if you want to believe in the supernatural why not pick reincarnation? that would be much more fun. you get to come back again and again. everlasting life.
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Atheism under Threat: World's Most Famous Atheist Turns Apostate Converts to Theism
- Thread starter BernardRichards
- Start date
if you want to believe in the supernatural why not pick reincarnation? that would be much more fun. you get to come back again and again. everlasting life.
Quote from BernardRichards:
Quote from vhehn:
we already covered this once:
http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=175894&perpage=6&highlight=antony flew&pagenumber=4
I know you saw it, but it was glossed over by the rest of the participants here since I put the first video in an obsolete thread.
I feel these videos are very important in the scientific atheist vs. theist debate so I opened a separate thread. I'm sure most of the so called atheists / agnostics here have never even heard of Flew, and his 180 degree turn to theism.
http://secweb.infidels.org/?kiosk=articles&id=369
Antony Flew is considering the possibility that there might be a God. Sort of.
One who believes in a god or gods by definition is a theist. It doesn't mean that Flew all of a sudden became a Christian or an adherent of any other religious system. And Flew is not considering the possibility of a Creator. He came to the conclusion that there is one as the video indicates by the scientific evidence available now! Are you challenging the ideas and data presented in the Proof of God video or the conclusion that there must be a Creator? And if so present your challenge in detail, and contradict the professors with your evidence and in debate! This is not my Proof of God.
anthony flew is not a scientist. he is a philosopher. and yet he claims he was convinced by the scientific evidence. scientists themselves do not agree with him. in that case anthony flews opinion about science is of no more value than joe sixpack off the street. he presents no evidence for his conversion. he only feels that things are too complicated to have happened naturally.
in any case he goes to great pains to distinguish what he believes from christian dogma. at the end of this video he even riddicules christian dogma.
Quote from vhehn:
anthony flew is not a scientist. he is a philosopher. and yet he claims he was convinced by the scientific evidence. scientists themselves do not agree with him. in that case anthony flews opinion about science is of no more value than joe sixpack off the street. he presents no evidence for his conversion. he only feels that things are too complicated to have happened naturally.
in any case he goes to great pains to distinguish what he believes from christian dogma. at the end of this video he even riddicules christian dogma.
I know he is not a scientist, but he says he is referring to the works of scientists that changed their opinion on this topic based on new data. I take it you don't believe that Prof. Gerald Schroder is a scientist either, and what is wrong if a philosopher relies on scientific evidence. I would think that if a philosopher does not consider scientific evidence than he isn't much of a philosopher and his philosophy is just false speculation like with Karl Marx.
I don't know why you are so hung up on Christianity and Christian dogma. Theism is not Christianity nor is it acceptance of Christianity. A theist can justifiably ridicule Christianity. Do you think Aristotle, Newton, Pascal and many other great thinkers and scientists were Christians? However, they were great theists!
the question is would these people be theists today with the advancements of science? i highly doubt it. science has only reached the point of knowledge that allows us to dismiss belief in deities based on the evidence within the last 150 years.Quote from BernardRichards:
Do you think Aristotle, Newton, Pascal and many other great thinkers and scientists were Christians? However, they were great theists!
I watched about half of the second video before I was at risk of nodding off. He sounds like just another preacher for creationism ... err intelligent design. To put it bluntly, it was dull in the extreme.
Same old stuff. Ohhhh ... it's all too complicated .... Some entity must have designed it all ...... There are holes in scientific understanding (Talk about straw men - who ever suggested that there aren't?)
And worse, the lowest form of argument - how could we have evolved out of beams of light (as he put it) - an appeal to ignorance if ever I heard one.
To be sure, the universe is a mightily strange thing, and the Universe being unveiled by science a far stranger thing than even the wildest imaginings in two thousand year books.
But while science gets on with the job of trying to increase understanding, the kind of stuff in this video has the intent on locking the world into a time warp of superstition. No doubt in 1000 years, there will still be people saying just the same sort of thing as this bloke, but the world will have moved on because of science - not because of religion.
If one wishes to believe in a creator who organized the laws of nature such that the Universe we live in is possible - well that's fine. If you don't - well thats fine as well. It is well outside the boundaries of current human knowledge to make any really definitive call.
But some sort of God that micro manages everything, and just cannot resist the temptation to fiddle with everything in sight? It is plain superstition, irrational and in stark contradiction to scientific understanding. And science demonstrably does work - otherwise I wouldn't be posting this via the internet.
