actively pursue scientific endeavors using analytical thinking and the scientific method but in other areas of your life still revert to magical thinking. Most of us do this, its part of our evolutionary heritage, magical thinking is easier and suffices in the day to day.

I just skimmed through the comments again, and I’m pretty sure my only point is that there are Catholic Scientists in the world, some quite brilliant and devout, ergo, the claim that one cannot be both Catholic and a Scientist is false. The only counterpoint was an attempt to dismiss them all as “No True Scotsman”, which is a logical fallacy. Thus, to continue to say those who believe in God have rejected science while holding to magical thinking is holding to a belief in spite of the evidence to the contrary.

And you say you know Catholicism, yet you’re definition of faith was not what the church teaches and you’ve presented Creationism (not a teaching of the church) as proof that the church is anti-science. Yes I could go into detail about why I believe, but really, there is no evidence that you would listen. Besides there are others who’ve done a much better job in print. Go read any of the really good books on the topic, several have been suggested.

“the claim that one cannot be both Catholic and a Scientist is false” — I don’t think anybody is claiming that. But, magical thinking is incompatible with science so a devout Catholic must suspend his/her magical thinking when they are doing real science. It is not that unusual for people to hold on the disparate, incompatible world views and using them where they fit best. Our psychological makeup is not monolithic.

It is however true that religion among scientists has declined over the last 100 years much faster than in the general population.

Wonder why you will not answer my question — “Even if it was discovered and proven that the Universe was created by some being why would that make it/him/her a God? And, how would we determine whose God it would be?”

I am truly curious on what philosophical grounds do the believers of one faith assert their “truth” over the faith of others.

“Wonder why you will not answer my question…” because your use of the term “magical thinking” clearly demonstrates that you’ve already made up your mind that belief is illogical. Since belief is illogical anything that sounds like logic put forth by believers is thus not logical and can be dismissed just by repeating “magical thinking” over and over.

But, as a mind-twister. On what philosophical grounds do the unbelievers assert their “truth” over the faith of others? Do you see the silliness of your statement? You believe there is no God, I believe there is. We both can’t be right. Yet, I’ll let you work out why it’s not only OK, but Good that you can tell me I’m wrong in my belief and I can do likewise.

Lady Cygnus,
Magical thinking is a clinically described and investigated way of viewing the world. We all do it as children and nobody completely grows out of it. Because it is easier than analytical thinking it has been shown to surface in most people under stress. It has also been demonstrated that when forced into an analytical thinking mode people’s beliefs tend to soften.

Do you think beliefs are equivalent? Say is a strong belief in Dreamtime and the Rainbow Serpent (the oldest continually practiced religion) equivalent to strong Christian beliefs?

My Atheism is not based on faith. Lets say you believe in Bigfoot and me as an Atheist say that there is no evidence that Bigfoot exists — it is plain to see that it is not faith in the nonexistence that is driving my view. I simply don’t have as big of an emotional stake in the argument. If conclusive evidence of Bigfoot was presented I would not become a believer in Bigfoot — I would acknowledge its existence.

The problem with faith is that it is personal, subjective and can’t be distinguished from imaginary. You can’t demonstrate the truth of your faith just like you can’t explain why you find beauty in a particular object to somebody who does not share your particular set of aesthetic preferences.

Since there are so many different religions with dedicated believers I suggest to you that God/Gods is not a thing or being but a atribute which like beauty is totally subjective.

Lady Cygnus,

You’re doing the yeoman’s work for trying, but if I were you I’d save your time and not even bother further replies to “Chicawoda,” whose mindlessly repetitious insults of his opponents as “magical thinkers” shows that he has no serious points to make, but instead intends to belittle them.  Sophists who cloak their ignorance with derision and mockery do a better job of burying their own cases than any of us can.

His arguments have been answered numerous times throughout this thread, and his reply is: “You’re magical thinkers.  You think magically, you believe in magic, and your thinking is too magical (and by the way, please stop the magic).”

Faced with such crisp and devastating logic, who can hope to adequately reply? :)

but…but, if I reword it yet one more way perhaps he’ll realize he’s being illogical! I know, Michael, I know, it takes a while for my love of arguing to give way to a realization that the other person never was trying to begin with.

Lady Cygnus & Michael,
Oops, didn’t realize I entered into a self adoration circle, sorry my bad.

Why do you guys think to call faith magical thinking is insulting? Magical/intuitive thinking has been shown to promote faith whereas skeptical/analytic has been demonstrated to reduce faith (Science 27 April 2012:Vol. 336 no. 6080).

“His arguments have been answered numerous times throughout this thread” — you know that’s not true and maybethat’s what is making you so angry, Micheal.

Cichawoda, why waste lyrics for the songbirds…it is they who repetitiously object to ‘magical thinking’ as if in their repeated denial a point is made. Nevertheless in their objection to ‘magical thinking’, the issue persists, and no contrary argument against it is made.
What is difficult is the refusal to acknowledge definitions…do they argue against a definition or some magical viewpoint. Faith, simply is belief in the absence of empirical data. In no manner of speaking has an attempt been made ‘not to believe’...only ‘what is the proof’.  Revelation does not cut it. No one today is going about speaking of what has just been revealed to them. As stated previously, science has filled in the gaps, which belonged to the ancients filled with myths and superstitions attributing all wonderments to a god. Now we know that many former tributes to divine intervention are explained by science, or a natural explanation replacing divine transcendental spirits.

Walter,
Can’t help but try. And, I am curious about real answers because I would like to see believers analyze their beliefs especially against the beliefs of others. Always had to get them to answer why their particular belief system is the right one as compared to the thousands out there.

And, there is always the “Atheism is just another religion.” as if not playing golf was just another sport.

Cichawoda,

Your and Walter’s arguments have indeed already been addressed and refuted; I will now attempt to recall the information for you (and my needing to do so seems to prove that you have not read the relevant parts of the thread or else have not understood them):

1. You asked: “Even if it was discovered and proven that the Universe was created by some being why would that make it/him/her a God? And, how would we determine whose God it would be?”

This was answered in detail at the first post of June 26, 1:53 p.m.

