Comments on: Does atheism have a monopoly on intelligence or rationality?

By: jw

jw — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 17:06:12 +0000

As a fetus your organs grow in this manner. Cells dividing until they form the organs that you recognize. From the moment of conception a body is formed via asexual reproduction of the new composite cell. All new things bear the mark of their previous forms.

By: jon s

jon s — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 07:13:42 +0000

I’m begining to feel the evolutionist is having to rely on his ‘evo-faith’ more and more with a quasi- religious “It has to be true so I’ll believe it” mentality. Please can someone tell me the answer to this one question: if all our organs developed slowly over time, bit by bit, then at some stage in history we must have all had bits of developing organs all at different stages of growth - bits of eye-like organs half developed in our heads, ears that weren’t quite working as the mutations slowly evolved, parts of internal organs that hadn’t fully become fully functioning organs and a myriad other weird bits of body all being ‘developed’ by the random mutation lottery game. If this has been such a powerful, worldwide force for driving the evolution of a million different animal species why has it suddenly stopped? For the diversity we see there must have been a billion billion mutations just to create a fraction of the diverse creatures waking, flying and swimming this earth today.For those who will now claim that it hasn’t stopped - please wake up. There should be a million animals with ongoing beneficial mutations - organs under development- still in evidence. I don’t see any. I see complete beings. And I see well developed beings, uncanily like they were created that way.

By: Rose Red

Rose Red — Tue, 15 May 2007 07:49:06 +0000

What if you need, for eternal existences sake, to be more specific in your beliefs about a creator? It’s all very well to be totally rational and open minded, but at the end of the day, where does it really get you?

Badger 3k said that we need to look at our hypothesis, but what if our data is wrong in the first place? What if our whole reasoning is flawed, and fraught with totally human error? What then? Do we just give up? Somehow though, I don’t think that saying ‘I don’t know’ is really going to cut it.

Respectfuly
~RR

By: Epiphanist

Epiphanist — Mon, 14 May 2007 10:58:54 +0000

I will use any tool which enables better understanding of a unique existence. Science, religion, art, music, philosophy, psychology, technology, culture. I would be surprised if tools or models could do more than catch a glimpse of anyone’s reality. The point is to live a full life. Some things we learn by bitter experience, thankfully we can fast track some of the process by accepting what others will share with us. I find it weird that people argue so strongly that my spiritual reality is non existent. They use a rationale that someone else’s description of spiritual understanding doesn’t satisfy arbitrary rules that someone has set. Science can’t describe all of my reality either. Big deal, it still gives wonderful insights and understanding of amazing things. Ditto for religion and the other tools on my list. Not being universal doesn’t mean that the tools have no value. You don’t use an ax to strain your pasta. The God/Science debate reminds me of an old martial arts movie when the main protagonists finally face each other - “now we see whose Kung Fu is best”. Rational and intelligent? This blog shows a few signs from time to time. Keep up the good work.
PS. That atheism central thing didn’t make much sense, I have been really happy with RSS feeds into my Blogline account. It allows me to enjoy blogs which are not syndicated because I know whenever there is a new post, and the blogs retain individuality. You can put my blog on if you like, I post for people to look at, but I am definitely not aetheist. Been there, done that!

By: HeIsSailing

HeIsSailing — Mon, 14 May 2007 04:44:15 +0000

Richard T Scott sez:
“Depending upon one’s view of the data, one could conclude the idea of a “God” to be either infra-natural (within nature) or super-natural (above/outside nature). By the very nature of the idea of God, I would certainly define it (this idea) as being supernatural, in the sense that IF there was a Creator, he would of necessity be outside of time as he created time. ”

IF God is he who created the universe as described in Genesis, I would expect this of him as well. But this is a very recent interpretation of who God is and the nature of his creation. Einstein was the one who discovered in that time is a physical property in 1905 - very recently. And I don’t know theory was extrapolated into Theology to have God stand outside of our time domain - but it was certainly only within the last 100 years.

