"The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands." (Psalm 19:1)
https://discussions.godandscience.org/
Katabole wrote:Here is a small list of famous scientists who believed in Jesus Christ:
Nicholas Copernicus
Sir Francis Bacon
Johannes Kepler
Galileo Galilei
Rene Descartes
Isaac Newton
Robert Boyle
Michael Faraday
Gregor Mendel
William Thoson Kelvin
Max Planck
Here is a scientist who believed in God:
Albert Einstein
Well, to nit pick at Einsteins quote, When he says "[n]o one can read the Gospels without feeling the presence of Jesus" is wrong. I can, and have. On top of that I can read a fiction book and 'feel' the presence of the main character. I can hear him speak. I can see him walk, talk, fight, transform (Book I read in sixth grade, not the transformers), etc. So this quote doesn't bear any significance to me.Katabole wrote:The following is my favorite quote by Einstein:
As a child I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene....No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life. --Albert Einstein
If all the scientists I listed believed in and had a relationship with a personal Jesus Christ and Einstein himself would not deny that Jesus was a myth, why would you claim there's no reason to believe in God, unless you can show you are smarter than those listed?
So.. What are your reasons for not believing in God?CopaceticMan wrote:I tried posting a similar question, but the way I phrased it got rejected. So here it is in the way I meant it.
Yes I am an atheist, and I don't believe (I don't claim as some would put it). I am open to believe, but see no reason to.
CopaceticMan,I don't think that Jesus lived as God incarnated, as he claims he is
What would you see as a reason to recognize God's existence?CopaceticMan wrote:I tried posting a similar question, but the way I phrased it got rejected. So here it is in the way I meant it.
Yes I am an atheist, and I don't believe (I don't claim as some would put it). I am open to believe, but see no reason to.
A lot of it is doing God's will. Practicing the examples in the Torah is the way how I believe most find Him. At least for me.. Putting off sin nature and such. In fact the more I walk with God, it's not really the facts or scientific facts that back up my faith, it's following His examples. It becomes ingrained after awhile, natural..puritan lad wrote:Proving God's existence is rather easy. Persuading the unbeliever, on the other hand, is not.
Like? If there was, don't you think that the scientific community would have adopted the view that Christianity is correct (and what parts? Genesis, The Flood, Jesus? Or just certain parts that are cherry picked?). The scientific community is not against God, or the Bible. In the lack of evidence, or contrary evidence, the position is that this thing is wrong. There are scientists who believe in God and Jesus, so to say that science would never accept Jesus is just wrong (not that anyone is saying it, YET). And about the theoretical sciences. While they have no experimental evidence, they have mathematical evidence. They are currently waiting on the experimental evidence.Katabole wrote:the vast amounts of archaeological evidence that point to Christianity being true
Katabole wrote:I really hope you sit down with an open mind and read Moses and the prophets because that is the only thing that will convince or persuade you.
It is not the only thing that would persuade me. You have to show why it is accurate, but even if we ignore that, physical evidence would be enough. You have to show a few things that are ONLY explainable by God's existence. AND you have to show which GOD. There are many hundreds of thousands (maybe just tens, I have a book in my school library that lists every, or almost every, known god.), not including the ones I could make up right now that would be nearly, or just as, valid as your god. You also would have to take your evidence to the scientific community to be scrutinized, beaten and eaten. If it makes it through, it will (most likely slowly) be accepted as fact (or technically theory, if you want to stay within science). I am willing to accept God, but no good reason has ever been presented to me, ever.joejmz wrote: CopaceticMan wrote:
I tried posting a similar question, but the way I phrased it got rejected. So here it is in the way I meant it.
Yes I am an atheist, and I don't believe (I don't claim as some would put it). I am open to believe, but see no reason to.
What would you see as a reason to recognize God's existence?
Just because some (and only some), believe in God isn't reason for me to do so either. What about all the Muslim scientists? Should I accept Islam because some Muslim scientists do? What about all of the Buddhist scientists? You get the point. And the fact that they accept it doesn't mean they have a rational reason, or evidence.Seraph wrote:I believe Katabole's reason for listing famous intellegent people who believe in God wasn't to try and show that since smart people believe in God, you should too. Rather, it's to show that belief in God does have a rational basis and isn't simply for less than intellegent people like militant Atheists often claim.
Well you say there is a bunch of evidence, but what you present is just some bad arguments that, with a basic understanding of theoretical physics, are shown why they are bad. The fine-tuning is pretty well explained by the multi-verse theory. I don't want to explain it, because I'll butcher it, but if you look for a physics website you can find a pretty good explanation (or look for it on You Tube, there are a lot off good videos explaining theories better than I could... at least FOR NOWSeraph wrote:I would say there definately is plenty of evidence for the existence of God. The main site has a bunch of articles that present a lot of it quite well.
