theist and supporter of science. I can theorize a universe without the need for a god. Beliefs are beliefs. And science is science.

Hello Dan and welcome to the forum, looking forward to your posts!  Just outta curiosity, how do you reconcile theism with science? How do you separate faith from fact without the god of the gaps argument?

Cap’t Jack

Why do we need to understand evolution to treat diseases? Why not just pray to be cured?

Disease has three causes vis, fear, ignorance and sin. Through prayer all diseases may be cured and the body may become whole again. Mary Baker Eddy told me this. I channelled her.

Cap’t Jack

I said: understanding evolution properly can help us find better treatments for all kinds of diseases including cancer. That statement is different from: we need to understand evolution to treat diseases.

Quinine was used to treat diseases before Darwin was born. But if you’re dealing with antibiotic resistant bacteria, an understanding of what the bacteria are doing will help.

Where do you see a contradiction between modern theism and science? I’m not talking about dark ages theism based on superstition.

We don’t need deities to explain the gaps. We can find these explanations ourselves. More and more gaps get closed. I was talking about an ultimate explanation. Theism is also about meaning and purpose. Like with the ultimate explanation there are two options: our wonderful megagigazettayottamultiverse has no purpose (view of most atheists) or it does.

DarronS - 15 November 2012 07:07 AM

Thevillageatheist - 15 November 2012 06:50 AM

I was going to respond in kind Patrick but GdB and Write beat me to it and in a much more erudite manner than my intended response. So I’ll be brief; it appears that you mean to frame your argument with “if god, then empirical evidence”. It doesn’t work that way. The hypothesis is “does a supernatural entity exist”? Now test the hypothesis using any and all evidence, if any. Please publish your findings. I’m burning with curiosity to know.

Cap’t Jack

You’re right Cap’t. Until sobpatrick shows us some evidence a god exists he’s just wasting our time. All he has done so far is demonstrate his ignorance of science and his unwillingness to think outside the box he crawled inside.

In an age of parallel universes, multiverses, multi-dimensions, bio/nano tech and A.I. isn’t being satisfied with empirical evidence as provincial as the concept of an Earth serving Christian God? 
I’ve often been told I’m “wrong” in this forum, but couldn’t I argue I’m right in another parallel universe?

dansmith62 - 15 November 2012 09:06 AM

I said: understanding evolution properly can help us find better treatments for all kinds of diseases including cancer. That statement is different from: we need to understand evolution to treat diseases.

Quinine was used to treat diseases before Darwin was born. But if you’re dealing with antibiotic resistant bacteria, an understanding of what the bacteria are doing will help.

Where do you see a contradiction between modern theism and science? I’m not talking about dark ages theism based on superstition.

We don’t need deities to explain the gaps. We can find these explanations ourselves. More and more gaps get closed. I was talking about an ultimate explanation. Theism is also about meaning and purpose. Like with the ultimate explanation there are two options: our wonderful megagigazettayottamultiverse has no purpose (view of most atheists) or it does.

And the meaning of people suffering from cancer is what?

And I do see contradiction between theism and science. Dead people, for example, don’t become alive again, virgins don’t get pregnant, and Jewish carpenters cannot walk on water.

George - 15 November 2012 09:27 AM

dansmith62 - 15 November 2012 09:06 AM

I said: understanding evolution properly can help us find better treatments for all kinds of diseases including cancer. That statement is different from: we need to understand evolution to treat diseases.

Quinine was used to treat diseases before Darwin was born. But if you’re dealing with antibiotic resistant bacteria, an understanding of what the bacteria are doing will help.

Where do you see a contradiction between modern theism and science? I’m not talking about dark ages theism based on superstition.

We don’t need deities to explain the gaps. We can find these explanations ourselves. More and more gaps get closed. I was talking about an ultimate explanation. Theism is also about meaning and purpose. Like with the ultimate explanation there are two options: our wonderful megagigazettayottamultiverse has no purpose (view of most atheists) or it does.

And the meaning of people suffering from cancer is what?

And I do see contradiction between theism and science. Dead people, for example, don’t become alive again, virgins don’t get pregnant, and Jewish carpenters cannot walk on water.

Cancer is a horrible thing and I don’t want to diminsh the suffering of people - one victim being my mother, but I would suggest cancer exists so we can treat it and possibly cure it.  Kinda like saying mountains exist for us to climb them.

You would?  Seriously?  Mountains too?  And to think you said atheists are arrogant.  So yeah, I was right, anthropocentrism.

I really hope those were typos and you meant the opposite.

