Atheists To Hold Massive Rally On National Mall Next Month

Okay, duly noted. Challenge issued (post #545) and you've ducked the challenge entirely. How surprising.
I guess that makes you mentally defective by your own standards.

 

The above is so typical of the religious folk. They really do lose their capability for critical thinking.

To come to the conclusion that christianity is the reason why the human race never progressed much in 1500 years takes some thought.

Necessity is the mother of all inventions. When you are given a book that tells you all the answers, there really isn’t a need to invent. Hell, it took 1500 years just for the church to accept that fact that the Earth was not flat and not the center of the universe.

Speaking of the church, you must also realize how strong the church was. They had Giordano Bruno (an astronomer) burned alive at the stake because (GASP!) he had the testicular fortitude to say there was other worlds out there! The heresy!

Galileo Galilei was put on trial for heresy, found guilty, was made to renounce what had seen with his very own eyes (Jupiter and the 4 moons he saw) and was put on house arrest for the remaining of his days. All because he had the testicular fortitude to look into a telescope.

Between the churches power and no need to invent, one really needs to be compete sheeple not to get this. But then again, religious sheeple have lost their capability for critical thinking.

 

Which nothing of science disproves the existence of God.

And yet you can thank the Monks who preserved much of the ancient and older writings.

Not really. It just seems you just opened your mouth and had intellectual diarrhea.

It's also the cry of the tyrants

You shouldn't confuse the tyranny and the past criminality of the Catholic Church on what true Christianity is. I'd say that there are a great amount of Christians who are not very conducive to Christ's teachings.

 

I'm not talking about man's own moral code. I'm talking about who instilled in us a moral code? Unless you think we as humans don't have that make up within us.

Without God there are no morals. Remember, I am not saying people who do not believe in God have no morals, but the God is the reason for their moral standard.

 

It sure is ironic how many of the worlds inventions and inovations have come from countries where the primary religion has "no need to invent." Perhaps a little "critical thinking" is in order to figure that one out.

 

I think that certain values and principles are instilled into us by society, by our parents, and partly through the natural order. If we were instilled with a certain set of moral beliefs than we shouldn't have different moral beliefs around the world unless you're going to invoke Satan.

So, is it Good because God tells us to do it or is it Good because it is Good?

 

It takes some bigotry and ignorance, is what it takes.
Please link me to one single scholarly and authoritative source (your atheistic bigot's source, where you apparently get everything you don't know, does not count) that says Christianity is responsible for the Dark Ages.

Most thinking people know that collapse of the Holy Roman Empire and it's authority is what plunged the West in darkness for so long. It's crazy how everything you "know" is backwards and that you, yet again, ducked a chance to prove me wrong, is noted. Your arguments have raised ignorance to an all time high, so feel proud of it.

 

But where did our parents get them and their parents and so on and so forth. They had to come from somewhere?

I don't know any place around the world where stealing and murder are looked upon as moral.

 

Used to be in Sparta, children were taught to steal but not get caught to provide for themselves during war.

But regardless of that, our morals develop through experience. How can we learn that touching something hot is bad? By either touching something hot or reading about it. People understood that if we are to get along together in a society, we would have to live by a certain set of rules or else there would be complete chaos. If a society existed where theft and murder were completely legal, then nobody would be safe and NOBODY wants to live in that world unless you're a monster.

I mean, are you saying that people really need God to tell us not to kill each other or steal? What about Hammurabi's code?

 

'necessity is the mother of invention' is the cry of tryants?

 

So you can't. Thought as much.

 

America is the biggest innovator in the world. We are aloud to be free thinkers without the fear of persecution from the government and or the church. Amazing I had to say this.

 

The angrier you get the more you make my point.

 

Why do you need a link? Lost the ability to think for yourself?

I should rep ya for this one. I like it when the oppostion does my thinking for me

But since you asked (Gotta do the thinking for all now I guess )

Science and Medieval Christianity

Uh-oh!!!!!!!

 

This reply from a reader of your atheist blog will have to do for now. I'm late for an appointment and out of time. Try reading it and see what real reasoning looks like. You haven't a clue.

"If you had not told me that you were a historian of science I would never have come to that conclusion after reading this post. Not only does it show that you haven't actually taken the time to read Rodney Stark or Stanley Jaki seriously, but that you are unaware (or deliberately twist) of most of the current bibliography on the origins of the scientific revolution. Each and every point that you try to make is systematically discussed and refuted in the two authors you cite, to say nothing of the work of Edward Grant, John Hedley Brooke, David Lindberg, Ronald Numbers, Gary Ferngren, David Livingstone, James Moore, Maurice Finnochiaro, etc.