Same old stuff. Ohhhh ... it's all too complicated .... Some entity must have designed it all ...... There are holes in scientific understanding (Talk about straw men - who ever suggested that there aren't?)
And worse, the lowest form of argument - how could we have evolved out of beams of light (as he put it) - an appeal to ignorance if ever I heard one.
To be sure, the universe is a mightily strange thing, and the Universe being unveiled by science a far stranger thing than even the wildest imaginings in two thousand year books.
But while science gets on with the job of trying to increase understanding, the kind of stuff in this video has the intent on locking the world into a time warp of superstition. No doubt in 1000 years, there will still be people saying just the same sort of thing as this bloke, but the world will have moved on because of science - not because of religion.
If one wishes to believe in a creator who organized the laws of nature such that the Universe we live in is possible - well that's fine. If you don't - well thats fine as well. It is well outside the boundaries of current human knowledge to make any really definitive call.
But some sort of God that micro manages everything, and just cannot resist the temptation to fiddle with everything in sight? It is plain superstition, irrational and in stark contradiction to scientific understanding. And science demonstrably does work - otherwise I wouldn't be posting this via the internet.
Quote from BernardRichards:
Do you think ......, Newton, Pascal and many other great thinkers and scientists were Christians? However, they were great theists!
You entirely and 100% miss the point. They were great scientists who by and large did not allow religious beliefs to impede their quest for knowledge.
Which is diametrically opposite to all the fruitcake fundamentalists for whom the dropping of a few scientific terms here and there is just another route to peddling their superstitions. They have no interest in science or knowledge.
Is Newton celebrated for his religious beliefs or his science and mathematics ?
Quote from vhehn:
the question is would these people be theists today with the advancements of science? i highly doubt it. science has only reached the point of knowledge that allows us to dismiss belief in deities based on the evidence within the last 150 years.
Nonsense! On the contrary science is showing now that there must be a creator. You are way behind the times. Did you watch the Proof of God video?
Secondly, one does not need quantum physics and biology to show that a creator must exist.
The mathematical and metaphysical proofs are much stronger. Aristotle 2,300 years ago could prove that a creator must exist, and his proof is stronger than that of any scientific proof right now so could Newton and Pascal proof that a creator must exist based on pure logic. How then is it possible that atheists can deny their proofs? How is it possible that people can deny the Holocaust some 60 years after it happened in view of the monumental amount of evidence available that it happened, and with millions of eye witnesses from all over the globe that witnessed it? People can deny anything if it is in their interest to do so. However, 1 + 1 = 2 and the earth is round even if all seven billion people on earth say that it ain't so! Reality does not change objectively because certain groups in society are unhappy with that reality. The only place it may change is in their imagination. I don't know about you, but I prefer to live in concert with reality, and not with self-induced fabrications of reality that will corrupt my mind just like a hallucinogenic drug because I feel that objective reality doesn't satisfy me somehow.
prove it with observable evidence. man oh man where has education failed?Quote from BernardRichards:
Nonsense! On the contrary science is showing now that there must be a creator. You are way behind the times. Did you watch the Proof of God video?
Secondly, one does not need quantum physics and biology to show that a creator must exist.
Quote from dcraig:
You entirely and 100% miss the point. They were great scientists who by and large did not allow religious beliefs to impede their quest for knowledge.
Is Newton celebrated for his religious beliefs or his science and mathematics ?
I always miss the point, especially when I don't know what my point was.
Why is it important to be celebrated by posterity, and receive the mark of approval by one's contemporaries. All great thinkers were revolutionaries! It seems like the in thing among pseudo-thinkers now is to be atheists or agnostics. Before these same people would have crucified anybody that said the earth is not flat.
Quote from vhehn:
prove it with observable evidence. man oh man where has education failed?
Prove what with observable evidence plus how can I argue with a sophist who engages in the logical fallacy of ad hominem.
You want to bash Christianity? You want to bash Islam? You want to bash Judaism? You want to bash Hinduism, Buddhism, theism, etc. ?
Then go ahead. What do you want from me?
Please continue your sophistry without me or I will have no choice, but to place you on my cretins, perverts, and degenerate list i.e., ignore list. I usually don't put sophists on it unless they don't get the message that I don't wish to interact with them in which case I think that they have transcended the boundary from just a plain sophist to a degenerate sophist so they belong on that list.