2. Walter Rogers’ continuing false definition of faith was refuted, as was his self-contradictory adherence to positivism, in posts at the second post of 6/26, 1:53 p.m., 11:21 p.m., and 11:26 p.m.  The latter refutation noted that the proposition “Only empirical data counts in the search for truth” is itself a NON-empirical and therefore self-refuting claim.  Human knowledge is filled with truths drawn from non-empirical fields (calculus, geometry, trigonometry, symbolic logic, metaphysics, etc.).  Walter attempts to lambast non-positivistic disciplines because, well, they’re not positivistic!  As already noted, this is like rejecting tea as a valid form of hydration because it’s not coffee.

3. Walter’s accusation regarding miracles being explained away by science was refuted (see post of June 26, p.m., 11:26 p.m.) by pointing out measurable, actual miracles which have occurred in recent times.  The dismissive comment about Fatima is absurd; 70,000 people, INCLUDING NON-BELIEVERS, witnessed this event right after a substantial soaking by rain.  Afterwards, their clothing was dry.  Hallucinations do not dry soaked clothing.  The miracle was also witnessed in Portuguese towns distant from Fatima; the fact that it was not witnessed all over the world is completely irrelevant, since there is no requirement that a miracle be personally witnessed worldwide in order to be actually miraculous (and the fact that other orbits were not thrown off would itself be part of the miraculous phenomena!).  70,000 witnesses is more than sufficient and to say otherwise showcases a desperately irrational attempt to refuse to yield to EMPIRICAL (!) data for ANY reason.

The Catholic Church only accepts the veracity of a miracle towards a canonization process after it has been verified by scientists and/or medical professionals.  This is therefore another of your charges which fails.

4. Walter’s implied remark on contraception is also absurd; the teaching on contraception cannot be reversed, not because the Church is trying to “save face,” but because contraception is immoral and contrary to both the natural and divine laws.  The literature demonstrating this truth is extensive and cannot be exhaustively summarized in a blog comment, but this accusation offers yet another proof (if we didn’t already have more than enough) that Walter is keen to introduce spurious and/or irrelevant misrepresentations about Catholic moral teaching in an apparent and vain effort to demand that non-scientific disciplines conform to the standards of science. 

If you redefine knowledge so that it only includes what can be empirically quantified, then naturally all non-positivistic disciplines will come to be dismissed as “magical” or whatever be the insult du’jour.  Or, to put it in more homely fashion, if all you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail.

5. Cichawoda’s accusation of “magic” is refuted by noting that magic can be defined as the attempt to manipulate forces of nature using spells, incantations, witchcraft, etc., none of which Catholics do, none of which is comparable to prayer, and which is a practice expressly forbidden by Catholic teaching.  Therefore your remark is both calumnious and absurd.  Repeating it dozens of times will make it no less absurd, but it will continue to deprive you of credibility.

I’ll conclude by again stating that your posts do not give real indication of interest in learning about the Catholic faith in a spirit of docility, but instead of interest in deriding your interlocutors with spurious and demonstrably false accusations, and apparently in studiously refusing to investigate source(s) recommended to you which outline the answers to your captious questioning in greater detail than that allowed by a blog comment. 

Michael,
Wow, you are full of yourself.

“Cichawoda’s accusation of “magic” is refuted by noting that magic can be defined” — no not magic but magical thinking — as the belief that(a) transfer of energy or information between physical systems may take place solely because of their similarity or contiguity in time and space, or (b) that one’s thought, words, or actions can achieve specific physical effects in a manner not governed by the principles of ordinary transmission of energy or information. — both very much part of Catholic practice.

“this is like rejecting tea as a valid form of hydration because it’s not coffee.” Empiricism is a form of realism that denies that mathematics can be known a priori at all.

“when someone puts forward a scientific theory that [religious critics] really don’t like, they just try to discredit it as ‘scientism’”— Daniel Dennett

“The dismissive comment about Fatima is absurd… and the fact that other orbits were not thrown off would itself be part of the miraculous phenomena!” — and you snark at me for saying you are susceptible to magical thinking?

“in a spirit of docility” — why would anybody willingly do that?

And you still refuse to answer my question directly — Even if it was discovered and proven that the Universe was created by some being why would that make it/him/her a God? And, how would we determine whose God it would be?

Michael,
“manipulate forces of nature using spells, incantations, witchcraft, etc.” — how is that different for the hocuspocus of a Catholic mass to an outside observer?

Cichawoda,

Passing over your continuing insults, I did answer your question about the nature and attributes of God directly by referring you to the first posting of June 26 at 1:53 p.m.  All it requires is for you to scroll up the page and read.  It’s really not that difficult.  I’m confident you can do that.

Your definition of magic is simply inexplicable, nor are you correct to apply it to Catholic practice in any way.  Let’s examine it:

“(a) transfer of energy or information between physical systems may take place solely because of their similarity or contiguity in time and space”

God is not a physical system, so your attempt to apply this rather stilted and ad hoc definition to anything in Catholic praxis fails and fails obviously.

Please do not attempt to lecture me about what the Catholic Church does and does not believe or teach.  I am a Catholic, I know what Catholics believe, you quite evidently do not, and therefore you are not in a position to instruct me about Catholic teaching.  It is for you to learn what Catholics believe, not for you to teach Catholics what they believe.

Definition 2 from you:

“(b) that one’s thought, words, or actions can achieve specific physical effects in a manner not governed by the principles of ordinary transmission of energy or information.”

This is an absurd definition of “magical thinking” which assumes (but does not prove) that anyone who does not PRESUPPOSE the truth of reductive positivistic materialism is engaging in magical thinking.  In other words, if you don’t think that all of reality can be subsumed into modern reductive materialism, if you believe in and can demonstrate the existence of immaterial entities and/or activities, then you are “magically thinking.”  You have only succeeded in fallaciously poisoning the well and begging the question against any of your opponents who do not enter the debate assuming the truth of your own adherence to scientism. 

Regarding your comments on mathematics and empiricism, can you clarify whether you believe that mathematics is in fact an “empirical” discipline? [!]

