just curious if anyone took the time to read the article i linked…if not here is a quote you may find interesteing if you read it with an open mind. the article in entitled “big bang evidence for God” by frank turek
"The evidence led astronomer Dr. Robert Jastrow—who until his recent death was the director of the Mount Wilson observatory once led by Edwin Hubble—to author a book called God and the Astronomers. Despite revealing in the first line of chapter 1 that he was personally agnostic about ‘religious matters,” Jastrow reviewed some of the SURGE evidence and concluded, “Now we see how the astronomical evidence leads to a biblical view of the origin of the world. The details differ, but the essential elements in the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis are the same: the chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy.”
In an interview, Jastrow went even further, admitting that “Astronomers now find they have painted themselves into a corner because they have proven, by their own methods, that the world began abruptly in an act of creation to which you can trace the seeds of every star, every planet, every living thing in this cosmos and on the earth. And they have found that all this happened as a product of forces they cannot hope to discover. . . . That there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact.”
Religion is the attempt made by people to ascribe meaning to life, as well as suggest a reason for unexplained events.
Most religions, over time, vary by very little, in their description of moral behavior.
That said, some of the meanest people I have ever met were very “religious”, church going people. Some say they are full of religiosity.
Some of the kindest people I know, attend local services.
My son has taken great pleasure slamming the hypocrisy of professed religious people since he was six years old. I have no ability to show him any metaphysical reality to life. My daughter, on the other hand, has always been aware.
Proof of deities, Powers That Be, is very elusive.
If one reads the chronicles of Moses, people were rather fickle when shown direct evidence.
I still wish the Gospels reported Christ walked back into the Sanhedrin and said, “Remember Me? I DON’T suggest you try again. Now, GET OUT.”
As I said in another recent thread, if Genesis described the universe as accurately as all of that, it wouldn’t have taken millenia for people to have come around to the non-geocentric, Darwinian view of the universe and life. So saying that it accurately describes things when everyone thought it clearly described something else for thousands of years makes it seem more likely that it’s vague enough to be interpreted into just about anything. It will always sound correct to the reader because the reader fills in the gaps with what he factually knows.
I see, There’s the rules and traditions of the SDMB and then there are your rules. Yet you want to criticize believers for wanting a privileged position. So your latest tactic is to make whatever claims you like about religion and when challenged you revert to “prove God exists or I win” I’ll keep that in mind when considering what you think is rational and mature.
I accept atheism as a perfectly valid position. It holds no negative connotations for me. I believe any religious or spiritual belief has to be in harmony with scientific fact.
That’s exactly the kind of generalization I object to. It’s doesn’t address the details that I think are informative about the nature of man. I’ve said repeatedly I don’t think all belief systems should be tested with same standards. The challenge is separating facts from theories and opinions and sorting out the influence of personal bias and preferences. The facts sometimes leave several possibilities open and that’s usually where preference and bias come in.
At least you’re not shy about displaying yours.
the key phrase is “essential elements in the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis are the same”, but more importantly in the interests of evidence is jastrow saying "That there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact[emphasis added].” and so far as everyone thinking it described something else you mean God, certainly everyone didn’t think that, but clearly others besides theists are coming to that conclusion
(I’m assuming it’s actually Jesse Leigh who wrote the text above.)
A couple of followup questions:
-How do test the Scriptures, ensuring appropriate levels of validity?
-Regarding the statement that the Bible is in complete harmony with itself, how do you deal with the Bible’s internal inconsistencies?
-Which version and which translation of the Bible?
-How do you determine that that particular set of documents is “of God”, and other ancient documents are not?
Other semi-random questions:
-Do you believe in Bigfoot? Why or why not? After all, there are films that purportedly show Bigfoot, which is more evidence than we have for the existence of Jesus.
-Are BVM sightings miracles? How would you determine whether a BVM sighting is a miracle vs. a culture-bound disorder?
He says, “I think”, and is in fact just one man. I fully agree that the universe is rather impressive and that it seems miraculous for everything to just “be”, but adding more miraculous items doesn’t tally out to a more believable solution in my mind (rather it makes it less believable.) In his, probably it does. I am not him, but I do have Occam’s Razor on my side.
You haven’t presented what evidence he offers to support this factuality. I’m not going to read an entire book when I’m sure you can summarize the basic ideas.
