Plan B Forum

Gob wrote:

MajGenl.Meade wrote: It was a bit of a throw-away and I much prefer debating. So, why do you think it is that a smart person like you (if I can get my tongue out of your trousers) believes that God hasn't made things clear while a smart person like C S Lewis thinks he has? What's the difference? Meade

Good question. Possibly due to C S Lewis being indocrtinated at an early age?

Possibly although perhaps underlining his actual reaction to "indoctrination" in becoming a committed atheist might have displayed more open-minded doubt?

Can we agree that many highly intelligent people find rational and reasonable evidence that confirms their faith? Very many. (Let's ignore knee-jerk believers and atheists who are not representative of reasonableness). Lewis may have been "indoctrinated" as a child - although the sons of preachers I've known (SOAPies) have tended rather toward Lewis' pattern of going in the opposite direction.

But nevertheless as an adult he argued rationally and reasonably for Christianity in favour of evidence for his later belief. Still, if not Lewis then would it be your contention that (a) there are no intelligent people who are capable of offering reasonable and rational arguments regarding the evidence for Christianity? and/or (b) that only a person who was never exposed to any information about (say) the Bible, God and Christ is capable of producing the same?

I'm sure that neither is the case. So what do you suppose is the difference between a smart person saying "there is no evidence" and a smart person saying "there is"? If we can avoid a ha-ha humourous answer that is..... I'd find it difficult when the door is so wide open!

Cheers
Meade

The difference? Age and wisdom, perhaps? Young (CS Lewis was only 15, as an atheist) was more self-centered and narcissistic, it was maturity and growth that changed his mind, to think more of others and be more compassionate. To expand his mind beyond himself.

MajGenl.Meade wrote:Can we agree that many highly intelligent people find rational and reasonable evidence that confirms their faith? Very many.

Without doubt, and I include you in those.

MajGenl.Meade wrote: Still, if not Lewis then would it be your contention that (a) there are no intelligent people who are capable of offering reasonable and rational arguments regarding the evidence for Christianity?

Well if you can find any examples of me expressing such beliefs, I'll retract them.

BUT

Would you not agree that believers, in the main, do not; "offer(ing) reasonable and rational arguments regarding the evidence for Christianity," but portray their belief as a real and undeniable fact, with the bible as supportive eveidence.

MajGenl.Meade wrote:(b) that only a person who was never exposed to any information about (say) the Bible, God and Christ is capable of producing the same?

Nope, when some one, anyone, comes to me and says; "Here is evidence and information which proves god exists, and that the core texts of Christianity are hard fact, " then no matter if they are the pope, or Alestair Crowley, I will take that evidence and examine it .

However, this "evidence" HAS to be more than "I believe this to be true"

MajGenl.Meade wrote:I'm sure that neither is the case. So what do you suppose is the difference between a smart person saying "there is no evidence" and a smart person saying "there is"? If we can avoid a ha-ha humourous answer that is..... I'd find it difficult when the door is so wide open!

A smart person saying "there is no evidence" would say it as there is no evidence presented, a believer would say "there is evidence, as I believe it to be true/the bible says so/my sect says it is true."

Gob wrote:

MajGenl.Meade wrote:Can we agree that many highly intelligent people find rational and reasonable evidence that confirms their faith? Very many.

Without doubt, and I include you in those.

Stop! it tickles!

I'd not expect to find examples of you expressing such beliefs as my (a). I simply asked "would it be your contention?" Which you and I both answered "no" BTW.

Would you not agree that believers, in the main, do not; "offer(ing) reasonable and rational arguments regarding the evidence for Christianity," but portray their belief as a real and undeniable fact, with the bible as supportive eveidence?

I would agree. Fideism is one apologetic method (though I doubt that "beleivers, in the main" have any idea that there is such a thing). One of the things I had to overcome in interviewing my fellow church members was a common initial response "I don't have any questions; I believe the Bible and that's enough". But once we got going, and particularly when asked in a group (of all thngs!), that dropped away and the questions came raining out. I think they were afraid that other people would judge (!) them as an atheist if they HAD any question at all. Once they realised it was OK, there was no stopping 'em for asking (and answering) such questions amongst themselves. I of course argue that the Bible is indeed supporting evidence, just as I would argue that Plato is supporting evidence for Socrates.

I am glad you are willing to examine the evidence. I think that's happening in the "ball" thread. I think that you are on unassailable (unfalsifiable) territory when the word "prove" is used. It is open-minded to recognize that that just as there is no knock-down drag-out proof that God does not exist, so there is no k-d d-o proof that He does. You would not demand of me a higher standard than you do of yourself (or Dawkins), I am sure? .