You once again beg the question by citing Dennett’s comment on scientism, since the argument is precisely that your assumptions are in fact NOT scientific theories, but non-scientific and philosophical ASSUMPTIONS which cannot be justified using science alone.  Where is the empirical data to confirm that science and empiricism are the only or primary valid ways of knowing truth?  Where are the peer-reviewed and falsifiable science experiments which you have conducted to justify this conclusion?  There are none and could not be any even in theory. 

You accuse me of “magical thinking” for acknowledging that a miracle witnessed by 70,000 people, including unbelievers such as yourself, is in fact a miracle.  I accuse you of engaging in “delusional non-thinking” for denying such a glaringly obvious conclusion.  I define a miracle as an action impossible for a merely created and finite nature.  Anyone who admits the existence of God at all admits the fact that an all-powerful Being is capable of acting beyond the capacities of finite, limited-in-power entities.  To tar your opponents as “magical thinkers” for stating common sense and obvious facts such as this is evidence of a desire to engage in schoolyard ridicule, not serious debate. 

You also asked “why would anybody willingly do that?” in reference to being docile about learning Catholicism.

Docility is a virtue which refers to being teachable.  You posed a question about God and His attributes which suggested that you wanted an answer.  If you really wanted the answer then you would be docile, i.e., in a position of admitting your own ignorance of the answer and showing a willingness to be taught.  If you think docility is foolish then this would expose dishonesty on your part by demonstrating that you have no real interest in knowing the answers to questions which you yourself posed, which is another way of saying that your feigned agnostic openness to proof is actually a front for a dogmatic atheism far more intolerantly irrational than anything of which you have accused Catholics.

Your blasphemous comments on the Catholic Mass confirm this, nor is it of any use whatsoever to have a debate with someone who cannot be bothered to treat his opponents with a minimum of respect and who refuses to refrain from tarring them with specious accusations of “magical thinking” while studiously refusing to engage the clear and repeated proofs and arguments made.  I would not even attempt to engage you in any detailed debate on Catholic theology until your foundational error is cleared up, namely, a refusal to acknowledge the existence and nature of God, already demonstrated by detailed proofs and not “magic.”  Discussing Catholic theology with someone who denies God’s existence is like discussing advanced multivariable calculus with someone who denies the truth of the times tables.  You can’t build a house by starting with the 10th floor.

Michael,
“Passing over your continuing insults” — I’m insulting? Do you ever reread your posts for pompous, accusatory, judgmental and insulting rhetoric?

“I did answer your question about the nature and attributes of God” — yes your recap of St.Thomas addressed to Manny does not answer my very direct question: If a creator of the Universe was discovered would that automatically be God. And if yes than how would we decide whose God? — surely you can answer these simple questions directly without going into metaphysical contortions.

“if you believe in and can demonstrate the existence of immaterial entities and/or activities” — if you just believe that you can than that is magical thinking but if you actually can reliably and repeatedly demonstrate (authenticate, establish, evidence, exhibit, make evident, prove, validate) “immaterial entities and/or activities” you have entered the poisoned well of empirical science.

“Catholic Church does and does not believe or teach” — I grew up in Poland so I have a very good theoretical and visceral idea of what this particular religion is all about.

“Your definition of magic is simply inexplicable” — the one i used is from Anomalistic Psychology: A Study of Magical Thinking — Zusne and Jones (1989)
“‘Magical thinking’ is the interpreting of two closely occurring events as though one caused the other, without any concern for the causal link. For example, if you believe that crossing your fingers brought you good fortune, you have associated the act of finger-crossing with the subsequent welcome event and imputed a causal link between the two.” — James Alcock
“...magical thinking involves several elements, including a belief in the interconnectedness of all things through forces and powers that transcend both physical and spiritual connections. Magical thinking invests special powers and forces in many things that are seen as symbols…” — Dr. Phillips Stevens Jr.
“...magical thinking is “a fundamental dimension of a child’s thinking.” — Zusne and Jones

All the definitions of magical thinking relate directly to the definition of religious faith — “firm belief in something for which there is no proof : complete trust” And fortunately, thanks to those evil positivists, the realm of questions which cannot be settled by evidence and are not totally subjective is getting smaller every day.

“Your blasphemous comments on the Catholic Mass” — how is the Catholic Mass with all the gear, funny hats, assumed magic, fuax cannibalism, etc not magical thinking and any different from say the Vodun ritual of contacting a Loa or the Shinto Harae? Can I really be a blasphemer when I don’t believe in any of this and aren’t you a blasphemer for not trusting a Loa? And, wouldn’t you agree that “The killing of Thomas Aikenhead, like the hounding of Salman Rushdie for the same ‘offence,’ was a disgrace…”? Remember all faiths are equivalent.

“Discussing Catholic theology with someone who denies God’s existence” — so isn’t it the same for discussing science with somebody who has an unyielding faith in the supernatural? When you so sincerely and unequivocally believe in a being that can tomorrow change the value of Pi on a whim — what is the point of science?

“Docility is a virtue which refers to being teachable” — happen to be a teacher and I want my students to be engaged, interested, inquisitive, motivated, questioning, and curious. Docile students are only good for indoctrination.

You can’t build a house by just praying for it.

Cichawoda,

I am not aware of when and where I unjustly insulted you, but if I have done so please accept my apologies.

To your questions:

” If a creator of the Universe was discovered would that automatically be God.”

Yes, because as my post to Manny showed, the Creator of the Universe would also have to be one, eternal, omnipotent, infinite, immutable, spiritual, and infinitely perfect, and the name of the Being Who has those attributes is “God.” 

” And if yes than how would we decide whose God?”

The God in Whom Catholics believe is one, eternal, omnipotent, infinitely perfect, and likewise with all the other attributes.  On the other hand, Buddhists, Hindus, Mormons, polytheists, deists, materialists, and pantheists all reject this idea of God, so all those religions would have to be false (as the above proof showed).  Moslems also believe that God can act irrationally by instantiating contradictions and hold to a “voluntarist” idea of the divine Nature, which is false, so that religion goes out the door as well.  Jews admit together with Catholics that the Old Testament is the inspired word of God, but since the Old Testament contains many verified prophecies about Who the Messiah would be and what He would do (all of which are fulfilled by Christ), therefore that religion goes out the door as well.  And Protestants believe that Scripture alone is the sole rule of faith, but Scripture itself rejects this error (2 Thes. 2:15; 2 Peter 1:20; 2 Peter 3:16; John 21:25), so that one goes out as well.  Therefore you can narrow down the options pretty quickly.

