Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.
Not at all. He was quite clear to put his theistic belief into Origin several times. What is more, even after he moved more toward agnosticism, he was always ready to admit that, at the time he wrote Origin, he was a theist. See the chapter "Never An Atheist" in Desmond and Moore's exhaustive biography Darwin. Otherwise check Origin of Species. It's online at http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=F391&viewtype=text&pageseq=1
Yes, Einstein was not a Judeo-Christian, but he was a theist. In the event, he wrecked his scientific career because he insisted "God does not play dice".
Oh, this one is too precious.
FYI, Einstein was a great physicist (at least until he allowed his beliefs to get in the way of science) but he was a terrible theologian.
Relativity explains gravity very well. The problem is not understanding gravity per se. The problem is that no one has been able to quantize gravity. So we have 2 great theories that, between them, explain physics: Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. But the theories have not been able to be unified or, rather, no one has found a unified theory that can explain what Relativity and QM do.
That is not going to find out if a soul exists. That is only going to determine memory. Several studies have noted the existence of consciousness after clinical death and from a perspective that the person involved could not have had. See this paper:
It is not completely true that humans no longer are subject to natural selection. Yes, we do control much of our environment, but not all of it. There are many papers out there documenting adaptations in various populations of H. sapiens. Some of the adaptations are leading to allopatric speciation: new species of Homo. It's a classic case of disruptive selection and we will just have to see whether speciation happens or gene flow keeps all the populations of H. sapiens a single species.
That shows a profound ignorance of evolution and natural selection. There is no such thing as "perfection". Why not? Because traits are "good" or "bad" in relation to a particular environment. So there are no absolute good and bad traits, and thus no absolute "perfection". So, in selecting traits that humans think are "perfect", we could easily be causing great harm to the species in the future.
No, we are not ready for Neoevolution. Forget religion, look only at the science. Neoevolution presumes that we are smarter than natural selection. We aren't. Natural selection is so much smarter than we are. Proof? Humans call upon natural selection whenever the design problem is too tough for us. So, we are going to abandon the smarter process (natural selection) for one that is dumber? Could be, but it shows profound stupidity on our part. Perhaps terminal stupidity. Who knows? The people who push this thru as a good idea might be the ultimate winners of the Darwin Award.
Natural selection is anything but "crude". Humans concentrate on a few traits. Natural selection balances thousands of traits, constantly performing a cost-benefit analysis between all of them.
Talk about the Naturalistic Fallacy! Yes, natural selection does carry the best designs to the next generation, via genes. However, to extrapolate that to what should happen -- "the point of our existence" -- is the Naturalistic Fallacy in all its stupidity.
Didn't you ever see Jurassic Park? Malcom: "Just because we can do it doesn't mean we should do it."
Do you have children? When you take them to a restaurant, do you know what they will order? Likely. Yet you are not omniscient. Given a bit more knowledge and wisdom, your predictions could get even better. Yet your children have free will.
And how does that preclude the existence of God or that God has a plan for you?
My father was and still is headstrong atheist. My mother was probably an atheist too, during my childhood, though she's since converted to Christianity. I was raised to believe that religion was an archaic and useless way of thinking that only holds us back and that science was the only way forward. I attended Harvey Mudd College, America's leading undergraduate college of science and engineering, and did my graduate work at Vanderbilt University. While I entered college as a militant atheist determined to tear down religion, I left graduate school seven years later as a Christian determined to devote my life to Jesus Christ. Hence it is difficult for me to take seriously any claim that I'm a Christian because of how my parents raised me or because of my lack of education (in science or anything else).
I'm not quite sure what you're referring to here. I find Christianity to mesh fully with all the observations that I can make about the world around me, both scientific and otherwise. While I'm happy to explain why I feel this way in regard to any particular I don't go out of my way to mention science in religious debates.
I used to believe that politics was ninety percent evil. Now I believe that it's one hundred percent evil.
God did not come into existence. God has always been.
Facts convince us. The reason we are convinced gravity is working is because we have the continued facts of gravitational attraction.
That's not it. The "predictable" part is actually predict new knowledge if the hypothesis is correct. As an example, Relativity predicted that light would be bent in a strong graviational field. No one had seen that before. It was not seen until 7 years later during a total eclipse of the sun.
No, it is enough. See the paper above. I basically did what you claimed but no one reproduced my experiment. Yet there it is in the peer-reviewed literature.
This isn't true. Much of the historical information has been documented. For instance, recently a stone arch was discovered with the inscription "built by David". That is historical documentation of the existence of David. You need to think more of what you actually want to claim.
Yes.
How do you know? Have you asked a newborn and the newborn has told you he/she is an atheist? Wait! Newborns can't talk! Therefore you have no evidence for that assertion.
Standard atheist dogma. Were your parents atheist? If not, then how did you change from theist to atheist?
We don't. Science tells us how God created. It's not a conflict.
I apply "love your neighbor as yourself" and "do unto others ..." in evaluating any political or social position.
Yes, it would raise the question. So what? That the question exists would not change the fact that an intelligent being created the universe, would it? You really don't understand how science works, do you? Take my paper above. It raises the questions of
I've been on the internet for thirteen years and I don't think I've ever seen a post funnier than this one.
Many scientist have found no real problem with fitting both into their life and world. There is no evidence that it hampered their ability as scientists.
