Does he distill his own gasoline?
Just because they were officially all atheists doesn’t mean that they really all were. It’s not the kind of question you could have gotten honest answers for.
Certainly not in this thread.
And what did you learn from that other forum?
I’m not a member of the Roman Catholic Church, but I do seem to recall that participants in the Eucharist must confess their mistakes, unkindnesses, selfish deeds, and other “sins” before participating in Communion. No one claims to be without flaws. Not even the Pope. I don’t think Catholics go into the Confessional to talk about how wonderful they are.
Do you consider yourself a moral authority? Do you, like the Church that you disparage, have flaws and strong opinions that are sometimes expressed in hostile words? Could some of your posts be considered “lecturing” or browbeating? Are you always right? Should we hold you to a higher standard? To me, there seems to be a lot of irony in your posts about the Church.
I think that guy is an atheist troll though based on other factors.
So, nothing substantively different than you received here, only said in a less engaging and entertaining way.
Do I claim to have a pipeline to a Supreme Being? No. Am I trying to pass laws to oppress people, am I killing people with lies in the name of “morality”? No. I don’t claim to have magic powers that give me the right to declare what is right and wrong for everyone else.
So no, I’m nothing like them.
So you are saying that you don’t have flaws and strong opinions that are sometimes expressed in hostile words? You never lecture or browbeat? You do not consider yourself a moral authority? And you don’t claim that you are always right?
You are not like them in some ways, but you may be quite like them in others. So your conclusion that you are “nothing like them” is irrational. You can start with just the notion that you and the members of the Church might all have belly buttons and go from there on ways that you might be alike.
You have left my original questions totally unanswered. You have an interesting list of how you are not like them. Strangely enough, you and I share these traits and I am a Christian. But I do have flaws and strong opinions (sometimes expressed in hostile ways). My former students would be the first to tell you that I lecture and “browbeat.” Of course, I think I’m right, even though I have often been shown to be wrong. And, like you, most of the time I consider myself a moral authority only for myself. But now and then I can be a little pompous and defiant about other people’s moral choices.
You and I and many Christians have a lot in common. Aren’t we glad we are not like the Pharisees?
JohnClay, many of the things you “learned” from that other forum are based on ignorance. The quote about Sir Isaac Newton is erroneous, for example. Mendel, a monk born almost a hundred years after Newton’s death, is considered “the father of modern genetics.”
The statement about people becoming scientists because they are atheists is irrational. If that were true, all atheists would be scientists.
I am a Christian, but much of what you quoted expresses a lack of real thought.
People in general have no excuses these days with internet access & that goes for scientists. Google “did man live at the same time as dinasours” or " man made objects in rock" if a scientist or any one else for that matter believes in evolution after looking at evidence for 30 mins they are deluding themselfs.
My belief is the statement" why are more scientists likely to be non believers" is not true as a percentage of all mankind . If you get the drift ?
I have flaws, I often use hostile words, I lecture and browbeat when I feel like it, but I don’t consider myself a moral authority nor do I think I’m always right.
:rolleyes: Sorry, no. The evidence for evolution is overwhelming; it’s a fact no matter how much it offends certain people. It’s a settled issue in science; the debate now is in the details, not about whether or not it happens.
No, I don’t actually, that’s not a very coherent sentence.
I see them as just being opinions rather than facts.
He said “Hal Lindsey made the point that the science/theologian combination in people peaked at Isaac Newton, then split.”
He said it “peaked” then… not that the science/theologian combination disappeared straight away…
His statement is similar to saying priests become priests because they’re originally catholics rather than priests being more likely to be catholics because in the process of becoming priests they become catholic. Just because not all catholics are priests doesn’t mean that that statement is disproved.
Why don’t you answer my question then in the post rather than just criticizing other people?
Here’s the answer to the OP about what “literal” Christians think. A complete lack of understanding of what constitutes “evidence”; and a total conviction that anyone who thinks differently than they do is misleading themselves.
Der Trihs, your last response was fair enough.
JohnClay, I haven’t answered your statement because it is resumptive and at this late date, many others have already expressed my understanding.
In a debate, I criticize what the posters say, not the posters themselves. Der Trihs and I seem to have a long-standing tradition of attempting to be very straight with each other. Notice that it seemed to work out well in this thread.
Facts are more reliable than opinions. Someone had asked you what you had learned from the other place. You quoted opinions. Why not listen to yourself for opinions or research factual information?
It is not a criticism of a person to say that her or his statement is based in ignorance. After all, we are all ignorant about different things. Backing up your claims with facts is essential in a debate.
JohnClay, your comparison of people becoming priests because they are Catholic doesn’t tell the whole story of why some Catholics are priests and some are not.
All Roman Catholic priests are Catholic… But not all scientists are atheists and not all atheists are scientists. Your analogy breaks down.
What are you talking about? The only way this statement could possibly be true is if you define “believer” as “someone who believes exactly what I believe.”
Take a look at the topic of ‘Scientism’ on Conservapedia. It’s a fairly unvarnished statement of what is the extreme conservative/fundamentalist/literalist answer to your inquiry.
Speaking of misquotes. Who made a general statement comparing Catholics to other screwed up middle age institutions? I think you think that I did. However I just noted that most witch trials at the time of Bruno that I read about were started by them.
Galileo was certainly sanctioned for his heliocentrism. Bruno was a heliocentrist as well, maybe it was a coincidence.
Among other things wiki says he was an astronomer. That’s a science of sorts.
I trust wiki better than any religious apologist “real cites.” Usually wiki cites a number or real cites rather than cherry picked ones.