Nothing unreasonable about religious belief

gladerunner

I wrote, "“Generic or not, it sounds like at least some of them believed that there was something or someone that was "higher" than us humans.”

You replied, "So what? The FF’s individual beliefs are not what were ratified as the foundational document for this country.
A group of Christians playing gin rummy at the local tavern does not make the card game a Holy game, or even a Christian game. What they individually religiously believed in and what they voted on as a group of delegates are two, completely separate conversations."

Seems to me that they mentioned that there were certain "rights" that were not conferred on people by the state and that the state had no business messing with these rights, didn't they?

Besides the obvious statement that I mentioned above, there are many on these posts that seem to be placing the founding fathers on some sort of "all-knowing" pedestal rather than just the fact that the founding fathers had both the hindsight and foresight to "delegate", so to speak, a person's conscience to the person and not the state.

What I mean by this ""all-knowing" pedestal" is that some, on these postings, seem to look to the founding fathers for much more than a group of people that came up with a form of government.

The founding fathers were trying to come up with a system of government which, thank God, was not a theocracy but at the same time allowing people, by written documents, to believe or not to believe from their inner being rather than allowing this belief or non-belief to be coerced from the outside.

At least one of the founding fathers beliefs seem to be that a person's belief is a "right" of that person and not the state's right.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

TPMB:
I don’t disagree with your overall statements and observations, but I will comment on this one as it does come up from time to time.

“Generic or not, it sounds like at least some of them believed that there was something or someone that was "higher" than us humans.”

So what? The FF’s individual beliefs are not what were ratified as the foundational document for this country.
A group of Christians playing gin rummy at the local tavern does not make the card game a Holy game, or even a Christian game. What they individually religiously believed in and what they voted on as a group of delegates are two, completely separate conversations.

Take care, be afraid, be very afraid.

Lightsleeper

You wrote, "The "Creator" who endows these rights is an appeal to a generic unimpeachable authority, not to an invisible sky father."

Generic or not, it sounds like at least some of them believed that there was something or someone that was "higher" than us humans.

I agree that they did not want to set up a "theocracy" and that the way for anyone, was for everyone to have freedom of conscience or religion, if you will, and for the state to have no say in what someone believed or not believed concerning a "higher power", "God", "Creator", as they put it, or however anyone else wishes to refer to something or someone "greater" than mere humans.

I, most definitely, also believe that Jesus, God-Incarnate, was against any kind of "theocracy" being set up on earth in His Name, "My Kingdom is not of this world".

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

"Believing that the human body is a haphazard collision of cells and that the earth is randomly placed in space, at precisely the correct distance from the sun for supporting life is as reasonable as expecting a roomful of monkeys with typewriters to turn out the next great literary masterpiece."

NO ONE believes these things you suggest, and you are being incredibly disingenuous by intimating that they do. If you actually think that this is the position of people who are educated about evolution, then you have a lot of study to do before you opine about either faith or reason. You simply do not understand these issues and you are spouting about topics that are apparently beyond your depth.

You also have a lot of research to do regarding our founding fathers regarding Christianity. In a time when most states actually HAD official religions, they went out of their way to leave God out of the Constitution entirely. See also the Declaration of Independence: "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" are not ideals you will find expounded in the Bible. That is pure, uncut Humanism. The "Creator" who endows these rights is an appeal to a generic unimpeachable authority, not to an invisible sky father.

Please try harder to understand topics before you write about them.

Practicers of religion can certainly make reasoned arguments, reasoned judgments. However, the denial of observable reality is the hallmark of faith and it is why atheists make such a big deal out of faith vs reason.

At some point everybody's understanding of the universe comes down to "I don't know what happens here", but with faithers, that statement is replaced with "a miracle happens here". It stops inquiry.

And stopping inquiry is unreasonable.

Not only that, fundamentalists are sure that all that we do observe and conclude is merely the devil's work, designed to tempt us from the righteous path.

This kind of faith is a crap sandwich and it is what atheists are so upset about. Reality deniers become magic embracers. But embracing is not enough. It must be universalized, proseletyzed, witnessed for, jihaded to bring about the ideal form of submission. It needs to be passed on and taught, not discovered.

Not in my school system. Not on my watch.

"...believe in what we're told / Until our final breath / While our lonely Watchmaker / Loves us all / To Death" -- RUSH

OYE: WHY DO WE, The People Need To Know About This 'Plot' that did't Kill 1 fly!???

Instead:
Where are the All those "WALL-STREET Robber Barons aka [Economic] Terrorists???? DONATING To YO Campaign?

more B R E A K I N G -- N E Ws (16/17:00 hrs) Another BIG GOV'T LIE!

