Science, 'frauds' trigger a decline in atheism

Discussion in 'Political Discussions' started by Charles, Mar 4, 2005.

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  1. Charles

    Charles New Member

    http://www.washtimes.com/world/20050303-115733-9519r.htm
     
  2. qvatlanta

    qvatlanta New Member

    Ha ha ha ha... oh my goodness that's hilarious. The first three sentences of that article sound like they're from a C-quality junior high school essay. It might as well have started off "Since the dawn of time, mankind has always ____" But seriously, the Washington Times is run by a bunch of Moonies and racists...


    http://www.splcenter.org/intel/news/item.jsp?aid=10
     
  3. Khan

    Khan New Member

    From the article:
    "Mr. Zulehner cautioned, however, that the decline of atheism in Europe does not mean that re-Christianization is taking place.
    "What we are observing instead is a re-paganization," he said."

    That's wierd, because I woke up feeling more pagan than usual this morning.
     
  4. dcv

    dcv New Member

    Sweet. I'm feeling kinda pagan myself.

    "Lead me O Zeus, and thou O Destiny,
    Wherever thou beckons me
    To follow I am ready,
    If I don't, I make myself a wretch
    And still must follow."
     
  5. little fauss

    little fauss New Member

    Poorly-written articles, allegations of moonieism, and a rise in paganism aside, it must be admitted that there are some rather stunning events going on among those studying the universe at the macro and micro levels.

    They are running into things--such as innumerable irreducible complexities at the microbiological level, and the almost bizarre manner in which the basic forces of nature, such as the strong nuclear, seem almost fine tuned to produce life: a fraction stronger, nothing but hydrogen--no life; a fraction weaker, no hydrogen--no life. This has led many former athiest scientists to embrace the concept of a creator or some undefined creation force--although as the post points out, few new adherents to the gods of the major world religions.

    At our current state-of-the-art in science, it is appearing more and more that something very strange and unexpected is going on, I think they're uncovering evidence of a creator, no matter how diligently they are in gritting the teeth and denying the God of Abraham and Jeshua.
     
  6. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    But little fauss,

    How do you get from the admittedly astonishing "fine tuned" nature of the universe to believeing in the God of the Jews in particular?

    If you believe because you accept revelation (and why not?) why should these things matter to you?

    If you don't accept revelation (which I don't) how do these things point in that particular direction?
     
  7. little fauss

    little fauss New Member

    I didn't say I believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jeshua because of scientific discovery; I believed long before any of us became aware of these recent astonishments.

    Nor do I think that scientists must accept the God in whom I believe and that same One in whom you might or might one day believe--the I AM one--because of these discoveries; I was just referencing the fact that, as was pointed out in prior posts, these new discoveries haven't compelled many of the scientists to accept the God of Sinai, they've driven them into mysticism or paganism.

    If accepting that these new developments are at least evidence of a Creator--even evidence that may one day be refuted by further scientific investigation--is point "A", then I'm certainly not concluding that acceptance of the God of Abraham and Messiah is point "B"; it's more like point "K" or "T"--I acknowledge one doesn't lead directly, logically to the other, there are numerous steps--steps I personally believe are solidly there--in between.

    Sorry I didn't make that more clear in my previous post.
     
  8. Charles

    Charles New Member

    There's article, perhaps the basis for the UPI story, titled 'A little knowledge leads away from God, much...leads towards Him', in yesterday's Irish Times. I'm not a subscriber, I found it via LexisNexis.
     
  9. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    But it can just as esaily be said that the universe is the way is is, perfectly balanced to bring forth human beings, precisely because if it weren't, we wouldn't be here to notice it.

    I still don't see any indication of or necessity for a Creator from these scientific observations.
     
  10. little fauss

    little fauss New Member

    Of course you can say that, but that gets you nowhere; it's like a fish sitting in an aquarium saying: "Sure I see all these signs of design, look at how my universe is just perfectly oxygenated, look at how the food appears above; of course my universe is the way it is, sufficient to sustain my life; if not, I wouldn't be here to ponder it."
     
  11. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    I'm not sure that atheism has scientific underpinnings.

    Science addresses the phenomena of this world that we live in (interpreted broadly to include remote places and times), and has very little to say about transcendent entities such as religious divinities.

    It's true that science presents modern man with a cosmology that's very different than what's found in literal interpretations of ancient religious mythology, including the Bible.

    That's certainly true.

    Of course, religions seem to have similar difficulty claiming the moral high ground.

    That's probably more damaging to the religions than to the atheists. Religions wrap themselves in the flag of morality and proudly boast of their divine revelations and holy spirits. Presumably all that supernatural stuff must have some observable effect on people's lives.

