Religion is Based on Authority, Science on Observation, Science Works!

[Uber Genius]

2 hours ago, johnthebaptist said:

Any atheist is lacking in ...  something. The best way to know God exists is to engage in constant prayer, as Paul teaches us to do (1 Thessalonians 5:17), and get to know him (remembering that prayer is listening as well as speaking). God solves all my problems for me - that pretty much proves his existence, doesn't it?

I work with atheists quite a bit over the last 40 years. While I agree that your and my experience of thousands of answered prayers and God's presence, and specific wisdom for my life are enormously powerful at undergirding my trust in God, I have found some other things to be true:

1 - My experience don't transfer to other people

2 - Atheists often have a deep and palpable experience of evil and suffering that they blame God for

3 - I find that I have to remove some intellectual barriers (sometimes emotional) before I can get them praying.

4 - Some don't actually have intellectual barriers but are pretending in order to live a godless life. These I tell them I am not going to play a make-believe game about something as serious as how we live our lives, get meaning in life, answer the question where did I come from and where will I go when I die. Wish them good luck and then refuse to discuss it further.

best of luck working with them.

[LearningToLetGo]

13 minutes ago, Uber Genius said:

Atheists often have a deep and palpable experience of evil and suffering that they blame God for

This is the crux of the matter. Atheists are not non-believers as much as they are angry at God, and it's far easier to pretend God doesn't exist than it is to acknowledge His existence while also defying Him. True atheists call themselves agnostic and typically say they don't know. If someone is certain that God does not exist, look closer and you will discover much pain.

[Who me]

5 hours ago, Uber Genius said:

Now this is an intriquing concept! Please explain further?

Christianity teaches that God created time, space, energy and matter. 

God also organised it and his character is revealed in creation.

 

The problem for atheistic science is they accept the Christian idea that creation is consistent,ordered and not random and chaotic.

 

They have no philosophical explanation or scientific explanation for why creation is consistent, ordered and not random/chaotic.

 

 

[johnthebaptist]

3 hours ago, Uber Genius said:

I work with atheists quite a bit over the last 40 years. While I agree that your and my experience of thousands of answered prayers and God's presence, and specific wisdom for my life are enormously powerful at undergirding my trust in God, I have found some other things to be true:

1 - My experience don't transfer to other people

2 - Atheists often have a deep and palpable experience of evil and suffering that they blame God for

3 - I find that I have to remove some intellectual barriers (sometimes emotional) before I can get them praying.

4 - Some don't actually have intellectual barriers but are pretending in order to live a godless life. These I tell them I am not going to play a make-believe game about something as serious as how we live our lives, get meaning in life, answer the question where did I come from and where will I go when I die. Wish them good luck and then refuse to discuss it further.

best of luck working with them.

I suspect the Lord makes his presence known to people at some point in their lives. They can choose to pay attention or ignore him.

Logically, I don't think you can say, "God doesn't exist." What is their proof? So if you can't prove he doesn't exist, there is the possibility that he DOES exist. Wouldn't God get lonely, then, if we all decided to ignore him? Doesn't this bother the atheist?

It's easy to blame things on God. The buck stops with him, doesn't it? I suspect, though, we cause most of our own suffering.

 

 

[Billiards Ball]

On 2/5/2021 at 3:58 PM, Uber Genius said:

Stephen Hawking was arguably the brightest scientist. His claims appear to both be true, so why would we trust religious claims?

The quote applies to non-Christian religions.

Since the Bible is inerrant and univocal, it stands every possible logical and hypothetical (scientific, rational, etc.) test.

[Uber Genius]

On 2/8/2021 at 3:45 PM, anynmsfmly said:

Ah, To the contrair................................ Authoritarianism is Theocracy, Not Religion. Theocratic societies function based off Theocracy. Religious, Societies, Function off religion. Gb. 

 

Yes, your point seems to be Hawking has attacked a strawman. Certainly that is true.

"The Bible said it, I believe it, that's settles it," might be considered to be an authoritarian viewpoint.

i think what Hawking is getting at is how knowledge is acquired by religious pro ouncemnet by authors of scripture or the Pope (for Catholics anyways). 

But Hawkings misses the point. He is unfamiliar with the roles of testimony, and memory, and rationality, and introspection involved in engaging Biblical narratives. We gain knowledge in many the same ways juries gain knowledge about truth claims in court. Would Hawking like to destroy the legal system as well? What about Foensic science? How about history, which is based on testimony? Does Hawkings believe that his mother existed, if she died, and her documents attesting to her existence burned up, would he be in a position to say I know I had a mother but I can't know who she was even though I was raised by her and have thousands of experiences of her in my memory.

So what Hawking misses is he wants to destroy almost all knowledge humans have in order to destroy knowledge of God. That seems extreme. And obviously false, as he misunderstands the limits different types of knowledge have.

[Uber Genius]

On 2/9/2021 at 11:24 AM, Billiards Ball said:

The quote applies to non-Christian religions.

Since the Bible is inerrant and univocal, it stands every possible logical and hypothetical (scientific, rational, etc.) test.

Josh MacDowell used to argue deductively from the Bible's inerrancy. Loved Josh, but here it seems that the most effective way to respond is to appeal to our faculties of knowledge:

God gives everyone:

senses

intropection

rationality

memory

testimony

moral intuition (conscience)

Scientific knowledge is weighted on senses, rationality (some memory and testimony and introspection involved).

Religious knowledge is weighed on testimony, memory of religious experiences, rationality, introspection. Not really senses unless you have some religious experience involving the senses.

using a person's argument and apply it to its own claims

Hawking attacks a strawman (religious knowledge is about authority), and then appeals to how science works at knowledge. But science doesn't work if we use Hawking's definition. Because it is continually FALSIFIED! 

So I set the trap early by asking my interlocutor, "Is Hawking claiming because science is unfalsifyable we can trust it?"

most fall into the trap. 

If he is not claiming that then the fact that over time we slowly gain knowledge about the physical world through science can be countered by congrats, we slowly gain knowledge about the spiritual world in the same fashion, slowly over time, as a result of continued interaction with texts. 

 

[R. Hartono]

On 2/6/2021 at 3:58 AM, Uber Genius said:

Stephen Hawking was arguably the brightest scientist. His claims appear to both be true, so why would we trust religious claims?

Roman 3:4 Let God be true but every man a liar.

 

[Uber Genius]

On 2/8/2021 at 3:45 PM, anynmsfmly said:

Authoritarianism is Theocracy, Not Religion. Theocratic societies function based off Theocracy. Religious, Societies, Function off religion.

I think this gets at the broad brush or strawman of Hawkings representation. 

As science is a method of understanding the physical world, and religion deals with origin of the world from nothing, nature of spiritual world, God's plan for man, how man gets meaning in life, why compare methods of such dissimilar knowledge areas? 

Hawking might have sooner tried to measure the width of an object with a stopwatch arguing how accurately a stopwatch measure time. 

Hawking is an idiot.

[BK1110]

“The existence of a limit to science is, however, made clear by its inability to answer childlike elementary questions having to do with first and last things – questions such as 'How did everything begin?' 'What are we all here for?' 'What is the point of living?'” -- Peter Medawar