For me personally, the strongest pieces are the fine-tuning of the Big Bang arguement and seeing God's mark in nature (I don't mean the same thing as saying "This is too complex, so God must have done it". Rather I mean the beauty in both nature and deep space to me speaks of intent). I love science and I see evidence in the current "scientific conscencous", though like Katabole said, science is limited and makes many assumptions, like that all truth can be observed by our five senses and tested in a lab (which if you think about it, almost certainly can't be true). Much of the evidence is interpreted by scientists with personal feelings and deep seated beliefs of their own, which can often hinder whether they are actually presenting the "capital T" Truth or not. It's true that much of the evidence for God can't be tested in a lab so it can't be completely proven in scientific circles, but it's enough to get a person to believe.
). Plus, the idea that the universe is made for US is pretty much has a huge whole blown in it if you look, by volume, at all the areas we can't live (like 99%). Just by area, on Earth, we can only live in like >25% of Earth's surface. The idea that the universe is designed for us is rather dumb (IMO)... Science is limited by what we can detect with our five senses, yes. But not just by our current sense capability. Amplifications of our senses expand the range of what we can detect, so we are not literally bound by our five senses. If we can test it, then it will be considered as fact (if confirmed). Until we can test for something (either by inference, or direct testing) then it won't, ever, be considered anything more than a hypothesis. that whole thing about science making assumptions is kinda wrong. Your whole thing about scientists interpreting the data is wrong, that's what peer review is for. You put an idea in the machine, and a lot of cogs, with different shapes and sizes, go through the movements. If the idea/hypothesis/theory fits all cogs (or most, depending on what idea, and how new it is. If it only fits most, then it still needs to be tested. If evidence comes along that challenges an explanation, then ), then it is accepted by the machine. (did you get that the cogs are facts? If a certain explanation fits the facts, and better explains everything than another explanation, then it is considered theory.)Couldn't it be that those who wrote the new testament did so in such a way to MAKE it fit the old testament? Plus the spread of Christianity may have been the result of the birth rate. Those religions who promote lots of kids tend to spread a lot easier. Or it could have been the whole Hell thing: Scare people into believing can work pretty well too. If Christianity had been successfully been suppressed, it would be gone. So, could it be that the Romans didn't do a good job?Seraph wrote:As for if Jesus was (and if so, still is) the Son of God or not, the evidence for that is in the Bible itself. The books of the Old Testament were written hundreds to thousands of years before Jesus was born and by many different authors yet contain some pretty vivid descriptions of the coming messiah, which events in Jesus' life correlate with rather well (such as Isaiah 53:12). As well as that, it's rather unusual how quickly and successfully Christianity was able to spread, considering that self-procliamed messiahs were nothing new and Christianity was under attempted suppression by the Roman government. Mix this in with the disciples being willing to die for what they saw (which secular historical sources other than just the Bible were able to confirm were systematically executed for their belief in Jesus), and I think you have some pretty good evidence that Christianity has a divine spark.
As many will tell you though, with much of Christianity it will be less reliant on observable evidence (though it exists) and more reliant on personal experience with a relationship with God.
Do I HAVE to have a reason? Remember, I am still in the null hypothesis. You make a claim (God), prove it (hasn't been done, at least not to anyone's satisfaction who is an outsider), then I will. If I claim that I have a giant dragon in my back yard, that is invisible, undetectable, and can rip your head off at any moment if you're not careful would you believe me? Now what if I said you just have to believe me when I say it's there, but you have take it on faith, bring a cattle to it everyday, AND say that if you don't you'll get your head ripped off, would you believe me? I highly doubt it. That's that way Yahweh appears to me.Gman wrote:So.. What are your reasons for not believing in God?
I'll admit that I may be wrong about that point, I am no Bible scholar. Here are two passages that I could find that said something to the effect that Jesus is God.RickD wrote:It's funny to me that you wrote this. Where does Jesus claim He is God incarnate? In the bible. John 5:17-18 Jesus claimed God is his Father, making Him equal to God. Can't you see that God is speaking to you when you read the bible? On one hand, you say that Jesus is not God incarnate. On the other hand, You seem to believe that the Bible says that Jesus is God in the flesh. Many atheists claim that Jesus is not fully God, but they won't at least be honest enough to admit that the Bible claims Jesus is God. See what happens when you honestly search for God? He speaks to you through the Bible.
Ultimately, no one here can convince you that there is a God. You need to ask God to reveal Himself to you when you read the Bible. If you are honestly seeking Him, He will reveal Himself to you.
We rely on history because the evidence says this happened at this time, not just random guesses based on a book, or any other document.joejmz wrote:Of course there are methods of gaining knowledge and facts that are beyond science. History is not a science, but we do rely on history. Eye witness testimony is not science, but we also rely on it. Also, all science is not operational. Forensic science certainly helps us look at things in the present to draw conclusions on the past.