We don’t need deities to explain the gaps. We can find these explanations ourselves. More and more gaps get closed. I was talking about an ultimate explanation. Theism is also about meaning and purpose. Like with the ultimate explanation there are two options: our wonderful megagigazettayottamultiverse has no purpose (view of most atheists) or it does

In your explanation of the universe having an ultimate purpose, you ARE employing the god of the gaps argument by stating that the universe must have a purpose in order to exist and that this purpose was ordained by a deity of some kind, a watch maker if you will. Lacking emperical evidence, what you have left is faith in a supreme being which mirror’s Patrick’s argument. there must be some entity out there pulling the strings (pardon the pun) to create the conditions for the mega…. (you Germans have a way to slam words together!) universe. How about a third option? The universe creates it’s own purpose without any prodding. It just is and we’re part of it for a while until we become starstuff again. Meantime we’ll continue discovering the mechanics of the system and satisfy ourselves in an endless pursuit of how the whole system works.

Cap’t Jack

sobpatrick - 15 November 2012 09:46 AM

Cancer is a horrible thing and I don’t want to diminsh the suffering of people - one victim being my mother, but I would suggest cancer exists so we can treat it and possibly cure it.  Kinda like saying mountains exist for us to climb them.

And children exist so that we can lock up the pedophiles, right?

Dead Monky - 15 November 2012 09:48 AM

You would?  Seriously?  Mountains too?  And to think you said atheists are arrogant.  So yeah, I was right, anthropocentrism.

I really hope those were typos and you meant the opposite.

Don’t you think every person is the centre of their own universe?

sobpatrick - 15 November 2012 10:59 AM

Don’t you think every person is the centre of their own universe?

Nope. Far as we can tell there is only one universe and it has no center.

testu

This is getting to be a bother. I compose my usual posts only to see them disappear
when I hit the submit button to never appear on the forum. Suspiciously like censorship
but unevenly applied…so far.

I note in the responses posted that none of you atheists are really comprehending your
philosophy is dead now. I destroyed it by merely pointing out it’s irrational foundation,
namely believing human knowledge stands still at the atheist’s era and never progresses
further. In our universe the concept of infinite numbers exists as does the concept of
infinite time and space. There are several competing cosmological theories about how
the universe operates since the Big Bang beginning. For many years the Steady State
theory was most popular. Then the Big Bang theory eclipsed that one and now there’s
several ideas on how the expanding universe “ends”, expands to nothingness or
collapses back on itself. I see because my posting suggests a recycled universe atheists
here are claiming the endless expansion model in true ego-defending modality that
doesn’t want to face what I present: The End Times of Atheism.

I’ll take you through the logical steps again. Baby steps for you: 1. In our universe infinity
is a mathematical conception where mathematical formulations are foundational to the
coherent organization of time and space. No human being knows for certain how the universe
began or how it will end if it does end. What is known is that we are following an arrow of time
that has a beginning but an unknown end. What is also known is that in our human time frame
we humans have made astonishing advances over the rest of the animal kingdom as we have
evolved to become the ruling species on the planet. In the last 200 years rather fantastic
scientific progress has occurred that has given human beings powers and abilities that any
human being coming from the ancient past would consider the powers of gods or God.

The logic of history then points to humankind progressing in knowledge and powers through
time and thus things that were considered mysteries of God only a century ago by most people
are routinely explained to school children in our times. Recently brain science has revealed that
the human brain is hardwired to experience spiritual events. Nature has evolved in the human
brain the ability to register some sort of invisible force that is identifiable by its signature results
in human beings—they report spiritual contact and some come away with products from that
contact, visions and revelations that also identify the Source by common themes appearing in
different people’s revelations. Atheists want to say that this spiritual reception ability is bogus,
doesn’t exist but there’s no proof of this and on contrary, there are thousands of reports of
spiritual experiences by people in the written record and even a set of physical manifestations
showing a common human experience regardless of time or location. I was an atheist, science-
explains all-type of guy up until age 35 when I went through my own three day Road to Damascus
spiritual awakening so I’m familiar with the atheist mindset as God has sent a thief to catch a
thief so to speak. I have experienced spiritual contact with God and have seen spiritual reality
that underpins the whole material universe. I have felt the waves of spiritual energy come through
my body and brain producing characteristic shaking which is where Shakers and Quakers got their
names. I have sweated profusely like Muhammad did when spiritual visions came to me with
their astonishing revelations of an unseen world of Archetypes being played out in our lives. I
have seen what Hindus call “maya” the world as illusion, and us merely actors acting out archetypal
dramas in a grand Play we call existence. In short, I have spiritual experience and know that end of
my argument for the logic of human history and the progress of knowledge eventually propelling
humankind into gods or God for all intents and purposes. And this is what is predicted in my Gnostic
Christian religion. A return to our roots in the Godhead. In the Biblical tradition this happens at the
“End of Days” or the end of time and space.

