Science Gives Christians Upper Hand Over Atheists....

[and-justice-for-all]

MCLEAN, Va. – Today's Christian no longer has to try to maintain only by faith their belief in the origin of the universe. The atheist now does.

Former atheist and award-winning Christian author Lee Strobel premiered his one-hour documentary "The Case for a Creator" to hundreds of Christians at an apologetics conference Friday. The aftermath of the movie: Christians felt they actually learned something.

"We are actually living now at a time of tremendous intellectual renaissance of Christianity," said philosopher and author Dr. William Lane Craig.

Craig's comment came after fellow philosopher J.P. Moreland told conference participants that the church has become anti-intellectual.

"We've got to start using cognitive language and not just faith language," Moreland exhorted.

Over the last several decades, Christians have begun to emerge back into the intellectual public square. This is primarily occurring in the field of philosophy, New Testament studies with regard to the historical Jesus and the gospels, and it is now beginning to occur in the physical sciences as manifested in the Intelligent Design movement, Craig explained.

Presenting clear scientific evidence that Christians had largely been without, Strobel's "Case for a Creator" revealed a complex universe that many scientists could now only explain with the existence of some kind of intelligence.....


More... http://richarddawkins.net/article,356,Science-Gives-Christians-Upper-Hand-Over-Atheists,Christian-Post--Lillian-Kwon#9721

Or... http://www.christianpost.com/article/20061118/23538.htm

[JNelson6563]

1. A pantload by any other name....

is still a pantload. Christian apologists may be changing the vocabulary with which they push their magical thinking but the fact remains that it is still magical thinking. Adding scientific terminology won't change that.

You can put lipstick on a pig and yet, it remains a pig.

Julie

[BlueJazz]

5. Yep..I was thinking the same thing...Like when Aspirin Manufactures ...

...come up with "The New Long lasting/caplet/capsule/better tasting/yellow/blue/time-release/
non-irritating/coded/super strength/Etc..."

It's still the same old aspirin my Great Grand-Mother used to take...

[NMMNG]

28. Exactly

"Advil Migraine" is plain old Advil (200mg Ibuprofen tablets) with a different label. "Intelligent Design" is nothing more than Creationism with a scientific sounding name.

You can dress it up all you want, but anybody who is smart enough to read the label and see past the fancy packaging will know the reality.

[Mr_Geodesic]

38. Appreciate the sentiment but...

acetylsalicylic acid != Ibubrofen. Both are NSAID's but they are distinct.

[Mr_Geodesic]

39. Apologies.

Meant to reply to BuffyTheFundieSlayer.

[NMMNG]

40. I know the difference between aspirin and ibuprofen

Geesh. :eyes:


I was talking about the tactic of slapping fancy labels on an old product to make it seem like something new/different/better.

[Mr_Geodesic]

41. Ah, like "Cognitive Science"...

as applied to Cartesian Dualism.

[Realityhack]

52. I dissagree... this is WORSE

IMO its worse to claim some scientific basis for this BS rather than openly admitting you are taking it on 'faith'. I think it fosters even worse habbits of mind. This is exacty what Dawkins is talking about when he says that all religion is harmful.

[NMMNG]

59. Indeed

Because it lends an air of authenticity to the inauthentic.

[Warpy]

2. Yeah, what Julie said

plus I know few people in the scientific community, believer or unbeliever, who accepts the "big bang" as anything but a theory, one that's breaking down with a lot of data that's been collected recently. There are also cases to be made for a steady state universe or an oscillating one, going from big bang to big squeeze and then to big bang again.

I'm afraid the OP won't find a lot of faith of any type among atheists, just curiosity and wonder.

I also don't buy that "former atheist" bullshit. It smacks very sourly of someone trying to discredit an opposing viewpoint before it has a chance to be articulated.

Likely he was raised a secular believer and confused that with being an atheist.

[baldguy]

3. Wrong

A person who has faith believes an idea regardless of whether there is proof. Even maintaining that belief in the face of evidence to the contrary. That's the definition of "faith".

If you need proof to support your beliefs - to the extent that you will twist facts and lie to create support - then you are faithless.

[Fridays Child]

4. That article is filled with rhetoric but no examples of proof are cited.

The bacterial flagellum "example" fails to include any findings which actually disprove evolution.

[Realityhack]

56. Don't worry

the other 'examples' are sure to be just as weak

[Mr_Geodesic]

6. The magic of neuroscience:

"We've got to start using cognitive language and not just faith language," Moreland exhorted.

That'll do it.