    But my experience has been that it's impossible to tell a person's religion (or lack of one) just from watching their behavior in the secular sphere. There are nice guys and jerks, there are scrupulously ethical individuals and con-men, but none of that seems particularly correlated to religious adherence. (And certainly not to any particular religion.) It's more a matter of individual psychology.
     
  12. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    I agree that my arguement "gets me nowhere" but I don't see how adopting a belief in a Creator gets me anywhere, either. That belief tells me nothing additional about the world around me.
     
  13. little fauss

    little fauss New Member

    Re: Re: Science, 'frauds' trigger a decline in atheism

    That's an excellent point. Scientists study the mechanics of that which we observe and construct models/make hypotheses to explain what's going on--science doesn't even address the issue of whether there exists some Transcendent Creator.

    The problem I have with many athiest scientific colleagues and associates on my current campus and campuses I've frequented is they make the very unsupportable leap from: we study the mechanics, the Creator hasn't tapped on our shoulders or left evidence of Himself--I would argue He most certainly has!--ergo, He/She/It must not exist. Too many take this second step, and it's nonsense.

    As for creation accounts and science, I dare say that science is veering tantalizingly close to the creation account outlined to Moses already: e.g., life originating in oceans, the congruence of "Let there be light" with the Big Bang Theory, the placement of the first civilization by both the Torah and modern archaeologists near the Tigris and Euphrates rivers 6-7 millenia ago. I could go on...
     
  14. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    If physical constants are selected randomly when universes come to be (however that is), then presumably sentient observers like man will only evolve in that subset of universes where conditions are conducive to their existence. So universes will always seem to the observers living within them to be fine-tuned for those observers' comfort.

    This 'anthropic' argument seems to be a new and larger-scale variant of the much older argument that the Earth has just the right temperature and atmosphere to make it comfortable for man, so it must have been designed as his home. Of course, one could also argue that man evolved in Earthly conditions and therefore is naturally optimized for them.

    Creation arguments start out with the observation that some of the order in the observed world is the result of intentional design by conscious agents. (Namely man.) But obviously much of the order that we see around us has no human designer at all. So what's up with that?

    To explain the mystery, all order is treated as analogous to the creative acts of human craftsmen, and then the existence of an invisible occult craftsman (or men, singular or plural) of superhuman skill is posited as the explanation of all cosmic order.

    The plausibility of the design argument is really only as convincing as that analogy.

    It seems more realistic to me to take the agnostic position and to simply admit that we don't know where all the order comes from at this point.

    Besides, I don't think that the design argument really provides an explanation at all.

    Presumably a posited supernatural designer will be at least as sophisticated and complex as his creations. So the mystery to be explaned is still there. It hasn't gone away. It's just been moved out of the empirical world, turned into a 'person', and then shoved up into some ill-defined heavenly realm.

    That's a pseudo-explanation. Things are getting murkier, not clearer.
     
  15. little fauss

    little fauss New Member

    The plausibility of your argument depends on the existence of innumerable universes, the overwhelming majority of which do not provide an environment for life. Of course, your explanation is only as good as the hypothesis--and that's all it is--that there indeed exist these other universes. And that's mere conjecture unsupportable by observation, just a theory, dare I say, one supported by nothing but thin air and faith? Speaking of murkiness an want of clarity...
     
  16. Tom57

    Tom57 Member

    No, not true at all. It depends only on one universe - a universe that has at least one place that supports life, and many places that don't.

    Certainly there could be many universes. Why is that any more unbelievable than postulating a grand creator?
     
  17. BLD

    BLD New Member

    Correct. Atheism, like evolutionism, is a faith-based belief system. In fact, it takes much more faith to believe in either of the above than it does to believe in Christianity.

    BLD
     
  18. dcv

    dcv New Member

    Ooops...I think you may have accidently put "in fact" in the above statement instead of the infinitely more approriate "in my opinion".
     
  19. BLD

    BLD New Member

    No DCV,
    It is a fact, not opinion.

    BLD
     
  20. little fauss

    little fauss New Member

    No, Tom, that's not what we're discussing here. We're discussing the growing realization by physicists studying the universe that basic properties thereof seem extraordinarily fine-tuned to produce a universe capable of hosting life--they're finding out that if this-or-that force were just the tiniest bit greater or lesser, no life could possibly exist on any planet, that planets, matter as we know it couldn't exist, the universe would be utterly random or devoid of hydrogen; in either event, no life could exist at all. These are interesting findings, Tom. They deserve thoughtful contemplation.

    We're not talking about the likelihood of life existing among billions of galaxies and planets; we're looking at it from a macro macro macro level.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 4, 2005

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