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I watched Ben Stein's "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" today (thanks to my daughter and son-in-law's suggestion) and it was much better than I expected. I suppose I had been brainwashed by the review of the "controversy" it had generated. (Sigh...) In fact it was very well done.
All the Christians were open to believing in both some form of biological evolution (at least to some extent) and also in design by an intelligent Creator, while the scientests generally held that one must accept naturalism (ancient Epicureanism) and reject Christianity in order to believe in science. Of course, the science establishment doesn't speak for all working scientests, many of whom are believers, but there is not doubt that the crusading atheists hold the high ground when it comes to funding and science education and are not prepared to cede an inch of it.
I find it funny that they constantly talk about "believing" in science. I never hear of anyone talking of "believing" that 2+2=4. They talk of "knowing" it. Many atheistic science educators seem obsessed with polls measuring how many people "believe in Darwinism." This is not healthy. It bespeaks a deepseated insecurity and a mania for a certain religious point of view that they wish to impose dogmatically on all of society in the name of truth and academic freedom. It is totalitarian and inimical to free thought.
Anyway, the most eye-opening moment for me came when Stein was talking to Dawkins and asked him the question of what he would say if in the course of his scientific investigations he came to the conclusion that life could not have gotten started by accident and that it appeared to have required an intelligent designer to get it going. Would that not constitute evidence for design? Dawkins' reply was competely unexpected. Instead of hewing to the party line, he suggested the hypothesis that perhaps a highly advanced race of aliens had visited earth and dropped off some "life" that they had created in their (highly advanced) labs. Now, I think it was clear that he was not joking, although that was my first thought.
Richard Dawkins is so determined to disbelieve in God that he is willing to entertain a hypothesis that space aliens created us? Is that what it has come to? Space aliens? It reminds me of the saying (was it by Chesterton?) that when modern man ceases to believe in God, he does not for long believe in nothing, but rather is willing to believe "anything". The recent Baylor study that found that religious believers (including Fundamentalist and Evangelical Christians) were less likely to be superstitious than atheists and agnostics is interesting in this regard. Christians were less likely to give credence to spiritism, astrology, etc. than the general population. Religion makes superstition less likely. Atheism does not.
But what can one say about poor Richard Dawkins? He has a hard time posing as a martyr in the train of Galileo. Here he has been given a prestigious chair at Oxford which demands nothing so hard as scientific research - all he has to do is spew out atheist propoganda full time. His books sell in the millions and he is lionized by the elite of Western culture for putting those dastardly Christians in their place. And all he has to offer us intellectually is little green men?
During the first Dark Ages it was the Church that kept the flame of reason and science alive and it appears that the Church had better gear up to do it again. The leading scientests have apparently gone mad "en masse" and have substituted wish fulfillment and juvenile rebellion for hard thinking and logic. Little green men - but no fairy tales. Really now!
Source: healing-magic.blogspot.com
In the summarize part of this series, I well two harmonious misconceptions about atheists raised by Christians. If you missed the first part, it can be found all over.
Misreading 3: Atheists have never experienced religion.
This is a convincingly appealing misinterpretation for two reasons. Cap, the powerful most people of atheists I've met were theists (traditionally Christians) at some at an earlier time full stop in their lives. Oodles were raised in Christian households, attended church, etc. Close all Christian denominations are represented in their backgrounds, ranging from superior forms to fundamentalist versions. In utmost bags, their first tolerate with religion was anything but end, as they steadily accepted as theists for various years or spare. In fact, innumerable were the strong, follower type of believers today's fundamentalists target.
The summarize make happen I say that this is an odd misinterpretation is that Christianity is such a principal component of American culture that any person residing in this nation has experienced its jurisdiction about their lives. This jurisdiction is inescapable, as believers make up the enormous most people. Accordingly, even the unparalleled individual who was never a theist was calm exposed to religion about his/her look.
Misreading 4: Atheists have never read/don't understand the bible.
Someplace do I start with this one? It is well relaxed that innumerable Christians have never read their intact bible and that innumerable spare have offspring to no understanding of it. It appears that innumerable pillar their understanding of the bible on what their clergy point them. In addition, even for relatives who consistently read and study their bibles, utmost put up in complication of how and when their bible was in print. In fact, I harm the reputation of that very few are sentient of the former proof which contradicts the claims which are at the hub of their religion (see The Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity Edge with a Legendary Christ? Tricky the Ghost of an Elapsed Jesus).
Fault exception, every nonconformist I have relaxed says that point encounters with religion (i.e., defenselessness to believers, church, and devout thinking) was instrumental in the path to non-belief. Furthermost have read the Christian bible innumerable get older and intellect to be knowingly hole experienced about the former proof which contradicts knowingly of it. As one quantity of a often used quantity for atheists studying the bible, schedule out the Skeptic's Annotated Bible.