[BlooInBloo]

7. Not the stupidest thing I've ever heard, but close....

Unless it's comedy of course - in which case it's BRILLIANT! :rofl:

[Realityhack]

55. sadly it isn't

and the site that came from wrote a whole bunch of articles based on the same confrence.

[eppur_se_muova]

8. **Yawn** So, got anything else ? nt

[Bluebear]

9. 'a time of tremendous intellectual renaissance of Christianity' PHOTO: >>>>>>

;)

[ixion]

10. yes, it is time for all to accept the Flying Spaghetti Monster

resistence is futile. :+

[hsher]

17. Lord Almighty FSM, we revere thee

That is all.

[pinto]

11. I have no concerns at all with their position as long as it isn't forced into

public school curricula.

They are as free to believe what they believe as anyone else in this country.

But until there's a body of peer reviewed scientific research supporting their claims, like all other disciplines, their mantras aren't appropriate for public school. They remain in the realm of religious dogma.

[Realityhack]

53. The thing is...

That’s exactly what they are trying to do. They are attempting to find a way to legitimize their religion enough to force it into schools etc.

I will fight for their right to be ignorant dullards but I will also call them on it loudly. An ignorant population DOES affect me so while I would never ban religion, flat earth BS, ID, etc. I think they should all be debunked regularly.

[Clark2008]

12. Still can't understand why it's an "either/or" proposition.

Some of us Christians can be perfectly happy understanding that both science and the Bible are quite correct - how in the hell long is a "day" to God? Seven days could be millions of years for all we know. The Bible is written in parables and not to be taken literally. It was written as the stories were SPOKEN for hundreds of years.

I can believe that both God created the world and that it took millions of years and an evolutionary process to do it.

No biggie.

[Bluebear]

15. 'Seven days could be millions of years for all we know.'

That was always my thought, for those who are strict literalists. Use the reasoning and imagination you believe God gave you! If there is an almighty, a day to that entity COULD be a million years in the scope of their existence!

[immoderate]

46. Yeah, that's it. The words have no meaning.

Or whatever we want them to mean. Or maybe they mean the opposite of what they mean. Without contradiction, of course. I think I'm seeing the light .. or is it darkness? Oh whatever!

--IMM

[Goblinmonger]

51. And what does "Create" mean?

That could mean something completely different to god. It could mean sit back, have a beer, and watch it all happen with no input whatsoever and then claim credit for it.

Deconstruction is fun. Not usually good theological basis, but to each their own. What happens when we deconstruct the words down until they are completely meaningless?

Of course god wrote the bible and made it pretty unclear, then didn't he. Of course, what does "wrote" mean?

[theoldman]

13. More proof that ignorance is bliss.

Just a bunch of ignorant people blowing smoke up each others ass.

[Selatius]

14. The only Renaissance I'm seeing is the rapid growth and re-emergence of Deism

Deism--y'know, the same thing Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, James Madison, Thomas Paine, and others believed in?

http://www.deist.info/html/current_deism.html

717 percent between 1990 and 2001.

[Mr_Geodesic]

19. Numbers

So if 100 people (out of billions) were deists in 1990 and 717 (out of billions) were deists in 2001 that would do it, right?

[Selatius]

42. Your point being?

Or are you simply slamming the same way Bill O'Reilly slammed Keith Olbermann's numbers for being smaller?

[NMMNG]

44. His point being

"Here lies a disruptor, he disrupted poorly"

Tombstoned. :evilgrin:

[Evoman]

49. and if a million people (out of billions) were deists in 1990

then 7,170,000 would do it as well.

[Agnomen]

16. Welcome to Neo-Dark Ages

[gmaki]

18. Religion can't exist on cognitive language

I hope they push this as hard as possible. I welcome the chance to repeatedly clean their clocks should they actually try it.

Why would they take away their only refuge from the truth?

[Mr_Geodesic]

21. I'd agree but...

that's only because cognitive "science" is as big a sham as religion (Religion 2.0 as it were).

I doubt that's what you meant.

[gmaki]

24. I guess I didn't mean that

because I didn't say anything at all about science in my post.

[EST]

20. "Not even wrong"

To paraphrase a critic of string theory as well as the head of "Skeptics..."

There once were, and there still are a few, people who thought the earth was flat.
There were and are people who think the earth is spherical.
Both groups were wrong.

To suggest that these two wrongs are equivalent, however, a tactic these folks are fond of, is not even wrong.

