SubJeff on 4/4/2010 at 21:52
Ha ha/ I read the start and then left the thread, only to come back and see some arguing before going away for the weekend and lols guys, love it. I was just about to comment on TTLG having no April Fools this year. Good show! :thumb:
Martin Karne on 6/4/2010 at 19:38
Being a scientifically oriented christian that makes me a black sheep among my peers.
I guess the joke is on them.
Namdrol on 6/4/2010 at 20:21
oxymoron
Nicker on 6/4/2010 at 21:10
Quote Posted by Namdrol
oxymoron
Ficks dit for ya.
R Soul on 7/4/2010 at 01:11
Why is it an oxymoron? I see nothing odd about a religious person believing that God gave us the ability to be intelligent and the desire to question and investigate our surroundings and make great discoveries about stuff.
Phatose on 7/4/2010 at 01:17
You mean besides the "No need for rationality here, if 2000 years ago desert dwellers claim a man came back from the dead and someone wrote that down 200 years later, I should believe it." thing?
Faith by it's nature requires suspending reason, and thus any scientifically minded faithful necessarily have to chose a point up to where reason is a firm guideline and beyond which reason is inapplicable. The point is clearly not decided through reason, so any of us on the outside are left wondering "Why claim to be rational if you're going to just stop it at some point for no rational reason"?
CCCToad on 7/4/2010 at 01:35
This thread is Poe's law in reverse.
fett on 7/4/2010 at 03:30
Quote Posted by Phatose
Faith by it's nature requires suspending reason,
Well, "faith" in it's normally understood sense, yes. "Faith" as it's used in the Biblical sense, no. The context in which "faith" is normally called for in the Bible (and the word is used very sparingly btw) is "faith in the direction of evidence," which is actually in the opposite direction of what we think of as "blind faith" practiced by most religious people. The Bible actually calls for "reasoned" faith and challenges it's opponents to used reasoned arguments against it, far more than it ever calls for blind faith. In fact, it never explicitly demands blind faith, particularly in the case for Christ or the resurrection.
I do understand though that it takes a sort of blind faith to accept Biblical theology from the getgo. But beyond that point, the Bible never actually encourages it's followers to "blind" faith, quite the opposite in fact, despite how most Western believers think of it and teach it from pulpits.
Sypha Nadon on 7/4/2010 at 03:53
I think that most science and evolution is valid, but I also believe in ghosts, UFOs, angels, demons, and things of that nature. Can I prove such things exist? No... but I've always found the esoteric more interesting than the materialistic. Sure, it's probably all bullshit and I'm 90% sure that the atheists are probably right, and yet, I still believe. Mainly because on September 3rd, 2003, I woke up in the middle of the night and saw a vision in which I viewed all my past lives in fast motion before seeing God (or something that might as well have been a God): it manifested as a giant rainbow-colored butterfly with a giant eyeball where the head should be. This was the only such vision I've ever had, and I think it came about because I was reading a lot of Philip K. Dick and Robert Anton Wilson. What it means is anyone's guess, but it convinced me that there's some kind of higher power.
Turtle on 7/4/2010 at 04:02
OMG!
Now I believe in God, too!