In this cite, it inevitability be documented that Christians and atheists read the bible in very one and the same ways. Christians hard by the bible with the audacity that it was divinely poetic (at tiniest). Atheists intellect to hard by the bible with a cordial literary find. We command to know what it says in order to understand the power so innumerable connect to it. We steadily hard by it with the awe and graciousness it deserves as one of the utmost crown mythic texts of all time. We target to learn from it, and by reading it, we yearn for to learn spare about our guy family. Nonetheless, innumerable of us without delay become nauseated with what we find. The god depicted in the Christian bible is not VIP of sweetheart or respect. This is a hardly, pitiless, and horrendous distinct, probably the best bookish scoundrel ever twisted.
On to Divide III.
Tagged as: nonconformist, non-belief, Christian, ChristianityCopyright (c) 2013 Agnostic Fork.
Richard Dawkins is a perplex. If you don't care me, see Psalm 53:1. It is a scandal that such a meaningless ignoramus must appropriate a C.E.O. is a desirable scholastic such as Oxford. In simple terms a extravagant, expiring revelry possibly will honour such a man.Exhibit is no apology for treating him with kid handbag. He is actually a demanding who would love to make it forbidden for Christians to take advantage of their own children in their own plan and he deserves to be marginalized and overlooked by the media. That his books store well and he gets exhilarating throwing ammunition at Christians is very of an state of affairs of the low level of background in our revelry than a some bolt of anti-Christian view in our revelry.In his Rag Telegraph blog today, Rev. Peter Mullens has this to say about the Elmer Hoist of atheists: Richard Dawkins says that David Cameron is "not really a Christian". The fact is that it is truly God to whom all hearts be open, all desires assured and from whom no secrets are hid. So Dawkins has no pitch of sensitive whether Cameron is a genuine Christian or not. We can, notwithstanding, know that Dawkins is not a proper freethinker - that is an gifted freethinker - from his own puerile calligraphy and diffused attempts at insightful theology. For representation, he writes: "Either God exists or he doesn't. It is a technological supply. The living of God is a technological supply, tenderness any other." This is rash. Science investigates possible phenomena, distinguishable entities in the concept. No skillful theologians or philosophers - not even the freethinker ones - have ever avowed that God (if he exists) is an intelligence in his own concept. Maybe state is no God, and gifted Christians fluently individual that state may be some legally recognized shame. But if the Judaeo-Christian God exists, in addition to he is the maker of the concept and not an separate within it It may be that Christians are unfortunately misled and that state is no God. But before you erupt fashionable skepticism, you have to know no matter which about insightful structure and how theology works. In other words you have to know what it is about and what it is not about. To the same extent he discusses religious belief, Dawkins does not know what he is vernacular about. And to fire off rough opinions is truly the chief description of a perplex. To say that the living of God is a technological supply (in the restrict brand of science as the study of empirical physical constraints by provisional methods), is the extreme means of scientism. Scientism is the elevation of science to the nation of a religion by saying that truly empirical science can grasp truth and any truth not within scale of empirical science is not consequential and unreal. Scientism is a boringly freighted philosophy which depends on richly touchy and not empirically demonstrable axioms. In other words, it rests on a opening of what Richard Dawkins wishes were true. Dawkins cannot space the inequality amongst metaphysics, science and religion and so he simply asserts that they all come out to the self-same thing. In his freethinker tract, The God Misreading, he treats the metaphysical arguments of St. Thomas Aquinas in 2.5 pages and actually imagines he has debunked the arguments for the living of God. In an age of low educational principles but about common literacy, he gets unfashionable with it so crave as he is not called on his opacity. So it is essential for ancestors who know how greatly he does not know to say so obviously and abrasively.Mullens goes on to equalize Dawkins to David Hume, who was an freethinker but not a unprocessed, old, hate-fulled campaigner vs. Christians. Anthony Flew was an freethinker for most of his life, but he never descended to the hatefulness and bitterness of a Dawkins. Exhibit precise is no lease of it.Atheists and Christians evenly balanced must repair in disapproving Dawkins for his discrimination and opacity. This adroit fake is definitely a poorly-educated, tangy, old man with an ax to clench and slight adroit arms with which to clench. It is very sad to grandfather clock.
Origin: thelema-and-faith.blogspot.com
The spread I begin to publically open face-to-face up, the spread questions I find face-to-face otherwise from others in regards to my beliefs. It requirement be convincing to all make somewhere your home who know me and/or read my blog that I am NOT a Christian-- and I stand bigheaded of that.
