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Old 03-18-2007, 06:58 PM   #79
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Re: The Root of all Evil/Trobule With Atheism


I'm just sorry, buddy, but we are just as bound to the "limitations" of the natural world as anything else, given the fact that we are complete products of it. It's probably all any of can ever know, so this continued appeal to it's "limitations" is irrelevant.

Finally, yes, I do say "I don't know" (sans the "yet") because it's an honest answer. I don't know--and neither do you. You have people who are way smarter than you or I working day and night on the problem and they don't know. Yet you and your kind continue to bypass (perhaps even insult) the process which the astrophysicists take and use superficial rhetoric and circular arguments to posit beings which need not be posited. Say what you will, but yours is a process which is lazy by comparison.

No, I choose to say, "I don't know how it happened, but I based on what I can know, I believe that there are signs of creation, purpose and meaning in our existence. Thus I believe in God. I don't claim to know what God is, how God created the universe, or any of that... but I can see the limitations of my material understanding and believe there is something beyond this world."
Or in otherwords, you're saying "God did it." Nothing was taken out of context here. That is what you are saying.

"Justifiably unique" is a non sequitor. It's an arbitrary concept defined by you alone, based purely upon your assumptions on the limitations (or lack thereof) of naturalism.
Though the term itself is unique to me, it is justifiable. It certainly isn't a non sequitor or arbitrary. It is just another way of saying yours is a argument which has problems with infinite regression and equal plausibility. And it does.

No, you're wrong. The process of scientific inquiry does not need theology, but its implications sure do. If they didn't, folks like Dawkins wouldn't be writing books about them.
Man, have you even read The God Delusion?

Nor does theology. The fundamental concepts that run through all religions are the same now as they were thousands of years ago.
It's clear that since The Enlightenment (and consequence Age of Science) and the rise of secular governments that nearly every supplemental aspect (and some fundamental claims) of modern theology has changed. And those which have not (with respect to the theory of evolution), you or I would call it unfortunate. Nevertheless, it is evident that science has produced many conflicts which have directly come in conflict with theology--and here is the kicker, science was always right.

Again, this is what you newfangled liberal types do. Just pretend that your vague conception of god wasn't essentially a hijacked albeit more modern version of a god that was once was and still is for most people; a god which actively actively kept tabs or your earthly affairs, listened to prayers, and rewarded goodness in the hereafter--that is the god in which historic Westerners believed. They also believed, as a fundamental concept, that they were created by god in his image. The theory of Evolution flat refuted that claim, and that's why up to this day there are folks who still attack it, that's why in our religious country, far too many people do not believe in the theory it all. Creationism is a fundamental concept of Christianity and science has directly spat in it's face.

Faith is not a fact claim about the precise process by which we came into existence, it's belief in purpose and meaning in our world that lies beyond the material self.
However you (re)define faith, it's irrelevant. The question of whether not a belief is justifiable is the question at hand, and the position of faith alone does not a justifiable belief make.

Well duh. But that doesn't change the concept of the soul. Again, you are not the nervous system. You are the user. The nervous system may become unusable, but you are still you. Your spirit remains without an worldly avatar. This seemingly amazing information you're presenting isn't anything spectacular. When you keel over dead, you can't use your nervous system. We can see that when someone dies, they stop acting like they used to. Soul is belief that the self transcends its material vessel, and the advances in cognitive neurology haven't done anything to undermine that concept.
Mike, you have to realize that whatever caused you to say "duh" is part of the problem. The soul which you define is only obvious because of the age which we live. The traditional soul, like the traditional god, was a lot less metaphorical and a lot more material than any one would believe today. Again, only because of the rise of science do conceptions of god and the soul become smaller and more distant.

Further, your self that transcends self is on it's face absurd. You are the very much space you occupy. (Of course, you could be speaking metaphorically, in which case, I rest my case.)

So if we found a naturalistic cause, we would be showing that the universe is indeed self-causing. If it is self-causing, it is also infinite. If it is infinite, it is self-perpetuating.
You propose no solution to this fallacy because your god is also self-causing, infinite, and self-perpetuating. The only difference is that you've rhterorically exempted it from it because "hey, man, it's God." Now you know why they call your argument circular.

Until that happens though, your belief in unlimited bounds of naturalism will continue to be every bit as faith-based as my belief in God.
No. My belief (not in the "unlimited bounds of naturalism" as I've say many, many times before) is better--yes, better--than yours because I base mine on evidence, not simply faith. Better.
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