“if you just believe that you can than that is magical thinking”

Believing that one can demonstrate the existence of God (an immaterial Being) is not magical thinking, as I’ve explained repeatedly.  Not even atheist philosophers would take that accusation seriously; many of them have far more respect for their theist opponents than is indicated by your repeated accusations of “magical thinking.”

” but if you actually can reliably and repeatedly demonstrate (authenticate, establish, evidence, exhibit, make evident, prove, validate) “immaterial entities and/or activities” you have entered the poisoned well of empirical science.”

Once again you are apparently assuming (not proving, since it can’t be proven) that empirical science is the ONLY way to demonstrate that something is true.  I have already explained why this assumption is false and self-refuting, for which see my prior postings. 

” I grew up in Poland so I have a very good theoretical and visceral idea of what this particular religion is all about.”

As someone who has deeply studied Catholicism, all I can tell you is that, whether you intend to or not, you are misrepresenting Catholic teaching.  Growing up in Poland makes no difference here. 

I’m not interested in continuing to debate the definition of “magic” with you, since I already offered a summary of the proof for God’s existence.  If you want to debate that then you must address the actual arguments I made; continuing to accuse me of “magic” or childish thinking simpy isn’t an adequate reply and is irrelevant to the questions at hand.  It seems more like a way of avoiding answering your opponent’s arguments.  I could introduce a definition of “ridiculous thinking” and define it to mean “believing that empiricism alone is true,” then meet every one of your posts with the reply “You are engaging in ridiculous thinking,” but instead of using such a childish tactic I instead reply to the actual points you raise. 

Your definition of faith as “trust without proof” is once again not correct and I have already shown why in prior posts.  Faith is an act of the intelligence, assisted by grace, which assents to divinely revealed truth because of the authority of the infinitely truthful Being Who reveals that truth.  The fact that such an infinitely truthful Being exists is proven by reason and not by faith.  It is entirely reasonable to accept the testimony of an infinitely truthful Being, and you at least implicitly admit so, since you accept the testimony of finitely truthful and error-prone beings all the time (re: scientists).

Your comments on the Mass, to repeat, are irreverent and show still more misunderstanding.

The “gear” used in the Mass is known as a vestment and even in secular pursuits, people doing certain significant activities use specific forms of clothing to do it (e.g., baseball players have uniforums, as do pilots, train conductors, firefighters, etc.).  It would be absurd to mock a firefighter because he uses “funny looking gear” to fight fires.  Further, the vestments and other adornments used by priests, bishops, and popes have specific symbolic meanings which you could learn by consulting a reputable summary of Catholic doctrine.  I hope you will choose to do so rather than mocking something you don’t understand.

Catholics do not engage in cannibalism; this is a complete misrepresentation of the teaching about the Real Presence which again shows that you do not understand what you are talking about.  There’s nothing “insulting” about pointing that out, as it’s simply a fact.  I’d be happy to refer you to any number of books, available freely online, which explain this teaching and refute the idea of “cannibalism.”

Blasphemy can be defined as slighting, mocking, or injuriously treating God and what relates to Him.  The fact that you don’t believe in God does not mean that you are incapable of blaspheming Him, since your belief is not what determines reality.  Reality is true regardless of what you believe about it.  It would be like asking “How can I succumb to gravity if I don’t believe in it?,” then proceeding to walk off a cliff.  You’d still splatter on the ground below all the same. 

All religions are certainly not equivalent, as even an atheist who rejects them all should understand.  A religion which believes in Christ and another which hates Him clearly cannot in any way be “equivalent.”  One of those two must be false, even if you don’t know which one it is. 

Discussing theology with an atheist is not the same as discussing science with a Catholic, since Catholic faith does not in any way conflict with true science, nor has it ever.  I already posted an astonishingly long list of famous Catholic scientists.

I also already addressed your contention that God can change the value of pi.  You again repeat this false assertion, but it is still false.

As for docility, please imagine what your class would be like if every time you made a debatable assertion, your students immediately interrupted you, accused you of indoctrination, and shouted you down for “magical thinking.”  Your class would soon become unteachable and then no learning would be accomplished at all.

Perusing the replies multiple times, many drink the Kool Aid offered by the magisterium.  What blessings the Jesuits unfold is the insistence on defining ones terms. It is not necessary to agree with the definition, but it is necessary for dialogue to have a complete understanding of its usage to rebut, or else rebut where there is none. Faith is an unquestioning belief without the support of proof or evidence. Faith is not to be confused with trust, which is a coviction based on confidence that a witness, indoctrination, or magisterium is reliable. Miracle involves the violation of nature, physics or material world; and secondly require the intervention of divine spirit. Those are the definitions which I use here.
There is no doubt that the posters are sincere in their conviction, if not obstinately so. A rational person can knowingly will himself to believe a proposition for which he has no evidence. No evidence,here, would mean not acceptable or agreed upon by main stream science. So, back to Fatima. Since the dancing sun was not in evidence world wide, the conclusion is that it did not happen in fact. What happens to the 70,000 thousand acclaimed witnesses. The burden remains on them for what happened to them. Did a divine spirtit use prestidigitation or legerdemain on those souls.  Would a god use them as prey to a folly of seeing what did not happen in fact.  A larger question, the theme of this article on science is whether a transcendental spirit, or god, can impact the natural or material world. Those who say; no, it can not happen call the event;  magical thinking… those who drank the Kool Aid see differently. Importantly, if a transcendental spirit can in fact impact the natural world, that impact, or result, can be measured by science. Now lies the difference or controversy among believers.  My position is that their is no definitive proof, only words upon words lacking substance.
Thankfully, the Jesuits insisted that we THINK…in a quest;  ever to excel, critical thought must not be abandoned…the legacy of the church is to obey(thinking not included).

Jesuit graduate:

It is unfortunate that perhaps you did not internalize all of the Jesuits’ lessons in logic, which surely would have included lessons on avoiding the fallacy of “poisoning the well,” already in evidence in your very first sentence. 