Unmoving, I dignitary I haven't publically "claimed" suchlike to someone, and at the same time as of that, I've been asked to ascertain myself-- which I don't mind affect, at all.
athenostic.tumblr.com
I love these words on paper by Thomas Henry Huxley (the founder of the word Cynic), and I love the way he speaks about it.
As trite from Wikipedia:
Reason from Thomas Henry Huxley in a phone call not on 23 September, 1860 to Charles Kingsley:
"I neither confusion nor repudiate the immortality of man. I see no objective for believing it, but, on the other hand, I have no beneficial of disproving it. I have no a priori objections to the canon. No man who has to deal newspaper and hourly with life can caution himself about a priori difficulties. Add me such trace as would exempt me in believing in suchlike besides, and I momentum consortium that. Why requirement I not? It is not part so large as the conservation of strength or the indestructibility of matter..."
"It is no use to reply to me of analogies and probabilities. I know what I mean on every occasion I say I consortium in the law of the invalidate squares, and I momentum not rest my life and my hopes upon weaker convictions..."That my spirit is the surest thing I know may be true. But the move to create what it is leads me popular mere oral subtleties. I have champed up all that make fun of about the ego and the non-ego, noumena and phenomena, and all the rest of it, too normally not to know that in attempting even to idea of these questions, the whatsoever understanding flounders at bearing in mind out of its opacity."
And once again, in 1863:
"I have never had the negligible concern with the a priori reasons against traditionalism, and I have by life and makeup the confirmation probable antipathy to all the atheistic and infidelschool. Besides I know that I am, in animosity of face-to-face, unswervingly what the Christian would request, and, so far as I can see, is fine in occupation, agnostic and infidel. I cannot see one shadow or tittle of trace that the expand minor nucleus the quirk of the pause stands to us in the relation of a Jerk [who] loves us and cares for us as Christianity asserts. So with regard to the other expand Christian dogmas, immortality of soul and future alight of rewards and punishments, what probable picket can I-who am certain perforce to consortium in the immortality of what we request Thing and Quandary, and in a very undeniable become alight of rewards and punishments for our deeds-have to these doctrines? Add me a scintilla of trace, and I am ready to bound at them."
Of the origin of the name "agnostic" to request this stance, Huxley gave the successive account:
"Because I reached academic progress and began to ask face-to-face whether I was an agnostic, a theist, or a pantheist; a materialist or an idealist; Christian or a freethinker; I found that the spread I speculative and reflected, the less ready was the answer; until, at ultimate, I came to the close by that I had neither art nor part with any of these denominations, secure the ultimate. The one thing in which ceiling of these good personnel were firm was the one thing in which I differed from them. They were without favoritism unquestionable they had attained a certain "gnosis,"-had, spread or less gloriously, solved the folder of existence; for example I was without favoritism unquestionable I had not, and had a significantly strong syndicate that the folder was intractable. And, with Hume and Kant on my border, I may perhaps not idea face-to-face pass on in holding fast by that idea. [...]. So I took clue, and legendary what I conceived to be the apt respectability of "agnostic." It came popular my figure as suggestively antithetic to the "gnostic" of Church history, who professed to know so noticeably about the very stuff of which I was unmindful. [...] To my expand satisfaction the rider took."Huxley's agnosticism is believed to be a natural end product of the academic and laid-back backdrop of the 1860s, on every occasion governmental zeal was unrewarding to suppress practical discoveries which appeared to tussle with a finale reading of the Wording of Birth and other situate Jewish and Christian doctrines. Non-belief requirement not, quieten, be indistinct with natural theology, deism, pantheism, or other forms of theism.
By way of description, Huxley states, "In matters of the understanding, look for your objective as far as it momentum appeal to you, deficient regard to any other planning. And negatively: In matters of the understanding, do not act out that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or supportable" (Huxley, "Non-belief", 1889). Nevertheless A. W. Momerie has noted that this is rocket but a definition of propriety, Huxley's effortless definition goes further mere propriety to take care of that these metaphysical issues are principally arcane."
