brokenreflector Wrote:Why would the question be asked if God is by definition a being that cannot fail to exist (i.e. necessary, eternal)?
That is an empty assertion.
There isn't any evidence that God exists in the first place, so there isn't any evidence that God is eternal.
brokenreflector Wrote:I don't see how this is worth mentioning.
Ask yourself this because you mentioned something you call "flavors" of atheism.
brokenreflector Wrote:Because he's doing science and science is a methodology that observes, records, predicts, and describes natural phenomena. God isn't a natural phenomena. Even if God truly existed and even if this scientist believed in God, it wouldn't make sense for him to mention God in a purely scientific context.
Exactly, if something is invisible, inaudible, is in no way detectable then it doesn't exist - just like God. The only dimension God exists is in people's imagination.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