Your definitions, alas, are not adequate.  The Catholic definition of faith, from the First Vatican Council and one of the traditional catechisms, if I recall, is something like the following: “Faith is a supernatural habit infused by God by which the intellect, commanded by the will, assisted by divine grace, assents to divinely revealed truth, not because that truth is intrinsically evident to the natural light of reason, but because of the authority of the infinitely truthful God Who reveals it.”

Now although it is true to say, as you did say, that faith is an unquestioning belief, it is also true that assent given to the assertions of an infinitely veracious Being would logically have to be unquestioning, since it is incoherent to doubt whether an infinitely truthful Being is actually telling you the truth.  You are incorrect, however, to state that faith has “no support of proof or evidence.”  The First Vatican Council points out that God’s existence can be proven (using reason), and thus we can show His infinitely truthful nature.  Knowing that God is therefore able to reveal truth, we can also prove the signs by which such truth would become evident (called the “motives of credibility”), as well as examining and proving the truth of actual historical instances of those signs (such as the Resurrection and other miracles, examples of which I linked to earlier).  Faith as the Church defines it is therefore eminently reasonable; human beings constantly and unthinkingly put absolute and de facto unquestioning faith in far less assured matters of day-to-day life without being accused of over-credulity.  Therefore your definition is not correct.

Your definition of a miracle is also not correct, since a miracle does not VIOLATE nature, but instead involves the suspension of some action or property of nature which nevertheless normally obtains.  Jesuit philosopher Fr. G.H. Joyce gives the example of God miraculously causing a piece of iron to float in water.  In such a case, he explains, iron by nature would still have the property of sinking in water, and thus although in this case God SUSPENDS that law’s operation, the law as a general rule is still true.  No violation takes place.

I agree that otherwise rational people can convince themselves of irrational things, which is clearly the case in your attempt to dismiss the veracity of an event observed by 70,000 people, many of whom had specific reasons to wish NOT to admit the truth of what they were saying.  It does indeed require a strangely intense commitment to irrationality to tell a substantial number of atheists who rejected the existence of the supernatural that what they saw with their own eyes was wholly an illusion (and that this illusion somehow managed to also dry their rain-soaked clothing).  Fatima is certainly not the only miracle I could have used, by the way, but it’s one of the more obvious ways to draw out “rational” persons’ highly irrational attempts to circumvent empirical evidence of the miraculous. 

Here is a good example of irrationality: “Since the dancing sun was not in evidence world wide, the conclusion is that it did not happen in fact.”

You are now introducing an ad hoc and contrived condition which nowhere forms part of the definition of a miracle.  There is absolutely no requirement that a dancing sun be witnessed worldwide in order to have actually occurred, since a Being Who is capable of manipulating the orbit of a massive planetary body is also quite capable of limiting its visible effects to a specific geographic area (although as I mentioned, it was witnessed miles away in other Portuguese locations distant from Fatima, such as Alburitel).

Another comment from you:
“Importantly, if a transcendental spirit can in fact impact the natural world, that impact, or result, can be measured by science.”

Sometimes, but not always.  One case where such measurement is possible would be the case I linked to earlier of the blind girl, born without pupils, miraculously regaining her sight (though still without pupils!  That’s like an amputee regaining the ability to walk, though still lacking legs).  I believer her doctors told her parents that she would never be able to see, since it is not possible to see without pupils.  And yet she sees.  The man who had his eye blown out by a stick of dynamite before having it regrown would be another example; as I mentioned, his doctor—previously an atheist—was so astonished by the obvious miracle that he abandoned his atheism.  Your attitude leads me to assume that you would inform the previously blind man that he wasn’t actually blind, but was just imagining it, since science tells us that blind people can’t regain sight.  But you would be wrong, and measurably so.

Your parting shot about the Church inculcating uncritical and thoughtless obedience is a familiar myth, but no less a myth for its familiarity.  A pity that you weren’t available to inform St. Thomas Aquinas that he ought not to have posed and then answered around 10,000 critical objections to his own Catholic beliefs, since such critical analysis was “forbidden” to a Catholic.  Pity the poor benighted Thomas!  He must not have received the memo :)

To quote from the First Vatican Council is nothing less than circular reasoning at best, and exemplifies earlier accusations of magical thinking. To digest any of your first few paragraphs requires a brain that is a tangled mess of irrational thoughts. I shall stick to the proofs of science and adhere to its requirements, not of such ancients as Aquinas, who lived amongst those who believed in a flat earth, who believed that the sun traveled around the earth, who stated that heretics ought to be executed.
An ax head that does not sink; does not violate the law of gravity…how much swamp land have you bought. Not only are you bereft of making sense, you remain literal and concrete of thought. An accepted miracle would entail as evidence a person missing a limb, an arm or leg, and spontaneously growing a new one. That has never been noted to happen.  A prophecy would be on Oct.9, 2012, a tidal wave sweeps over Manhattan and totally destroys it.  A combination of prophecy and miracle would be on that date, Bill Maher would be converted from atheism.
You perseverate in your silliness which borders on absurd and nonsense. Quoting the Roman church to buffer your rebuttal, or its hired doctors, is neither logical or accepted as evidentiary.  What would be acceptable is for the National Academy of Science to recognize an alleged miracle, apparition, visitation.  That would remove the magical thinking and embody proof and evidence.

Graduate:

Quoting an authority could only be circular if I relied solely on a non-accepted authority to prove something true.  But I did not; the argument of the Council stands on its own merits regardless of whether you accept the Council’s authority or not, and you did not address the argument.

I don’t see much argument at all coming from you, for that matter, but a good deal of ridicule, mockery, belittling, and like behavior which nearly always reveals a lack of substance and an attempt to cover over that deficiency by slamming your opponent with colorful invective.  “Silly, absurd, nonsense, how much swamp have you bought, magical thinking, mess of irrational thoughts”...I give you points for your inability to conceal your contempt for your opponents, but not for much else.