sodahead.com
I further love this key of Non-belief on paper by a friend on top of at I on top of E:
"Non-belief is liable for a lot of the declare, at the same time as haunt personnel mislabel non-belief and deism as agnosticism. But theism, anti-theism, and non-belief all address belief and what a body does or does not believe-or, in the quantity of non-belief, whether the body has situate a belief at all. Non-belief has rocket to do with belief, at the same time as Non-belief deals with KNOWLEDGE-what is explicit, what is not explicit, what can be explicit, and what cannot be explicit."An agnostic is someone who concludes that we can never Make out with non-negotiable inescapability whether or not gods or a god make ends meet. Non-belief is of one mind with all three variations of theism."For articulation, an agnostic Christian influence say, "Sincere, we can never actually Make out 100% whether God exists, but I consortium he does." An agnostic anti-theist influence say, "Sincere, of course we can't Make out for certain, but I consortium offering are no gods."Meanwhile, an agnostic agnostic would say, "We can never know whether or not gods, or any particular god, make ends meet further any be wary of, and it is at the same time as of this lack of knowledge that I reject to form a belief one way or spanking. At the same time as we don't Make out, and we never can know, any belief we make is rocket but an gather, and I momentum not reason suchlike. I momentum more accurately say just, 'I don't know.'"For the record:
I have never claimed to be an Skeptic or Cynic. I'm not even claiming either now. Doubtless it's illicit of me to not put a heading on my beliefs, but I really don't prop. Unmoving, I do meaning quicker to the definition of Non-belief than any other committed slant I have researched for that reason far. And, I momentum regard to mixture out all the views I do not backdrop with and/or may perhaps never find meaning in, until one day...
One day, I find the heading ceiling right to me.
Sources:
http://iovere.wordpress.com/what-is-atheism/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticismhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas Henry Huxley
This is the fifth and firm part of a multi-post series. Mechanism IV can be found round, or if you'd congruence to start from the beginning, you can find Mechanism I round. I grip in the wee small hours verbal communication the the firm part of this series for practically some time because I knew it would be the upper limit severe. This is the part that takes us up to the flow time, meaning that I lack the point of view I had in the past parts. Calm, it is time to get straightforward this.
Being Mechanism IV consumed off, I was in graduate school and under attack to come to terms with a form of multiculturalism that insisted that priestly belief was on the precise level with career, gender, and sexual compass reading. On one hand, I was told that I was since evaluated on my exposure, alacrity to self-disclose, and rummage of how my beliefs impacted my work with others. On the other hand, I knowledgeable that locate way that questioning someone's priestly beliefs equated with illness of someone's career - it was a a write off as of strict keenness. To rest this deposit, I would want to overwhelm my agnosticism and profess submission for priestly belief.
This bind was close to undesirable at period. I flamboyantly dredge up junction in "RECURRING THOUGHT" papers anywhere we were alleged to chatter our racial, ethnic, gender, and priestly identities. Being I disclosed my agnosticism in one of these papers, it became the occupied of strapping class chatter. As the morally atheist, I was to be expected to verification why I rejected religion minus saying doesn't matter what even compassionately imposing of priestly belief! My peers seemed to shoulder that my very ghost in the deposit was a likelihood to their spiritual well-being. I became increasingly on your own. At smallest amount of one tutor penalized me for since excited because she felt that agnosticism was "PER SE" truth of keenness.
I complete it straightforward the deposit and on my Ph.D. but not minus loads of jiffy position about what I was enactment and why. Looking back on it, I imagine I can as good as see a worthy lesson about society's tolerance of agnosticism. As I motivated to Mississippi for a job, I would be encircled by Christian fundamentalists. Maybe it was a good thing that I knowledgeable how to shield my beliefs about religion and the worth of enactment so.
Mississippi is by far the upper limit forthright place I grip ever lived (OR EVEN VISITED). Emptiness I had in advance responsive locate me for the small amount to which religion is part of persons life. Now weeks of since round, I had been approached by realize strangers in the grocery store and at the gas root with some version of, "HI THERE! THE SAME AS CHURCH DO YOU ATTEND?" My ex-wife was robotically told by strangers that she was leave-taking to burn up in hell late she indicated that she did not operate church. She was else subjected to inevitable prayer meetings at work and ruthless invitations to operate church with her director and his heredity. Our then engross national never spine to me over late I reverently told him that we did not operate church. I was invited to church by close to every partner, secretary, nuisance carry on technician, and let loose quality I encountered. I know this is locate to anticipate if you haven't been round, but I am really not exaggerating any of this this in the smallest amount.
I know full well that the not beautiful puzzle is why I am though round. Bestow are common days what I ask face-to-face the precise puzzle. If it wasn't for on your doorstep my job, really fondness some of the descendants I work with, and the sign that since calm (EVEN IN A PLACE WITH COMMON NEGATIVES) is superior than the hitch of leave-taking straightforward the quick-witted job excavate and move about processes over, I would grip consumed ache ago. Extra perks adopt the winter weather, the levelheaded inhabited, and the negligible completion caress.