I doubt that that whatever thing he thinks has been proven leads into any known human religion. Proving a sentient creator has nothing to do with whether or not that creator cares about us. Quite possibly from the creator’s viewpoint we’re just part of his ectoplasmic farts and the stuff that he’s really working on and cares about is in an entirely different dimension. In that case, calling this sentient being “God” is rather a misuse. You might as well just call him a physics-realm dimensional-whale of particular intelligence and poor digestion.
Assuming one really believes the scriptures to be perfectly valid, I’ll note that this thread has already condemned me and many other posters to death. (Deut 24:16) Who of the faith intends to follow out His command?
So? It 's a long thread. How long would it take you to copy and paste a specific belief that ** Der Trihs** has and he can either defend that he has it based on evidence or flounder?
It is your failing. You were asked to simply copy and paste something and I’m betting ** Der Trihs** would have attempted to defend himself. Now your just dragging this out by not doing something simple that could end this and now yes, you are wasting everyone’s time.
You’re the one who said, “I’ve participated in several discussions with DT in the past and now refrain from wasting the time and energy.”
By not simply making ** Der Trihs** aware of what specific belief he has that you claim he has no evidence for, he can’t respond adequately, so it is you that is wasting your time and energy, along with everyone else’s who is interested in reading this thread and have to read all your vague, accusatory posts.
Pattern or not, you were asked to give one example- you keep refusing- belaboring the issue.
Why would you even bother saying this? I never implied I need to find anything.
Obviously. I quoted phrederik and used your name by mistake.
No, there’s the rules that are normally used, like Occam’s razor, logic and probability.
And once again you wildly distort what I am saying. I was - obviously - making the point that all the “details” of religion you are so hot about, all your defenses of religion DON’T MATTER if there is no reason to believe in God. And there isn’t. You are in the position of someone trying to defend the reality of Sauron by claiming I need to be a Tolkien scholar before I can claim he’s fictional and demand evidence otherwise.
Then you would be defending atheism or agnosticism, not religion.
That’s easy; “people are gullible”. That’s what religion tells you about the “nature of man”.
Of course you think that; as I’ve repeatedly pointed out, religion can’t survive the standards that are applied to everything else. You DO demand a privileged position for it.
But it’s really, really BAD at it.
Pure nonsense. Go back a hundred years or a thousand and you’ll see wildly different versions of religious “morality”. Do you see many churches defending the enslavement of blacks anymore ?
In other words, your daughter is mentally ill and your son healthy.
Being nonexistent does make it elusive.
It’s a work of fiction, a myth; and that hardly fits with the way real people act. Real people do things like convince themselves salt stains look like holy images.
DT, I realise you are not interested in making new friends online, but this sort of claim really does your argument no favours.
A fella called R.D.Laing once said something along the lines of “It is actually surprising that anyone is sane.”. So, if we are all likely insane to some degree, it is only if it is directly affecting your own well-being that you can call it a problem.
he thinks, you think, i think, that we can agree on, and he is one man who devoted the greater portion of his professional life thinking about just this, which is more than i can say about myself, i am not an astronomer, you?
i plan on reading jastrow’s book “God and astronomers” and am happy to share when i’m finished. this info came from an article by frank turek which was clearly stated
your doubt doesn’t make it so, this would fall into the realm of your submitting evidence that it isn’t true a creator cares about his creations, however multi- dimenional they may be, if you choose
I repeat , the specific exchange between DT and I had just happened and was short posts so the length of the thread is irrelevant. If you didn’t know that that means you made no effort to find out exactly what conversation you were butting in on.
That was an explanation to you. I had responded to a specific post of DTs in this thread where he stated a belief. He chose to change the subject rather than stay on the specific belief. That’s his usual style. You chose to butt in on a conversation you evidently knew nothing about but still feel you can criticize my lack of effort. We’re done.
That was meant to read,
I’ve said repeatedly I think all belief systems should be tested with same standards.
Despite all your ranting the existence of God or something as yet undiscovered and unexplained remains a possibility. There are plenty of questions left unanswered by science. I find the details interesting and even helpful. I find your ranting and gross distortions of facts every bit as foolish as you find religion.
Jesse Leigh, I’ve had God tap me thousands of times on my shoulder.
He don’t give a shit about your earthly divisions. The ego you mantain for Him.
God’s waitin’ for you to come down to Earth, stop throwing up your semantic, cultural, and divisive tongues. God don’t need witnessing. You need validation because you’ve been in it so long. I think you have done wonderful things, but it wan’t an imaginary God that impelled you. You are a good person with a conscience. That is all the God there is.
People find the way, all over the world, without you nor your dogma.