Has it registered yet? The death of atheist philosophy? The logic of infinity and the logic of history
killed it by exposing its fundamental irrationality that “believes” without any proof and against all
logic that human science, human knowledge is frozen at the time of the atheist and nothing new
ever gets discovered. We’ve already created a model for how gods can be created. Anyone who’s seen
the 1956(?) movie Forbidden Planet, the proto-type for the later Star Treks series, saw how the ancient
Krell had tapped the power of their planet’s nuclear reaction core to create the “Krell Machine” which
could transform thought into matter. And that is the definition of a god and the actual theology found
in Gnosticism that posits Creation as the materialization of thought of God.

Now will this post or disappear?

Nothing is being deleted from our end of which I’m aware. Do your posts appear and then disappear? Or do you try to post them and they don’t show up? We have had problems of the latter sort with certain browsers in the past. It may help to use the “Post Reply” button rather than “Fast Reply”, or to copy your message before attempting to enter it. That way if it disappears you can repost it without trouble.

arielmessenger - 15 November 2012 01:23 PM

This is getting to be a bother. I compose my usual posts only to see them disappear
when I hit the submit button to never appear on the forum. Suspiciously like censorship
but unevenly applied…so far.

I note in the responses posted that none of you atheists are really comprehending your
philosophy is dead now. I destroyed it by merely pointing out it’s irrational foundation,
namely believing human knowledge stands still at the atheist’s era and never progresses
further. In our universe the concept of infinite numbers exists as does the concept of
infinite time and space. There are several competing cosmological theories about how
the universe operates since the Big Bang beginning. For many years the Steady State
theory was most popular. Then the Big Bang theory eclipsed that one and now there’s
several ideas on how the expanding universe “ends”, expands to nothingness or
collapses back on itself. I see because my posting suggests a recycled universe atheists
here are claiming the endless expansion model in true ego-defending modality that
doesn’t want to face what I present: The End Times of Atheism.

I’ll take you through the logical steps again. Baby steps for you: 1. In our universe infinity
is a mathematical conception where mathematical formulations are foundational to the
coherent organization of time and space. No human being knows for certain how the universe
began or how it will end if it does end. What is known is that we are following an arrow of time
that has a beginning but an unknown end. What is also known is that in our human time frame
we humans have made astonishing advances over the rest of the animal kingdom as we have
evolved to become the ruling species on the planet. In the last 200 years rather fantastic
scientific progress has occurred that has given human beings powers and abilities that any
human being coming from the ancient past would consider the powers of gods or God.

The logic of history then points to humankind progressing in knowledge and powers through
time and thus things that were considered mysteries of God only a century ago by most people
are routinely explained to school children in our times. Recently brain science has revealed that
the human brain is hardwired to experience spiritual events. Nature has evolved in the human
brain the ability to register some sort of invisible force that is identifiable by its signature results
in human beings—they report spiritual contact and some come away with products from that
contact, visions and revelations that also identify the Source by common themes appearing in
different people’s revelations. Atheists want to say that this spiritual reception ability is bogus,
doesn’t exist but there’s no proof of this and on contrary, there are thousands of reports of
spiritual experiences by people in the written record and even a set of physical manifestations
showing a common human experience regardless of time or location. I was an atheist, science-
explains all-type of guy up until age 35 when I went through my own three day Road to Damascus
spiritual awakening so I’m familiar with the atheist mindset as God has sent a thief to catch a
thief so to speak. I have experienced spiritual contact with God and have seen spiritual reality
that underpins the whole material universe. I have felt the waves of spiritual energy come through
my body and brain producing characteristic shaking which is where Shakers and Quakers got their
names. I have sweated profusely like Muhammad did when spiritual visions came to me with
their astonishing revelations of an unseen world of Archetypes being played out in our lives. I
have seen what Hindus call “maya” the world as illusion, and us merely actors acting out archetypal
dramas in a grand Play we call existence. In short, I have spiritual experience and know that end of
my argument for the logic of human history and the progress of knowledge eventually propelling
humankind into gods or God for all intents and purposes. And this is what is predicted in my Gnostic
Christian religion. A return to our roots in the Godhead. In the Biblical tradition this happens at the
“End of Days” or the end of time and space.

Has it registered yet? The death of atheist philosophy? The logic of infinity and the logic of history
killed it by exposing its fundamental irrationality that “believes” without any proof and against all
logic that human science, human knowledge is frozen at the time of the atheist and nothing new
ever gets discovered. We’ve already created a model for how gods can be created. Anyone who’s seen
the 1956(?) movie Forbidden Planet, the proto-type for the later Star Treks series, saw how the ancient
Krell had tapped the power of their planet’s nuclear reaction core to create the “Krell Machine” which
could transform thought into matter. And that is the definition of a god and the actual theology found
in Gnosticism that posits Creation as the materialization of thought of God.

Now will this post or disappear?

It’s still here - hopefully it results in constructive debate.  Personally I hope atheism doesn’t go away (I know it wont) but I do wish each atheist was lucky enough to experience at least one supernatural occurrence in their life.  Having experienced two (one with another witness) I can say first hand that it changes everything.