Excerpt: Desperado & Patsy; DEMOCRAPs of CA. & wannabe U.S. Congress Woman Jane Harriman Covered Up and said,

"A WOMAN 'SUSPECT' being Interrogated lalala ....the cartridge... was packed w/ pentaerythritol tetranitrate or PETN, confirming what Jane Harman, a Democratic ... had told the New York Times newspaper earlier." OYE...!

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/10/2010103017926499781.html

Another Gov't Plot With Promises & BRIBERY of a Sovereign Nation [YEMEN Officials, the 4th Poorest Nation on Earth]. Talkin bout Persuasion and PROPAGANDA based on FALSE Conspiracy's (And Planted Real Chemicals) & attempting to Fool "The PEOPLE."

DEATH to the LYING DEMOCRATIC PARTY & their Accomplices!

Maybe it was the Jealous/Desperate Democrats who Caused 911? After what they hath done lately, i[WE] Wouldn't pass that thought up, so Maybe Ishlami's have/had it right. Aye?

VOTE: Hell{NO to bad Apple [DEMOCRAP] OYE...! B O O M & B U S T!

Where are the All those "WALL-STREET Robber Barons aka [Economic] Terrorists?
__ Point:

NO GOV'T Has Any Business to Inform The Free Walking Public About Any Threat from Any Ishlami's From Within nor Abroad!

The JOB Of The GOVERNMENT is to Fight Them Terrorist Quietly: Just Go After Them. It's NOt like Hitler is invading or China etc..

More People in America Die of Car Accidents + Drug Overdoses + Violence Annually Then The total Amount Of Soldiers Died in Vietnam (50k) During the Entire Campaign! In 2 Weeks more People Die Hear than on 911 (3k) etc.. SAVE LIVES Here!

Where are the All those "WALL-STREET Robber Barons aka [Economic] Terrorists?
__

YES, WE KNOW, "IF Ye See Something, Then Say Something".

But WE Don't Need To Hear The same ole Crapo, "Terrorist This", Levels That, Osama's Momma so n so etc.!

WE The People Don't Need to Hear about (COULD've). Plus LESS Publicity Is How Yo Eradicate more Terrorism (or inflame it; or implants such thoughts etc..).

STOP THE MEDIA/ANXIETY PROPAGANDA CARD/GAME! The Public Does Not Need To Know! It's All Bulll!

STOP USING THE MEDIA/ANXIETY PROPAGANDA CARD/GAME!

STOP USING THE MEDIA/ANXIETY PROPAGANDA CARD/GAME! DO Your Fkn-JOBS!
Don't Boast. DO silently! GO! Leave Us Citizens alone already

WE WANT TO HEAR ABOUT CREATING JOBS! Not some weak Bombs News

YES, WE KNOW, "IF Ye See Something, Then Say Something".

WE WANT TO HEAR ABOUT CREATING JOBS! Not False Bombs News!!

YES, WE KNOW, "IF Ye See Something, Then Say Something".

Where are the All those "WALL-STREET Robber Barons aka [Economic] Terrorists??? DONATING??

NOt Osama Bin Laden Who's Been dead since Summer 2007!??

GOTCHA!

A Self inflicted DEATH TO the American DEMOCRATIC-PARTY aka the Jock-Oss Party!

B R E A K I N G -- N E W S: (07 hrs today.)

Excerpt: "The government of Yemen has expressed astonishment at the cargo plane bomb plots, claiming there were "NO" UPS or [Fed-Ex] cargo planes that had taken off from Yemen on Friday or any indirect or direct flights to British or American airports.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/8098148/Cargo-plane-bomb-plot-Yemen-doubts-its-link-to-the-plot.html

WHO NEEDS "Wikileaks"!

iMPORTANTO:: For the same reason that Delusional (Nepotist, Usurper & "POWERCRAT" of OUR not their Constitution) via Ex-Senator Hillary Clinton, who illegally became the "Sec. of State" or Wicked-Witch Of The West, under OBAMA's/Pelosi Tutelage and once-upon a time FALSELY claimed she had to literally 'Duck' Gun Fire (imaginary Bullets flying over her/their head) while in KOSOVO or Albania airport etc..(She Should'v said That When Visiting Israel, not Kosovo) THAT

The LIAR's Of the OBAMA Regime are Goin DOWN! So are Their Foreign Leaderships CO-Partners in Crime at the 'THE BIG LIE'rs Club].

Pleazza, Don't be DENIAL to "THE PEOPLE"!

WE[i], Automatic Citizenz/Denizenz of S.pace S.hip Earth; Thank The [Qausi Secular] Government of YEMEN for Exposing them 'Satanic Versus Lovers (not only applies to iShlami's) within our [Abrahamic infested] Government! Thus Catching them in Their Own Game. YES BELIEVE [The Ishlami Govs] This time Only [but not all the time]!!