Your argument against St. Thomas appears to be that you don’t care whether what he said was true or not, but that he belonged to those silly “medieval” times where everyone was stupid and therefore whatever he said can be dismissed without actually addressing it (by the way, you are completely wrong, and rather embarrassingly so, in recycling the “Flat Earth” myth.  Here is what St. Thomas says in literally the first article of his entire Summa: “For the astronomer and the physicist both may prove the same conclusion: that the earth, for instance, is ROUND…” (ST I, q. 1, a. 1).  Oops!). 

Your reply to the definition of miracles is not an argument, but an insult.  Miracles do not VIOLATE natural laws, but suspend them.  There is a difference between violating something’s nature and temporarily suspending its proper effect.  Ridiculing your opponents will not alter this distinction, nor is it relevant to the argument.

I already provided evidence of miracles, including—ironically—a miracle of the very sort you noted, namely, the regeneration of a missing body part (a bombed out eye socket).  Read the link provided; it was accepted by an atheist doctor (who ceased being an atheist after seeing it).  And yes, scientists do verify these things.  Here is the testimony of doctors on another miracle, that of a Catholic woman who survived without any food or water besides the Holy Eucharist while under 24 hour surveillance:

“We the undersigned, Dr. C.A. Di Lima, Professor of the Faculty of Medicine of Oporto and Dr. E. A. D. de Azevedo, doctor graduate of the same Faculty, testify that, having examined Alexandrina Maria de Costa, aged 39…we also testify that the bedridden woman, from 10 June to 20 July 1943 remained in the sector for infantile paralysis at the Hospital of Foce del Duro, under the direction of De Araujo and under the day and night surveillance by impartial persons desirous of discovering the truth of her fast. Her abstinence from solids and liquids was absolute during all that time. We testify also that she retained her weight, and her temperature, breathing, blood pressure, pulse and blood were normal while her mental faculties were constant and lucid and she had not, during these forty days, any natural necessities…The laws of physiology and biochemistry cannot account for the survival of this sick woman for forty days of absolute fast in the hospital…For the sake of the truth, we have prepared this certificate which we sign. Oporto, 26 July 1943.” (Francis Johnston, Alexandrina: The Agony and the Glory, trans. Anne Croshaw (Rockford, IL: TAN Books and Publishers, Inc., 1982), 83-4).

I could provide many, many other examples, but it is clear that you are not interested in science and evidence, but in ramming through your predetermined scientiSTIC conclusion to refuse to accept evidence of the miraculous for ANY reason.  This is a strangely UNscientific dogmatism every bit as “Kool-Aidish” as that of which you accuse religious believers.  You accuse religious believers of being unthinking, irrational, allergic to evidence, etc., then reject empirical evidence validated by medical professionals or witnessed by 70,000 people.  And then you call OTHERS irrational!  When you point the finger at someone else, there’s three more pointing back at you.

Quoting the Councils is acceptable only to the pew people, not learned science.  All the references made to insults only lends itself to whether Michael can apply the same standard to himself. It seems that all your futile attempts at rebuttal are nothing more than anecdotal. I shall repeat until the National Academy of Science confirms any of these myths they shall remain unrecognized other than superstition. With undue tedium you persist in referencing 70,000 reputed witnesses, yet no one interviewed 70,000 witnesses, or have such on record other than foolishly stating such. Rational is self-defining, not hocus pocus. Finally, Aquinas assumed the science of Aristotle, which time and again has cascaded into the realm of folly, well recognized by any school child. No one states that Aquinas was stupid, but certainly in today’s terms ignorant of science…none of which was his fault. The fault lies with the magisterium, in its arrogance, which repeatedly demonstrates its unwillingness to accept new findings, and insists that its power and authority govern the intellectual conscience of all others.  From your postings, there is no possible way, or any indication of such that you will return to earth.  Each of your posts are further out and away from reality that it is doubtful that your stretch of imagination could possibly be shrunk back to reality.

Graduate:

Like prior posters, you are embracing the non-scientific error that the only credible, rational, truthful, worthwhile, and/or reliable evidence about the world is found in reductive materialistic science.  This error is not something that science teaches you, since there is no use of the scientific method which could prove such a conclusion.  It is instead a baseless assumption made by you and which you use to reject all attempts at argument which do not fit into the a priori box you have constructed, a box which shuts out all non-science based arguments as invalid, then declares victory when other proofs are “not falsifiable” or “not accepted by scientists.”  It’s not possible to conduct a serious debate with someone who follows such standards, since this philosophy is false and no attempt is or could be made to prove it using science alone.  If what I say to you is true, then it is true regardless of what scientists think about it.

Your criteria for accepting the truth of a miracle—that the NAS accept it—is patently absurd for the following reason.  I have no doubt that if an undeniably miraculous action were performed directly in front of the eyes of every member of the NAS, it is quite likely that at least some of them would find some irrational and positivist way of denying that the miracle was, in fact, miraculous.  This is not just a guess; if I recall correctly, I know of someone who promised to convert from atheism provided that he witnessed a miraculous healing at Lourdes.  He went to Lourdes, witnessed a miracle, AND REFUSED TO RENOUNCE ATHEISM!  He wasn’t actually interested in the truth; he already “knew” that what he didn’t want to believe was “false,” and then when he found evidence that it was true, he simply refused to believe it anyway.  In other words, I expect that at least some members of whatever scientist-group you came up with would share your a priori commitment to the rejection of the very possibility of miracles, and therefore any true miracle submitted to their attention would be explained away by some non-scientific and irrational desire to preserve themselves in atheism.  This would not prove that miracles don’t happen; it would prove that scientists, when they venture outside of science and into philosophy or theology, can be just as lame and uninformed about those subjects as anyone else.

Put differently, you are saying that you refuse to accept a theological or philosophical thesis as true until non-philosopher scientists tell you that it is true.  This would be like me refusing to accept the worth of a math theorem until I first ran it by my dentist.  I trust you can see the incoherence of that procedure.

Your continued attempts to dodge Fatima have now reached the level of the desperate.  Here is one of numerous photos of an enormous crowd gaping at the sky around the time of the miracle: http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5690/310/1600/SunMiracle.jpg.

