(July 11, 2021 at 3:27 pm)Mercyvessel Wrote: Apart from all this, and logically speaking - do your own research and see the particular order and great complexity in creation - from our galaxy in relation to the more than two trillion that we know of - to our solar system - to living creatures on this planet; ourselves (intricacies of the functions and mechanics of the body) included. When one truly looks introspectively and is fairly objective, one must admit that these things do not just happen and continue on by accident. They are really impressive!
Nature is not very orderly but rather sloppy. And for the order that we do see nobody says that it happened and continues to happen by accident. The galaxies that you mention are formed by forces like gravity.
To give a more trivial but enlightening example: what could be more 'random' and unintentional than shaking up an object? Take some iron filings, place them on paper with a magnet underneath, and shake, and the random agitation will result in orderly patterns flowing from nothing more than the natural magnetic field's action on the iron — unless you want to insist that some god(s) stepped in to arrange the iron in orderly patterns?
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"
