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Old 04-18-2012, 10:17 PM  
jimmy-3-way
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Originally Posted by Donny View Post
Three dimensions of nature that point to the existence of God:

1. The fact that nature obeys laws.
2. The dimension of life, of intelligently organized and purpose-driven beings, which arose from matter.
3. The very existence of nature.

WHY does rational thought exist? WHY does nature obey laws? WHY do subatomic particles exist? WHY does life itself exist? Chemicals combine together, sure. But LIFE is not attained by combinations of chemicals. Self awareness is not attained by combinations of chemicals. How did LIFE come from non-life? And WHY did reproduction begin?

There is no proof for this, on either side.

Why are the laws of nature so precise, universal and tied together? Why does the universe even bother to exist? Einstein called the answer to questions like this ?the mind of God?. That?s how he explained it. And before you say Einstein didn?t believe in God, here is a quote from him:

"I?m not an atheist, and I don?t think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of those books but doesn?t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws, but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations.?

Einstein also said, of atheists, ?What really makes me angry is that they quote me for support of their views.? He renounced atheism because he never considered his denial of a personal God as a denial of God. He very much believed in a ?superior reasoning force,? a ?superior mind,? an ?illimitable superior spirit? and a ?mysterious force that moves the constellations?, of which he was speaking about God. There are many well known scientists who believed the same way.

Even Charles Darwin was a theist. He wrote:

"[Reason tells me of the] extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man with his capability of looking far backwards and far into futurity, as the result of blind chance or necessity. When thus reflecting I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist."

Many modern day scientists reflect this exact same belief.

Is this an invitation to share my thoughts on what I believe to be evidence of an intelligent First Cause (God)? If so, I'm happy to do so.

One particularly powerful bit of evidence for God from a theist?s perspective is the very fact that you and I are having this conversation to begin with. Richard Dawkins (the famous atheist evangelist) can?t explain why we are capable of rational thought, nor why our minds are capable of logic and order. I see the mind as glowing evidence of a creator. You do not. I see emotions as evidence of a creator. You do not. I see mathematical formulas as evidence of a creator. You do not. And do it goes, and so it goes.

So many atheists make the same mistake as the likes of Richard Dawkins:
You?re seemingly unaware that logical positivism was discarded in the 50s, by the very scholars who brought the concept into existence in the first place.

In case you don?t know what that term means, here is a web definition of logical positivism:
?A form of positivism, developed by members of the Vienna Circle, that considers that the only meaningful philosophical problems are those that can be solved by logical analysis.?

God is indeed a philosophical debate.

From a book by Antony Flew?s:
?[Atheist Evangelists like Dawkins] show no awareness of the fallacies and muddles that led to the rise and fall of logical positivism? It would be fair to say that the ?new atheism? is nothing less than a regression to the logical positivist philosophy that was renounced even by its most ardent proponents. In fact, the ?new atheists,? it might be said, do not even rise to logical positivism. The positivists were never so naive as to suggest God could be a scientific hypothesis-they declared the concept of God to be meaningless precisely because it was not a scientific hypothesis. Dawkins, on the other hand, holds that ?the presence or absence of a creative super-intelligence is unequivocally a scientific question?? I seek to show that our immediate experience of rationality, life, consciousness, thought, and the self militate against every form of atheism, including the newest.?

One problem, in my opinion, is that so many of you so-called ?atheists? are so far opposite from scientific minds that you revere the word ?scientist? as if such a person holds the keys to knowledge. That?s simply not correct. God is not a scientific discussion. God is a philosophical discussion.

This next quote comes from John D Barrow, who is an English cosmologist, theoretical physicist, and mathematician. He is currently Research Professor of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Cambridge. He obtained his first degree in mathematics and physics from Van Mildert College at the University of Durham in 1974. In 1977, he completed his doctorate in astrophysics at Magdalen College in the University of Oxford. He did two postdoctoral years in astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley. In other words, he?s not an idiot.

Of Richard Dawkins he said:

"You have a problem with these ideas, Richard, because you?re not really a scientist. You?re a biologist [to Barrow, biology is little more than a branch of natural history - now let's continue the quote]. Biologists have a limited, intuitive understanding of complexity. They?re stuck with an inherited conflict from the nineteenth century, and are only interested in outcomes, in what wins out over others. But outcomes tell you almost nothing about the laws that govern the universe.?

The biggest problem for those who don't believe in an intelligent First Cause is that they cannot explain complexity.
Best part about being an atheist?

I've never wasted one second of my precious, short life thinking about stupid circular arguments to convince believers not to believe.
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