Quote from Gordon Gekko:
therefore, i think it is safe to say believing in the bible is irrational.
...in the face of science, having no evidence to support your claim, and no pressure from family/friends to have a set of beliefs, you STILL choose a religious explanation. (it's rare and pathetic, but it can happen.)...
I would definitely agree that an absolute belief that every word in the bible is literal and factual is at the very least illogical. But then again, many biblical scholars would similarly agree with that.
However, the discussion was not about "believing in the bible", it involved "believing in God (or whatever one wants to call a universal creative intelligence)".
While the former DOES presuppose the latter. The latter does NOT presuppose the former. The two should therefore not be simply exchanged at will as if they were anywhere near the same thing.
Re: your second statement - those who believe there is no God/creative intelligence/whatever have no greater evidentiary support for that position than those who believe in God (in whatever form they see him/her/they/it).
For those who have seemed to overlooked it -
lack of evidence is NOT proof of non-existance.
The ONLY thing that lack of evidence proves is that you don't have any evidence.
Example - it was a universally held scientific conviction that the Coelacanth died 400 million years ago. Since no living specimens had ever been found, everyone KNEW with absolute certainty that the fish was nothing but an ancient fossil. At least until 1938 when one was finally found swimming in the ocean.
Lack of evidence (prior to 1938) that the fish was still alive after 400 million years didn't keep it from actually being alive.
Atheists have one opinion/belief. Those who believe in a God (in whatever form) also have an opinion/belief. In the absence of evidence to prove either opinion valid, neither can be ruled out nor can either realistically be said to have any greater merit than the other.
Statements like "to believe in a God is by definition irrational" is hyperbole. By whose definition? Claiming that something is "by definition irrational" because it is contrary to your personal unproven OPINION is what is actually irrational.
This is not the same as saying "if he believes himself to be Abraham Lincoln then by definition he's irrational" - since it can be proven that Abraham Lincoln is dead and thus he can't be him.
An opinion that no God (in any form) exists is ONLY an OPINION. It is not factual, it is not demonstrable, it is in no way provable.
It is itself (at best) merely an opinion or a "belief" (of no lesser or greater provability than the opposite view) or (at worst) a conceit to have concluded that some handful of primative organic assemblies only capable of using a tiny fraction of their small brains knows with absolute certainty that no such entity exists in all the vast complexity of the multiverse.
There is no "evidence" that life on other planets exists. But I draw the conclusion (or have the belief) that somewhere among the multitude of star systems, other intelligent lifeforms exist - although I'm sometimes not really sure intelligent life exists here on Earth (especially in Washington DC).
Since there is no evidence to support that belief, is it "by definition" irrational too? If so, then a huge percentage of the scientific community are equally irrational.
There is no mandate that a conviction in scientific doctrine in anyway precludes one from belief in (for lack of a better term) God.
Of course, those who argue that evolution is patently wrong because the bible says the universe (and man) were created in six days and man was created exactly as he is today are clearly pursuing an unsupportable and illogical track, but that end of the zealotry spectrum isn't what we're talking about.
Although it should be noted that those who preach with absolute certainty that
"Since I have no positive proof of a God, therefore he/she/it can't possibly exist and anyone who disagrees with me must be stupid, brainwashed, or irrational" are themselves simply operating at the far opposite end of that very same zealotry spectrum - two sides of the same self-righteous coin.
As we've already seen from many scientists (including Nobel winners), there is absolutely no conflict in subscribing to cosmological, planetary, and biological evolution and a belief in an underlying creative force/intelligence - actually a belief in the correctness and completness of quantum mechanics seems a far less rational belief.
It is therefore neither rare (as we've already seen given the number in the scientific community holding some form of religious following or basic belief in some kind of creative intelligence) nor pathetic for any given person to hold such a view.
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After Newton, everyone KNEW with absolute certainty that gravity was a force acting on objects and such force was easily computed via Newtonian mechanics. Hundreds of years later, Einstein showed that gravity was in fact not really an external "force" acting on objects at a distance but rather a direct result of the interaction between matter/energy and the spacetime fabric both producing, and stemming from, localized spatial warping - although some scientists seem to have forgotten this as they postulate quantum gravity, gravitons, and other ways to waste grant money.
Those with absolute conviction in the "rightness" of their opinion or point of view - should remember that what science KNOWS with absolute certainty, changes from century to century - often from decade to decade and even year to year.