Shaame on England! Shaame on Israel! Shaame on France...

Note: Maybe France Should Take-Back their 'Statute Of Liberty'? (or [WE] should Ship it back).

GOOD BYE DEMOCRATS. You Should've Been Honest from the 'Get-Go'! aye?

___ N O W;

.......... . WHO NEEDS ‘LiBERTY’?
.
..... . . . OUR NATION IS BROKEN!
.
.................(_)
................#.##
................(#c ..
..................... _\|/_ . . .
.......... #.\...... www . . .
.......... \ .\-.. . (/. .\) . . . [THE STATUTE]
.......... /\. /,`\. /\ . /\ . . .
... |.\/ . .. _) (_ . . . .
.......... `\.' . ; . ; . ,. ;`\ . . . .
....…………...... `\; . ; . . . .. . ; /U\ . . .
......…………..... .`\; . . . . .; . ;| .S.\ .
................ ; . . '' ' ; . .......... . . A. ./ .
.... |_.'' . . . . .; | . ./.)
.
.
.. _ _|
..|::|\|::|............................[THE CITYs]
……...|::|/|::|
…..|::|/|::|. . . . ... |::|\|::|
. . .. |:|"|/|||::|/|::|\|||/||:|

__

Credits "JJ"

http://onwapo.wordpress.com/2010/05/27/w-e-l-c-o-m-e/

IN "MATHEMATICS & PROBABILITY'...

HOW To Catch FRANCE, Israel, England and now U.S. in a B I G -- L I E!

Psychologically spakething; Suddenly ALL Before The Elections:

First it started with a FALSE & phony, concocted 'Bin Laden message [WHO is In Fact DEAD; an they know this] message BUT YOU (voting Suckers) DON'T] now

Pleasa Oyevay!

Another BIG LIE!

"Cargo-plane bomb plot alert: w/photos of self-serving explosive devices 'designed to harm US synagogues'" Oye...!??

[Self Serving] BOMBS Found In or near Borack Obama's Home Town... la la, but Obama is Not Afraid to gout on the campaign trail. Oye...!????

Found Bombs at or Near Sinagogues, lalala Oye...!???

CIA Head? Said, lalala... Oye...!???

[Coalition Created] Al Qaida; from YEMEN did it etc.. etc.. OYE...!??

like the IShlami's are really coming at US (Keffirs) All at Once?? as forewarned? Pleazza!

Oyevayzmeer!! Weak Weak weak!

Nice Try OBAMA Admin & Desperado's!

Shame on MEDIA involved!
__

Note: Between this Hour & by Monday There will be More BOMB, TERRORISTS stuff Fed to Unsuspecting Voters!

Maybe Prez Obama will be Assassinated by an "inside-Job" before Tuesday? Now In AMERICA (The 1 We used to know) Anything is Possible!

This Time, Shame on The U.S. Government & CO!

END the lies lies lies! yet More Lies r aComing ye/Yo ways! (not OUR way).

VOTE: GOOD RIDDANCE! BOY/Gal who Cried WOLFE!

VOTE: NO D-E-M-O-C-R-A-P-S Party!

STOP THE LiE's, REVEAL THE TRUTH!

STOP THE LiE's, EXPOSE THE TRUTH!

STOP THE LiE's, REVEAL THE TRUTH!..
__

Remember: PRE- ELECTION -- P-R-O-P-A - G-A-N-D-A

BIN LADEN ids DEAD!

BIN LADEN is DEAD!

BEN LADEN IS DEAD!

BEN LADEN IS DEAD!

America created Him, Now They created othew's Bin Ladens??: O' Shame on DEMOCRACY!

Vote: HELL-NO DEMOCRATS! NO To ENGLAND'S QUEENS & KINGS Yoke!

The BRITISH [r the Biggest Trouble Makers on Earth; Not JU's/Israel, Not MUSLIMS!]

VOTE: BRITISH must GO not Come here! Let Them (Includes Australia & New Zealand) Fight the New Bin Ladens & Extinguish their Lamps!

NO MORE USA!

AMERICA 1st!

ENGLAND LAST!
_

POiNT: ISLAM will Defeat ITSELF in near Time:

WE[i] VOTING AMERICANS {The Real JURISTS} Don't Need to see The LIE's Perpetrated by "Democracy's! Current ADMI!?

Their Act & Behavior Is Blasphemous and an Abomination on a National/Conscious Level: Hint: It will surely Boomerang with a Vengeance!

BEHOLD: The Great OIL EMBARGO IS COMING! And Revolution In Many Nations! Thank You OBAMA! Thank You CLINTON's! Thank You PALOSI's, BIDENS, SCHUMER & Evil Officials, aka Satanic VersUS Lovers!