I am willing to believe in God, but I am not convinced by anything anyone has presented me with, thus far. I am not so arrogant that I will say I will never believe. Except for the fact that under current evidence, nothing is convincing nor is most of it even logical. LET ALONE TESTED.jlay wrote:I'm curious what you mean by, 'open to believe.'
And that you don't see any reason to believe.
Well, we have these things called observations. For example, you hear a dog's bark (but you don't see one). We measure the frequency, determine the amplitude, etc. and can do it repeatedly (easily if we record it). We determine that, based on a database of recorded dog barks observed to come from this breed of dog, this dog bark is of a type of chihuahua.jlay wrote:As far as evidence, I'd be curious to know why you think people are even capable of examing evidence and trusting it. You cite logical fallacies. But on what grounds do you hold that logic is a reliable method of determing the validity of an argument? I'm not asking if logic exists. Obviously you agree it does, and that it works. But why does it exist? Why can, and why should we rely on it in the first place? What is its source?
I hope you realize that there is an inherent difference between a computer program, and biology. You can't take an analogy of something, that we both agree can't even reproduce, or even live (by the definition of a living organism/cell), and turn it into a thing that can. But for the purposes of the example I'll go along with it.jlay wrote:The reason you should believe is that just as a drowning man needs rescue, so a sinner needs saving. There is absolutely no question that if the bible is true, you have every reason to believe.
So, let's not confuse the reasons to believe with the evidence that supports belief. Although they certainly will cross and intermingle, they are different. Belief is not a matter of stacking evidence to tilt the scales to one side or the other. People are very peculiar, and will deny truth even when the evidence on a matter seems to be obvious. The ultimate belief that 'beleivers' have is based on one knowing and placing their trust in their personal savior. All the evidence may give a person 'reasons' to accept or consider that a god exists, but not a reason to believe/trust that rescuer for their own salvation.
As far as evidence? Well, it is abundant. But as with making any circumstantial case, the evidence is in the eye of the beholder. (Ask OJ Simpson) It would be quite interesting of me to assert that a new and unique computer program was on the market, and that the unique nature was that the advanced code lacked a programmer. That the computer code formed because the materials and conditions provided a perfect environment for the code to self-generate. I suspect you'd be prepared to call baloney on that. But, even more, I then assert that the conditions and materials originated spontaneously out of nothing. That this usable code was the result of chance processes. That all it took was the right materials, conditions, and time, all of which required no guidance of a programmer or material provider.
I assume you would recognize the absurdity of such claims and would immediately think I was either lying or had lost my mind. Yet, science agrees that life on this earth is the result of information code. That everything we consider 'life" is in fact full of coded information. Although crude, my example sadly describes what many so called genius minds use to explain the origins of some of the most amazing operating systems in the cosmos. You and me. In fact, we are computers analyzing data, using laws of logic, reason and science. And yet, many of us deny that we have a programmer. And don't even know why those laws should exist in the 1st place.
Is evidence really your problem?
Share with us.
You ma believe this statement to be true, but I doubt it is. As I stated before, proving God's existence is child's play.CopaceticMan wrote:You make a claim (God), prove it (hasn't been done, at least not to anyone's satisfaction who is an outsider), then I will
This is an argumentum ad verecundiam. Since when is science an authority on God?CopaceticMan wrote:P.s. If the evidence is abundant, why isn't God an accepted scientific fact?
Gman wrote:So.. What are your reasons for not believing in God?
No one here has 100 percent proof that God exists. No one, including on this forum. Where are you getting this? But that doesn't mean we can't have our convictions either..CopaceticMan wrote:Do I HAVE to have a reason? Remember, I am still in the null hypothesis. You make a claim (God), prove it (hasn't been done, at least not to anyone's satisfaction who is an outsider), then I will. If I claim that I have a giant dragon in my back yard, that is invisible, undetectable, and can rip your head off at any moment if you're not careful would you believe me? Now what if I said you just have to believe me when I say it's there, but you have take it on faith, bring a cattle to it everyday, AND say that if you don't you'll get your head ripped off, would you believe me? I highly doubt it. That's that way Yahweh appears to me.
What's this? Well, everything is built on faith.. Even if you deny that God exists you still have to have faith in something else. We ALL have faith. Even you.. You cannot escape it. There is no 100 percent proof of anything.. It's all faith driven. Even in the sciences...CopaceticMan wrote:If you must have a reason, fine. First, no one ever forced God on me, so I naturally disbelieve. Second, everything (or almost everything) about the traditional Judeo-Christian is ill-logical. Third, I naturally am skeptical of supernatural claims, and am not easily persuaded by love and faith.