If you are literally claiming that someone would have to individually interview 70,000 different people before we could know with certainty whether a miracle had occurred, then you lose all claim to being the “rational” and “scientific” party in this debate, since nothing about such a criterion is rational or scientific.  What you are doing is trying to redefine the terms of verifying a miracle to make them so impossibly absurd to satisfy that no one could EVER satisfactorily prove a miracle to be true.  This is not honest, nor is it scientific, nor is it reasonable.  It’s desperate and you know (or should know) that it is, even though you probably will not admit that.

Thank you for admitting that St. Thomas was not responsible for any scientific errors of his day; I wish you would also admit that Aristotle’s science is completely irrelevant to topics such as God’s existence and the evidence of miracles, since neither topic falls under the domain of physics or other natural sciences.  If St. Thomas is right about God’s existence, this is a subject totally independent of science.  Please address the actual arguments which have been made, rather than cloaking yourself in the guise of “science!” regarding a non-scientific topic.

Your remarks on the Magisterium are also false.  Arrogance involves arrogating to oneself an illegitimate authority, but since Catholics believe—and can prove—that Christ founded a Church, that this Church is the Catholic Church, and that Christ gave this Church the authority to pronounce on matters of faith and morals, there is nothing “arrogant” about the Magisterium exercising this God-given authority and declaring that something erroneous is in fact an error.  It’s no more “arrogant” for you to teach your math students the theorems of geometry, and if your students angrily protested that you were “unjustly governing their intellects!” by “imposing” the Pythagorean theorem, then those students would make themselves look ridiculous.  Please find a way, once more, to address the substance of the argument rather than endlessly hurling specious accusations of arrogance, irrationality, silliness, nonsense, what swamp I came from, how into the stratosphere I am, what sort of drugs I must have took, or whatever other silly jabs you might happen to come up with. 

I’m also curious; can you please verify whether you are the same poster identified as “Cichawoda” in earlier posts?  Your writing style and arguments are strangely familiar.

Michael,
No he is not me but I will reengage, I find the faithful mind and magical thinking fascinating, after I attend to family matters and happy hour ;-)

BTW I find graduates writing way better than mine and his arguments way more polished - so thanks for the compliment.

I think it’s fairly clear that “Graduate” and “Walter Rogers” are the same person, and possibly also the same person as Cichawoda.  Compare:

Cichawoda: “Religion is incompatible with science because religion is magical thinking.”
Graduate: “Those who say; no, it can not happen call the event;  magical thinking”
Walter Rogers: “it is they who repetitiously object to ‘magical thinking’”

Cichawoda: “we can deduce that no magical thinking is necessary”
Grad: “exemplifies earlier accusations of magical thinking.”
Walter Rogers: “it is they who repetitiously object to ‘magical thinking’”

Cichawoda: “clinical magical thinking”
Graduate: “That would remove the magical thinking”
Walter Rogers: “Magical thinking is nonsense”

Cichawoda: “Science transcends belief systems in that it specifically deals with what is empirically provable”
Walter Rogers: “a belief void of empirical data”

Grad: “Faith is not to be confused with trust”
Walter Rogers: “It seems that you are confusing ‘faith’ with the word ‘trust’.”

Grad: “Finally, Aquinas assumed the science of Aristotle, which time and again has cascaded into the realm of folly, well recognized by any school child.”
Walter Rogers: “Any school child of today would laugh at the science of Aristotle and Aquinas.”

Grad: “The fault lies with the magisterium, in its arrogance, which repeatedly demonstrates its unwillingness to accept new findings”
Walter Rogers: “Religion does not incorporate, adapt, adjust to include new findings.”

Cichawoda: “Do you ever reread your posts for pompous, accusatory, judgmental and insulting rhetoric?”
Grad: “All the references made to insults only lends itself to whether Michael can apply the same standard to himself.”

I’m pretty sure that you are both the same person.  The blog author could check the IP addresses.

I’m also pretty sure that this debate has run its course.  You are unwilling to refrain from incessantly ridiculing your opponents, you have repeatedly refused to address the proofs of God’s existence, you dodge and weave and bob to get out of the obvious and empirical facts offered by mass-witnessed miracles, after avoiding empirical data you then claim that you are the defender of empirical data, you demand scientist testimony of miracles, then ignore it when it is offered, you repeat—even after being corrected—fables about the Catholic religion (such as the assertion about pi), you recycle ancient and easily-refuted myths about St. Thomas and the supposed “Flat Earthism”...nowhere in this nest of fallacies is there an indication that you actually do have an interest in learning the answers to the questions you pose. 

I suspect that any reply you offer will be long on timeworn barbs about “magical thinking” and whatever other phrases you coin in order to run away from addressing your opponents’ arguments.  But I also suspect that any neutral 3rd party who has read this debate sees what you are doing and rejects it as foreign to what belongs in an honest debate.

Michael, all good things must come to an end.  It is best that you stay as you are(for your sake);  totally void of insight…but somehow have a transference relationship displacing all faulty retorts onto us; which assuredly you have deigned as the unholy trinity.  In the practice of psychiatry;  magical thinking is a valid description of those believing that a transcendental spirit can be beckoned to intervene in a material world. If magical thinking offends thee, would you prefer;  hocus pocus. Sadly, your boat is too far away from the pier to get back. None of this makes you a bad person. You have no earnest scholarshop to taste the truth and search not for it.
Our Founding Fathers, to whom I shall forever be grateful, did have such a taste for truth…none of whom were foils to the claptrap you impose.  They were enlightened and instituted the principles of the Enlightenment, to replace the superstitions and myths of religion with science and reason.  Science, unlike religion makes no attempt to bamboozle me. Thomas Jefferson rewrote the Bible, expunging all references to magic of miracles:  “Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind.  With such persons, gullibility, which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason and the mind becomes a wreck.” - Thomas Jefferson
Faith, refers to beliefs that are accepted without empirical evidence. Science differs from religion because it is the nature of science to test and retest explanations against the natural world.  Religion fails in all such tests.

“The blog author could check the IP addresses.” — Wow, so you are accusing us of lying and deceiving to bolster your other false accusations of “you have repeatedly refused to address the proofs of God’s existence”. You should check the IP adresses and than see if you have the courage to report back what you find.