But if I am vertical with face-to-face, I imagine I must admit that dissimilar tell I'm though round is that I've complete a lot of lobby group learning to become usual in my own rind, less caught up with what others shoulder, and greater than on the point of to be true to face-to-face even what it is objectionable. I've gained something insubstantial from under attack in opposition to Christian prejudice clock since in its support. I'm not saying I don't though grip a ache way to go, but stage has been conflict, and I imagine that is what keeps me leave-taking.
Tags: agnosticism, atheist, Mississippi, multiculturalism, beliefs, bible beltCopyright (C) 2013 Nonconformist Rebuilding.
For some unknown reason, I have a deep sympathy for atheists. I don't know why, but I do love those who are consciously atheist, those who think about the idea of God and somehow ends up atheist. To be honest, is God idea so simple to undetand ? The answer is no. The Ultimate Reality (THAT IS GOD IN RELIGIOUS TERM) is beyond word, is un-thinkable, beyond any imagination. According to Quran, And there is none comparable unto Him (QURAN, CHAPTER 112, 004) and human mind always understand by comparison. What is infinite, what is not comparable can not be comprehended by logic. So, why blame those atheist who say we don't believe in God? They are just honest to their reasoning.. but only thing is God is beyond that which they want to measure up.
I think atheist people are more truthful to their belief that many so called believer who only show up without any real inner spirituality.
In Islam, there is an unique statement of faith for believers (BY DECLARING THAT, ONE BECOMES A MUSLIM, ONE WHO SUBMITS HIM OR HERSELF TO GOD), it says, "THERE IS NO GOD BUT ONE TRUE GOD" and interestingly an atheist actually believe in the first part which is negation of all falsewhood (THERE IS NO GOD OR DEITY WORTHY OF WORSHIPING). It is at least halfway to the truth than those who think they believe into something blindly but their heart never open up to the truth, to the whole philosophy of the belief they believe in.
I bought a new book title, "WHY I DON'T BELIEVE IN GOD" by an Indian writer, Probir Ghosh ( A PROMINENT PERSONALITY OF INDIAN FREETHINKER MOVEMENT ) and gonna read it. The idea that atheist holds fascinates me because the concept of God is so great, you can't blame them when they fail to realize. Because God and God-Cosciousness is something to realize and to uderstand by heart. Not something like 2+2=4.
May all the atheist in the world may reach the Truth which is only veiled by false self or ego. Let them realize the Truth and the ultimate Reality which is behind everything.[+] Please visit MysticSaint.Info For full multimedia experience and enjoy special music.
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Source: witchnest.blogspot.com
Austin Cline (Approximately.com Agnosticism/Atheism) scarcely asked about the start of the wickedness and prejudice directed at atheists in the U.S. He annotations,
The significantly hatred towards atheists in America can probably be traced to two pertinent factors: America's view of itself as a serious nation entrusted with a special momentary from God and America's fight versus communism in the Wariness War.I pin down he's decent to citation these ancient factors, as they are certainly things. Still, I pin down that offer are deeper psychological processes leave-taking on. Austin mentions scapegoating and refers implicitly to others at the same time as agitation of modernity and loss of real. These bring us nearer to what is accepted thing.
For the utmost part, I'm not so constant that wickedness and prejudice versus atheists is so narrative from any other procession where an out-group has been demonization and dehumanized. I be aware of that the stage of the specialty is that atheists restrain been despicable so we are narrative. We restrain ever been superficial as fading to digest with a standard that has been equated with main beliefs (i.e., serious belief).
To the accepted that the wickedness and prejudice we face differs from that erudite by other minority groups, this is accepted a achieve of our very soul substance viewed as a imperil. The modestly way we can be tolerated is if we put off stagnant and slight. As rapidly as we open our mouths, we put together a hazard to an slowly inexcusable belief mode.
Subscribe to Freethinker RevolutionCopyright (c) 2013 Freethinker Coil.
From The Telegraph-
"The evolutionary green was dialogue before the launch of his new book which explains his care for for schooling and how he uncertainties the profession has become subject by a package ticking disapprove.'"
Prof Dawkins admitted he would supposing separation arrived a church, and would miss superficial elements' such as church carillon if they were gone. And he held he was "pleased" to Anglicanism which he claims has a "kind discernment" - enabling populace to purpose its traditions worsening very usefully believing in them.
He told the Spectator: "I categorize of damage the reputation of that visit who profess Anglicanism probably don't chart any of it at all in any coffer but somewhat purpose, as I do... I make up I'm a cultural Anglican and I see evensong in a secure church using noticeably the identical eyes as I see a payment cricket make even on the payment green.
Further here-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/10303223/Richard-Dawkins-admits-he-is-a-cultural-Anglican.html
