Quote:Science needs God to be a phenomena, if it's to survive as it is today. Science and God can go hand in hand, I'm not against science I like it and enjoy many things I've learned through it.

LMFAO! Really? Science needs nothing from god, gets nothing from god, and has been surviving just fine since the church stopped burning heretics (scientists) alive.

Science and god cannot go hand in hand.

Of course you like science. Longer life span, better food, clean water, technology etc...


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Quote: "Of course you like science. Longer life span, better food, clean water, technology etc..."

^^Zing!

I think what Godschild meant is that the ethics that supposedly come from Christianity need to temper science. There is a difference between what science can do and, ethically speaking, what science should do. Ethics and science should go hand in hand. As for where those ethics actually come from Christians have been claiming this for thousands of years. I beg to differ. Discussion of this topic will open a new can of worms. When I have time I was going to start a thread about ethics, morality, religion and reason. What came first the chicken or the egg. Did the Bible civilize people or did a long process of reasoned civilizing cause Christians to "reinterpret" the Bible to match the new morality. I don't have time for this today.

To Atheists on this forum: I hope that no one was offended by my last post. I wrote it so that you can see things from the Christian perspective and also to explain things to Godschild. It really is a paradigm shift for Christians to understand why atheists are the way they are.

Godschild: My apostasy was not the result of hurt. One thing I can say after a 30 year stint in fundamentalism is that I have learned how to forgiver assholes. Apostacy happened after researching Christian theology and realizing how much bullshit it is (to make a long story short). Everything else you said are apologetic. I've said the same things to myself in those circumstances. People need to find reasons why things happen. Christians doubly so. Randomness and absence of a gods involvement are difficult things to imagine. It's another paradigm shift.

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(December 13, 2011 at 6:16 am)elly Wrote: Hi all,

I'm just wondering if any of you are familiar with the writings of Lee Strobel? I've been coming up against his works more and more when arguing against christianity. Apparently, he used to be an atheist, but found proof of God, and now is a born again christian. Based on what I've already read on him, I call total bull shit, but his supposed "scientific findings" seem to be swaying a lot of people. I was just curious if any of you had an opinion on him or were familiar with his work.

His books are mostly for Christians who want some cool facts that they can interpret as proving that Jesus is Lord. The books make perfect sense if you already believe, but outside the Christian circle I can see why there would be some issues. I think its all a matter of the context and/or worldview you find yourself in. Strobel is ordering the relevant data in a way that makes sense to his context. Others will order the relevant data in a way that makes sense in their context.

Of course I expect that most atheist on the board would think of their context as science and would not like it being put on the same terms as Lee Strobel. I'm not arguing that science proves that Jesus Christ made all the dinosaurs out of clay 6,000 years ago, my comments are really just a nod to post-modernism. Even factual data is interpreted subjectively, which is how you have a world with Dawkins and Strobel.

I will henceforth re-issue my extremely controversial statement that I enthusiastically embrace whatever science shows us, and I don't think that a religious person is incapable of also being a totally scientific person. Please see the ideas of John Polkinghorne, specifically, specifically his idea that whatever science observes should become part of what Chrsitians believe.

Not all of them are as reasonable as you, Coffee.

There are nut jobs like G-C out there who can't function unless they think their sky-daddy is watching them all the time and taking notes.

Sad to be that fucking insecure really but he needs professional help....

And strong medication.

(December 19, 2011 at 3:49 am)Godschild Wrote: If you know scripture well then you know God said he will work good through those that believe and those who do not believe.

It also says: The fool says in his heart 'there is no God'. They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good.

The latter part is provably untrue unless your mental gymnastic be truly prodigous, which does not bode well for the first part. At any rate, this verse is at odds with the idea of working good through nonbelievers.

Quote: Coffee wrote quote: "His books are mostly for Christians who want some cool facts that they can interpret as proving that Jesus is Lord. The books make perfect sense if you already believe, but outside the Christian circle I can see why there would be some issues. I think its all a matter of the context and/or worldview you find yourself in. Strobel is ordering the relevant data in a way that makes sense to his context. Others will order the relevant data in a way that makes sense in their context."

In reply: No, a bullshit argument is still a bullshit argument. I read some of his books and his arguing skills are absolute shit. It got to the point where I couldn't stand them anymore and never finished the book. It made me embarrassed for the entire religion.

(December 19, 2011 at 6:45 pm)Ziploc Surprise Wrote: I read some of his books and his arguing skills are absolute shit.

Look at what he has to work with. What do you expect?

The saying here in Kentucky is you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.