Cichawoda,

I said pretty sure, but please accept my apologies if I am not correct on that one.  IP’s can be manipulated by the way, so your test would prove nothing. But I think you should provide empirical data to prove otherwise.  Please offer a science experiment, peer-reviewed, and also one which we can falsify, in order to show that you’re not the same as the other poster.  And you should also probably produce unanimous confirmation from the National Academy of Sciences; otherwise the proof might not be considered valid.  Even if you produce 70,000 witnesses showing otherwise, it wouldn’t necessarily be considered enough (The preceding is a good example of what it’s like to debate with you, by the way).  The proof of God’s existence was summarized in the 6/26 post, 1:53 p.m.  Everyone who reads this thread can scroll up and see it clearly, and they can also see that you failed to address it substantively.  As for accusing you of dishonesty, if you read the relevant sections, then I have no choice but to accuse you of being dishonest.  Here is one example: “What is the point of doing all the hard work of science when according to Christianity at any point, on a whim God can change the value of pi?”

After being specifically corrected as to this error, here is what you said: “When you so sincerely and unequivocally believe in a being that can tomorrow change the value of Pi on a whim”

In other words (and this is just one example), you said something false, then after being corrected, continued to repeat the same falsehood.  If you read the correction and did this anyway, then there is a word for what you did: “dishonesty.”  You’ve buried your own case far more thoroughly than I could have.  I hope you’ll take up some offline study on these points, even if online you wish to preserve the illusion of “victory.”

Graduate:

It seems clear that since you and “Walter Rogers” use in some cases almost exactly the same phrases and themes, in all likelihood you are the same person.  I’ve already rebutted your continual recourse to positivism, so that’s beating a dead horse to some degree, but I’ll try once more.  After spinning some of your customary insults (I am devoid of insight, irrational, blinded to the truth, not among the “enlightened” ones who drink from the chill waters of pure reason, etc.) you say this:

“Faith, refers to beliefs that are accepted without empirical evidence.”
Reply: Mathematics also involves truths which are accepted without empirical evidence.  So does calculus, geometry, trigonometry, algebra, number theory, metaphysics,  and symbolic logic.  Perhaps you should do specialists of these disciplines the kindness to inform them that they are “irrational” for refusing to treat non-science disciplines like they were supposed to be doing science.

Here’s another gem: “Science differs from religion because it is the nature of science to test and retest explanations against the natural world.  Religion fails in all such tests.”

Reply: “America differs from China because America is in the Western hemisphere while China is in the East.  Since America fails the test of being in the Eastern hemisphere, therefore America is not a valid country.”  And the same example could be used for any such claim, namely, that you assume, but never prove, and cannot prove, that every academic discipline is bound to follow the standards of science; that only what is empirically testable in a test tube, under a microscope, or by similar means is valid and acceptable for knowledge; and that those who stray from this arbitrary standard are not being reasonable.  Since this assumption is itself not something that you can put under a microscope, therefore it fails your own test for certitude, which means that you yourself implicitly repudiate the very scientism which you foist on others.  Well done; you’ve sawed off the branch on which you were seated.

You continue to repeat the false and question-begging canard that “religion is irrational/science is rational, religion is false/science is true, religion is for dim people/science is for smart people,” etc.  Like certain politicians you apparently believe that repeating something false dozens of times is enough to make it true.  I already pointed out a proof, from reason, that God’s existence can be and has been proven.  If I recall, your general response to this has been to flame me with further insult and then start repeating your favorite theme: “Religion is bad, science is good.”  Once more I appeal to any neutral 3rd party and objective observer of this debate, who will see clearly that the theist side uses argument from reason, while the atheist side uses “argument” from mockery, repetitious falsehood, well-poisoning, question-begging, and whatever other sophistry happens to be plucked from the fallacy tool kit.  Your approach speaks for itself, and I make you the same suggestion as Cichawoda; please take up some offline study of these points, even if your online persona is too enthralled with beating the “I’m scientific and sophisticated/you’re unthinking and witless” drum.

God bless you all.

and Moses parted the red sea, couldn’t possibly have been an east wind or turning of the tide!  Michael, you have lost it…the debate.  Not because God doesn’t exist or religion is right and science is wrong or the other way around; but because you do not respect the right for anyone to choose a side you can’t seem to get…science.  Science and religion both seek truth.  Science using tools and data from the natural world.  You know tools like mathematical models called theories; like Newton’s Law of Gravitation-so many examples.  Science can be tested by mathematical models. Modern scientist love computer programs like SAS and SPSS…Somethings taught in our schools…I wouldn’t want our schools to stop teaching science and math and programming.  Scientist don’t claim to know everything about the universe.  It’s an ever-changing, evolving knowledge base…subject to change upon discovery.  Religion: Intelligent Design is a possibility but there is no way to test it other than historical review of what other’s have derived from whatever they saw, heard or read…based purely on belief in the supernatural. I believe extraordinary things can happen.  Man explores space and the teachings of the bible are still with us…extraordinary.  I think it’s pure arrogance for any religion or individual to say they Know God.  As for 70,000 people following three kids to a hill side and staring at the sun.  I would have been blinded I’m sure.  ...and saw the Blessed Virgin gravitate above them…well, kids say the darndest things.  You could give some slack to the other bloggers, be they individual or a trinity of persona, Jesuitical, Chichawoda and Walter R’s opinions should be respectfully considered.  Me…I’m going to go with Pat Archbold’s suggestion above:
“So it could be that this universe is merely the science fair project of a kid in another universe,” Shostak added. “I don’t know how that affects your theological leanings, but it is something to consider.” ...and a pretty bright kid at that.
In closing, Michael…I do like your name.

What in the world is to stop you from believing that God was responsible for a cosmic singularity. Nothing. What is to stop you from believing that God sets the earth in motion around the sun. Nothing. If the world came from a cosmic singularity, then why do you begrudge scientists the oppurtunity to find that out? Again and again throughout history the god of the gap theory has only stopped scientific knowledge. There are cosmologists who believe in God but do not let their faith interfere with science because they know it will get in the way of scientific discovery. Have your faith certainly, but saying, “God did it and we can’t understand it” is not scientific, though it has been used by scientists throughtout history. That is why is must be thrown out. If you believe in God, certainly you must believe He is more than a God of the gaps, because those gaps keep closing.