It is indeed an oversimplification to say that without Christianity the scientific revolution wouldn't have taken place, or that the empirical method was a divine mandate from Christian theology (but see Thomas F. Torrance on the role that contingency, derived from Christian ideas of creation ex nihilo, played in promoting empiricism). It is something else entirely, and very unscholarly, to paint a consistently negative picture of more or less continual obstruction of the scientific outlook and dogmatism. Your distinction between a pitch black age and a dark age is not one any serious historical scholar would recognize.

I suggest you read a little more in the primary sources, such as the writings of Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei or Francis Bacon, to see what they had to say about the way science relates to their faith. See especially Francis Bacon on atheism, which he thought was a pernicious superstition, based on superfluity of thought and failure to read the Book of Nature rightly. Of course, I imagine you would try to show that all these texts (The New Organon, Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina, etc.) were written under the threat of persecution and censorship. I think you will find, however, that the situation was a lot more complex.

Even though you do not cite any sources for your argument on this blog post, I think it stands to reason that you do have them. I just wonder how you got the idea that your thesis is the consistent deliverance of mainstream history-of-science literature, or if you do reject the consensus what your historically sound reasons are for doing so. As it stands, even given your vaunted 'authority' as a historian of science, this post seems yet another atheist manifesto against religion, driven more by prejudice and presuppositon than sound historical argument."

 

I find it telling that you feel the urge to insult someone on the basis of their spiritual beliefs. You don't even know what I believe either. You're just assuming I'm a theist, but have I given you any reason to believe that I am?

 

I'm not a slave to philosophy either. There are many ways to think about the mysteries of existence and I will not be constrained by or limited to any one thought process, whether it's science or philosophy or whatever.

That's just your opinion of how people ought to think.

 

How can you possibly argue against it? It's purely axiomatic.

 

It's not an urge to insult, it's just laying things out. I don't know if you are or are not a theist, however I'm not trying to insult you. Some people find it insulting when you say things like a belief in god is the same as a belief in the actual existence Harry Potter. The argument you are presenting is true, however it's completely irrational.

An invisible sheep could exist on my couch, however there is no reason for me to believe that to be so and no evidence for the existence of the invisible sheep. Why should I believe it exists then? The answer is there is no reason for me to believe in its existence. Now lets take this one step further and say that I start talking to people about the invisible sheep, telling them not to sit on that part of the couch. I live my life fully believing that sheep exists. People are going to think I'm completely insane, and rightfully so. Why is that? Simple, I fully believe, to the point of changing my life, in something that in all likelihood simply does not exist. In fact you can say that it does not exist because the odds of its existence, according to all observation, are nil.

The argument you're giving is the same as what some philosopher said (can't remember who). To paraphrase "when you drop a rock you think it will fall, but it could float into the air. You don't know until you drop it." While that statement is true the fact that the rock has dropped every time means you can safely state "the rock will drop." It's an argument of semantics that proves nothing other than you should never say something is 100% certain because it never is. All the argument does is create this strange argument style where you can say nothing is certain, which is pointless and annoying to fight through. For instance I can't say that I am certain I'm typing on a laptop. I fully believe I am, but for all I know this isn't a laptop but an electric beetle. It's a very silly argument that goes nowhere and proves nothing.

 

I'm arguing against it because there is nothing that says science is the only valid construct for ascertaining "truth" or analyzing "reality".

 

Some physicists would argue that Harry Potter's actual existence is quite plausible. Perhaps the quantum state of Harry Potter (which would exist in our universe as a series of electrochemical signals in your brain) is actualized in some form or fashion in the quantum universe. The probabilities are infinite.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse

That's for you to decide. It's a coin-flip no matter how you look at it.

That's all very well and good but it's not an airtight case as to why someone should categorically reject the possibility of God. You are incapable of making such an argument, so you should stop trying.

 

If blogspot is an undeniable source of truth then I'm going to start posting anything and everything on my blog and demand it be taken as gospel.

 

You allready do read hearsay and take it as gospel. What are you talking about?

 

An amazing thing about atheists:

If you ask them why they're confident that the sun will rise tomorrow, they will say that it's because it has risen every day for 4 billion years.

But if you remind them every event that they've ever seen happen in the universe had a cause, they'll still maintain that it makes sense that there is no cause for the universe.

 

There IS no airtight case as to why someone should categorically reject the possibility of God.

If I said that God was the concept of potentiality, even atheists couldn't (sanely) deny it.

Whether the universe has existed forever, or whether it was created out "randomness" (nonsense), or whether a sky fairy created it, the concept of potential had to exist for this to happen.

By the very definition of 'potential', if there was no potential for the universe to exist, it couldn't exist. So the universe exists because of the Potential (God).

Of course someone can SAY that 'potential' as we use the word doesn't have to apply on the scale of the universe. But that's like telling someone the sun exists and they say 'No it doesn't'. (that is not a denial, it is a 'denial from insanity')