If God were real, you wouldn’t need a book

[Cypress]

Even Einstein was amazed at the physics of the universe, and thought it must mean something profound. That is what led him to be some kind of pantheist rather than an atheist.

Einstein famously said the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it's comprehensible.

 

[ZenMode]

Exactly the opposite.

Because science discovered a universal law of gravity, a beginning to the universe, a spacetime boundary to the universe's past, the exquisite fine tuning of the physical constants, one can logically infer those properties cannot come from chance, from the irrational or the inanimate.

Science is never going to prove what came before the universe. Science doesn't answer philosophical questions. But science can be used in philosophical deduction and inference.

"Science is never going to prove...."

So, you're filling the gap between what we can't explain and science can't explain with an all powerful entity....

 

[Cypress]

"Science is never going to prove...."

So, you're filling the gap between what we can't explain and science can't explain with an all powerful entity....

Science doesn't prove anything. And it certainly doesn't directly answer philosophical questions.

Science is an empirical method which makes accurate predictions about velocity, momentum, the movement and exchange of energy. We know for the most part how gravity behaves, but 500 years after Newton we still don't really know what gravity is or why it exists at the level of ontology.

People who didn't have a science background in college often overestimate what science can actually answer.

What science can do is give us a better picture of the physical behavior of the universe. And that information can inform philosophical and metaphysical deductions.

 

[ZenMode]

.

Science doesn't prove anything. And it certainly doesn't directly answer philosophical questions.

Science is an empirical method which makes accurate predictions about velocity, momentum, the movement and exchange of energy. We know for the most part how gravity behaves, but 500 years after Newton we still don't really know what gravity is or why it exists at the level of ontology.

People who didn't have a science background in college often overestimate what science can actually answer.

What science can do is give us a better picture of the physical behavior of the universe. And that information can inform philosophical and metaphysical deductions.

You pick the word to describe what science hasn't done. Describe.. define... Explain... Prove... Whatever you'd like.

You describe, however you like, what it is that they haven't done.

You are filling in what's missing with a God.

 

[Cypress]

You are filling in what's missing with a God.

You are making a massive assumption that science can answer each and every question out there.

Almost no reputable scientist and philosophers agree with you there.

The reason relatively few scientists identify as steadfast flag-waving atheists is because many of them are awestruck by the internal harmony, intelligibility, and rationality of the universe.

None of the giants of science who were the fathers of genetics, electromagnetism, general relativity, Big Bang cosmology, the discovery of the cosmic microwave background were flag-waving atheists. James Clerk Maxwell was a practicing Christian. Two Catholic priests discovered genetics and the expanding universe. Einstein was some sort of a pantheist. Arno Penzias was a religious man.

Other than Richard Dawkins, who is only a zoologist, most flag-waving belligerent atheists are not scientists and typically have no science background. The people involved in looking at the deepest questions in physics and cosmology are often really struck by the harmony and mathematical rationality of the universe, and are usually not so quick to blow it off as a random cosmic accident.

 

[Ross Dolan]

Saying he's more knowledgeable might have been better.

Okay

To me, saying your agnostic is like saying your absolutely 50/50.

No way. I have no idea of the odds of either being the correct blind guess. I have no idea of which it is...and I have no idea of which is the more likely. The "evidence" is the same for both sides.

You don't lean even a little theist or even a little atheist. You are the Switzerland of God opinions.

I think everyone has an inclination one way or the other. I can say I'm not 100% sure there are no gods, while still confidently say I lean heavily atheistic.

Any leaning being done...is being done on a guess. That is my point. It is almost impossible to persuade someone making a direct guess or a leaning guess...no matter the direction...to change to a "stop with the guessing, direct or leaning. I am especially concerned with the non-theistic side...because that is the side that must be strong. The agnostic position is the strong one...the unassailable one.

But, that's just my opinion.

That is what we are discussing...our opinions. I thank you for sharing yours with me.

 

[Ross Dolan]

You might as well structure your life around Santa Claus. The evidence for Santa is basically identical to the evidence for Jesus/Christian god.

NO...it is not. Not even close. Get over that thought, because it is as wrong as wrong can be.

 

[Truth Detector]

A short little Youtube from a former evangelical pastor. Did the fire and brimstone shit for decades until he finally came to his senses. For those of you who are in denial or wish to remain willfully ignorant, he basically says this:

“Christians go in with their god as an assumption rather than a conclusion. When in fact, after close examination, the virgin birth falls apart, the resurrection falls apart, the basis of morality falls apart, the promise of afterlife fizzles into fear based marketing.”

“The gods of Islam, of Judaism, of Christianity only exist in scripture. If they actually existed, we wouldn’t need the books to claim they did. Once the book fails, the god goes with it.”

View: https://youtube.com/shorts/gI_OCjTkQG4?si=cyukCFBlj2u2kI4k

Imagine, if you can, a Godless world where there are no ten commandments, there is no moral guidance and Christians are fed to the lions.

That's the heathen world atheists inhabit. I would rather believe than be a heathen and believe in nothing but Government and dishonest corrupt men.

As I tell the atheists I know, that certainly there must be truth in the bible and its teachings, how else could a religion of peace and forgiveness have toppled the most powerful nation on earth at the time and supplant it with the capital of Christian Catholic religion? That's a very powerful lesson. A lesson heathen atheists cannot begin to comprehend with the small brains and low IQs.