A reformed atheist, in this case, strikes me as someone who scoped out where there was money and recognition to be had and is willing to subjugate his own integrity in order to play these unfortunates for the fools they are.

As poster #1 indicated-what a pantload.

[Mr_Geodesic]

23. Not Woit...

(if that's who you mean) though he used it as a title.

Wolfgang Pauli gets the credit.

[TlalocW]

22. It would be great if there were actually a Christian Intellectual Renaissance

Where maybe Christian philosophers could once again emerge (like St. Thomas Aquinas and others), discuss their ideas, listen to the other side, strengthen their beliefs, and try to influence more gently society - such as making sure everyone has health care, that they're fed and taken care of, etc. You know, things Jesus would actually want.

Movies like this won't do it. Stuff like this is just pure hucksterism that they use on the more gullible of their flock to make sure they keep sending the checks in every month. These people aren't interested in any kind of intellectual Renaissance - they want to skip over that and get right to the Inquisition and force people to pray their way or else. Movies like this are for those people whose faith is weak, even though they would never admit it. Religion is based on faith, but they need more. They need to be able to take over science so they can say to everyone else, "Look! We're right, and here's PROOF (which makes faith useless)."

TlalocW

[SidDithers]

25. Thanks for posting...

Though, I didn't know there was a competition between christians and atheists, in which one needed an "upper hand" over the other.

Science is secular. Faith is faith. And never the twain shall meet.

Sid

[Mr_Geodesic]

29. Ah, the Dual Magisteria

I assume that you refer to Gould. He was a jerk. "The Mismeasur of Man" proved that.

[struggle4progress]

30. "The Mismeasure of Man" was a wonderful book. Why didn't you like it?

[Mr_Geodesic]

32. It's not a question of my feelings about it.

There's nothing to it. He attributes vile motives to those he wants to discredit. No evidence, just innuendo. Look at his descriptions of cranial capacity measurement. That's not science, it's character assassination.

[struggle4progress]

33. The book is about "scientific" racism and similar discriminatory mythologies.

Many of the people Gould was writing about did have vile motives ...

[Mr_Geodesic]

34. So he said.

He presented nothing more to prove it than imagined scenarios.

[Mr_Geodesic]

37. Just to get everybody's panties in wad...

let me suggest that Gould's arguments bear a disturbing resemblance to those of Chomsky in "The Case Against B.F. Skinner" and "A Review of _Verbal Behavior_". And I would further suggest that these works have done more to damage the cause of liberalism in western civilization than most anything else we could mention.

Bring it on.

[SidDithers]

35. I've never read it...

but based on your recommendation, I'll look it up. I'm assuming you're referring to Stephen Jay Gould?

Sid

[Mr_Geodesic]

36. Yes. And of course it's "mismeasure".

Do read it. It's smarmy and delicious.

[sam sarrha]

26. as a scientist i can say that if there was a gOD he be in a specimen box with a pin thru him

and tagged and recorded..

it is so stupid to say there is proof of a gOD's work when there is not proof a gOD's existance..

but that never stops them from trying to turn classrooms into church meetings..

[neebob]

27. So, basically, if it's really complicated, it's the work of a genius.

Plus what Julie said.

[struggle4progress]

31. These people misunderstand science and completely miss the point of Christianity

[beam me up scottie]

50. So do most christians.

At least the ones I'm surrounded by.

[struggle4progress]

57. Everybody is better at mouthing ideals than at living them.

[beam me up scottie]

58. And some never even get that far.

They're taught not to think.

[MercutioATC]

43. I haven't seen it, so I won't try to dismiss it.

I would, however, be very surprised if real science supported intelligent design in the creation of the universe.

Being agnostic, this is one I'd really like to see.

[Mendocino]

45. So what would the the reaction be from ID believers if...

the intelligent designer of all life on earth turned out to be an atheist from a distant planet?

[Evoman]

47. Who created the Atheist who created us?

GAWD!

[Bill McBlueState]

48. Even if we give them that...

Even if, for the sake of argument, we allow that intelligent design is true, how does that make Christianity more legitimate? There's still miles to go from "a creator exists" to "a man-god died for your sins, and believing what he says gives you eternal life."

[Realityhack]

54. ARGH!!! Behe...

is a lying sack. He has even been caught red handed and shown up in court and he is still babling about the bacterial flagelum. Fucker.

[Zhade]

60. "Presenting clear scientific evidence..." - in other words, lying through their teeth.

They haven't presented A SHRED of scientific evidence. Assertions are not evidence.

I fucking hate liars, especially liars who pretend they've got all the answers.