I don’t even know when terms such as ’supernatural’ came up, but I need to do some research when this notion of God came about. Remember that to the ancients, God was in, at least the 3rd heaven, above the dome of the sky. This makes it sound like God is ‘infra-natural’ as you put it, or within nature. As time and science progressed, heaven kept getting pushed further back into the cosmos. As recently as the 1960’s heaven was viewed as a place just somewhere behind Jupiter, or just outside our solar system. Now that those locations are mere real estate for our explorations, heaven is most commonly viewed in some kind of alternate dimension or reality.

This is where the supernatural nature of heaven becomes fully developed - and is a very recent idea in my view.

By: Richard T Scott

Richard T Scott — Mon, 14 May 2007 03:07:04 +0000

“The more rational answer is not to look to supernatural explanations, nor to fill in an answer that makes you feel good (or whatever), but to simply say “We do not know, yet. We may never know. But we have some hypothesis, let’s see if we can test them for plausibility, and if not, we must simply say we do not know.”
-Badger 3k

Actually I agree with you perfectly. However, if I hold an opinion which I never state because of uncertainty, then there will be no discussion on the point. And it’s entirely possible that as I continue my search I may change my opinion based on the data. As such, my hope was to join in the dialogue. It’s inherent to the nature of dialogue that there is no absolutely conclusive answer, because if It were certain that I (or anyone else) was right, it wouldn’t be necessary to discuss the topic.

Also, defining an obscure, non-biblical God or creator (my definition) as an essentially “super-natural” explanation depends greatly on your definition of “super-natural”. Depending upon one’s view of the data, one could conclude the idea of a “God” to be either infra-natural (within nature) or super-natural (above/outside nature). By the very nature of the idea of God, I would certainly define it (this idea) as being supernatural, in the sense that IF there was a Creator, he would of necessity be outside of time as he created time. If he is outside of time, then he is essentially supernatural. Yet, this is the limit of my definition for what I have thus far concluded as my own personal belief (not action). The limit being that I see evidence of a creator, but not a biblical mythological Judeo-Christian Godhead. Thus the stereotypes of this typical idea of God don’t apply as my argument is an attempt at re-defining the term and is a personal search.

It seems that my views are nearly in agreement with yours, we simply have different definitions of terms. Perhaps the most effective debate would occur between such mutually respectful individuals. I could imagine such a debate covering various interpretations of specific evidence or data in the interest of testing one’s assumptions. To start with, If anyone is interested, some of the references which have influenced my opinions might be helpful for a reference point. For example “The Science of God” by Gerard L. Schroeder is certainly an interesting read which offers (almost) a middle ground between the Science/God debate.

Respectfully

By: Badger3k

Badger3k — Sun, 13 May 2007 21:04:12 +0000

He was ok until he got to the point of “there are many things left unanswered, which perhaps are more rationally answered by other means for the time being.” The more rational answer is not to look to supernatural explanations, nor to fill in an answer that makes you feel good (or whatever), but to simply say “We do not know, yet. We may never know. But we have some hypothesis, let’s see if we can test them for plausability, and if not, we must simply say we do not know.”

If I don’t know why something has happened, I can speculate all I want, but I cannot take them seriously as an explanation, not until they have been tested and confirmed (assuming my speculation is correct). To me, it is not rational to act on such assumptions as if they were correct, and if possible, we should act to minimize the reliance on such assumptions (sorry to be vague, this could probably fill a post or two itself as a topic). Act as if you could be wrong. Minimize the potential harm. To me that seems rational.

That said, I do agree that no one group of anything has a monopoly on anything. Some groups do possess more of some traits, though, than other groups, and some of them use it more (and to a deeper level, so to speak). I know many christians, and others, who are intelligent and rational, except when they get to certain areas of thought. Then it all flies out the window. Same with some atheists who I know who think UFOs are visiting us, and abducting people. Unless you apply the same standards to all your ideas and beliefs (and actions, and, well, everything), I don’t think you are as rational as someone who does.