However, this "evidence" HAS to be more than "I believe this to be true"

. I think I understand that and agree. Of course, all evidence presented will be because a person believes it to be true evidence.

A smart person saying "there is no evidence" would say it as there is no evidence presented, a believer would say "there is evidence, as I believe it to be true/the bible says so/my sect says it is true."

Oh now you just added a qualification that wasn't there. (Edit 2 sp. errors) Substituting a fideistic believer in place of "smart person" is sleight of hand. I'm after the difference between a smart person who presents evidence (not "belief is proof" or "the Bible is proof" or "my sect is proof") and a smart person who says there is no evidence. What makes the difference? Dawkins say, or Russell cmpared to Gordon Clarke; Alvin Plantinga; Lewis; Geisler; Nash; Brooks; Boa; Bowman; Mbiti; people like that - higly educated professional people not given to claims of "you have to believe because I do.

Meade

PS again, I will not accept a presupposition that the Bible provides no evidence. That is as close-minded as a believer claiming that the Bible provides ALL evidence.

The evidence of divine creation is overwhelming.

It is only in very recent times that thinking humans entertained any doubt whatsoever about intelligent creation of the universe. The only question was which mythology was correct to explain why and how it happened.

In truth, none of them makes any sense. They all employ huge doses of anthropomorphic emotions and tantrums to explain the acts of "god."

And the so-called, scientific, rational explanations are not much better, but at least they don't require faith in the unknown, which many people are uncomfortable with.

MajGenl.Meade wrote:
PS again, I will not accept a presupposition that the Bible provides no evidence. That is as close-minded as a believer claiming that the Bible provides ALL evidence.

I've got that for you; "I will not accept a presupposition that the Bible provides no evidence, there's lots of bits in there in there which I agree with and want others to accept as fact, the rest is padding."

More close-minded sleight of hand.


...yeah, I know he doesn't read it, I still wanted to say it

No my message does not contain too few characters either, so there!

Gob wrote:

MajGenl.Meade wrote:
PS again, I will not accept a presupposition that the Bible provides no evidence. That is as close-minded as a believer claiming that the Bible provides ALL evidence.

I've got that for you; "I will not accept a presupposition that the Bible provides no evidence, there's lots of bits in there in there which I agree with and want others to accept as fact, the rest is padding."

Whoah I missed this! Sorry but I don't understand your point. You agree with some bits but other bits are padding? I am

Meade

Every time you turn on a light or use a computer you prove that science "works".


There is no comparable proof of religious belief which appears mostly to be emotional and not rational. Superstition, tending to brutality and horror whenever it is not strictly controlled by a secular state.


yrs,
rubato

Like a communist one?

In 1993, President Clinton signed Public Law 103-199, authorizing a memorial in Washington to those who died in the ``unprecedented imperial Communist holocaust'' that began in 1917. It is a memorial long overdue. And it is well-suited to Washington, the capital of the Free World and the headquarters of what President Kennedy called the ``long twilight struggle'' against the totalitarians of the Left. When completed, the Victims of Communism Memorial will include a museum documenting the crimes committed by the disciples of Marx and Lenin; original artifacts from the bitter night of Communist brutality (a piece of the Berlin Wall, a cell from the ``Hanoi Hilton''); and a database preserving the names of those wiped out in history's greatest slaughter.

Or at least as many of those names as can be identified. It is impossible that we shall ever know them all. Every one of the hundreds of thousands of Cossacks butchered on Lenin's orders in 1919? Every Miskito Indian killed in Nicaragua under the Sandinistas? Every Chinese peasant, all 2 million-plus of them, obliterated during Mao Zedong's ``land reform'' in the early 1950s? Impossible.

For pure murderous evil, there has never been a force to compare with Communism. The Nazis didn't come close. The Holocaust was uniquely malignant - never before or since did one people construct a vast industry of death for the sole purpose of rounding up and destroying every single member of another people. But the Nazis exterminated 11 million innocents; the Communist death toll surpasses 100 million. Nazi power lasted from 1933 to 1945. The Communist nightmare began in November 1917, and continues to this day.

Savagery has always been a hallmark of Communism. It is an ideology that requires the destruction of human beings. ``We have never rejected terror in principle,'' wrote Lenin in 1901, ``nor can we do so.''


To The Victims of Communism, Lest We Forget