YE art Surely gonna Shoot Selves W/out shooting a Shot. And it will start in Ye/Yo SLEEP! Ye/Yo Will Be talking in Tongues, like the folks of Sodom & Babel did long long ago!

Nothing unreasonable about religious belief -- DB

Does the author really think that no religious beliefs are unreasonable? Does she really think, for instance, that cutting out someone's living heart as an offering it to the Sun is reasonable? Does she really think it reasonable to believe that Jackson, Missouri is the former Garden of Eden? Is it reasonable to fly planes into buildings on the hope of getting a little sumpin'-sumpin' in the afterlife? Is it reasonable to believe that Earth is only slightly older than beer or that God looks like something whipped up by Chef Boyardee? As a devout Catholic, I'm pretty sure those things would not pass her smell test for reasonableness.

So why make such a nonsensical statement? Pure deflection. By focusing on a nebulous, deistic, Creator-god and the anthropic argument and ignoring all the unreasonable beliefs inherent in almost all religions, including her own, she can make it seem that non-believers are the unreasonable ones. If there's nothing unreasonable about religious belief, why doesn't everyone believe the same thing?

Right now there is all this discussion about religion in the public sphere. The religious individuals are saying that there is nothing wrong with religion in politics and that all the establishment clause does is prevent the government form picking a state religion or making laws that favor one over another. Ok, so here are my questions(to the religious people).
1. If there is a wall of separation keeping the government ou of religion (which you seem to be all for), then how does it not also keep religion out of government? A wall is not only a one way street.
2. What is the purpose of having religion be part of politics if not for the reason to influence it? Then you run afoul of the Freedom of Religion clause. Which religions will be allowed to do the influenceing? It must be all of them or none of them. Otherwuise those who are getting to influence the government are forcing their religion on others. Who decides who is to be the oppressed?

There is a vast difference between religious values and religious doctrines. None of us (including atheists, I am one) have an issue with a person who makes choices for themselves based on their beliefs. Where you run into trouble is trying to force those beliefs (by way of laws) onto people who do not share your doctrine.

All this cry over "sharia coming to America" and how its against the constitution (which is correct) but those same people think there is no problem bringing christianity to influence laws. This is completely hypocritical. Either all religions can make laws based on their faiths or none can. By only allowing one or some, the government is "establishing" one religion or set of doctrines above the rest regardless of which religion that is.

Faith, and specifically Christian faith, is an important part of our nation's founding principles, history, and culture.
_______________________________
The author typed the foregoing, and she is right. The slaughter of 180,000,000 Native Americans was guided by Jesus Christ. INdeed, some were crucified (literally) in his name.

And let us never forget slavery, a great part of our "Christian" culture, whose legacy remains. Of course, the Catholics, specifically, gave us pederasty without penalty, a gift the author modestly declines to mention. One could go on, of course, for days.

But we get her drift. Perhaps, having given us so much, the Christians/Catholics might rest for awhile, for a long, long while. Charity begins at home. Keep yours there, and away from the rest of us.

Thanks.

Dear Ms. A P A G A N P L A C E,

Dear Mr. T H O M A S B A U M, et al:

WE[i] NEVER DIE! Justly be Good Here, while Ye/Yo Can!

well written article..reason does not equal randomness.As a person of faith science and faith are not mutually exclusive.(See Sir Issac Newton)Religion doesnt not always answer "How?" science on ther other hand cannot answer "Why?" Either is flawed without the other.

Believing that the human body is a haphazard collision of cells and that the earth is randomly placed in space, at precisely the correct distance from the sun for supporting life is as reasonable as expecting a roomful of monkeys with typewriters to turn out the next great literary masterpiece. -- DB

I direct the author to a piece in today's WaPo confident that it will be either 2) ignored or b) assimilated in a fog of personal incredulity.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/28/AR2010102804204.html?hpid=artslot

APaganplace Part I

You wrote, "Couldn't help but overhear: bear in mind, there, that 'what's written' is *not* some determinant of what you 'got,' or what I 'got.' Anyone can *say* "I has had Divine Revelation," especially if they have a book to cite about it."

Hi, I glad that you overheard and responded, actually, I cite it after the fact and that this particular "what's written" most definitely applies, in my opinion, in my case.

You then wrote, " Generally, the more they rely on such things, the more you watch out."

It doesn't matter to me if people "watch out or not" but some of the things "written" "speak to me", so to speak, in ways much different than they speak to others that seem to have chosen themself to be a spokesperson for God.

You then wrote, "Especially if it involves arguing with physics or supporting major political and economic powers. :)"

As far as I am concerned, God is the Author of not only the laws of physics but of all of the "natural laws".

And as far as "political and economic powers" goes, God did not become One of us for us to set up a theocracy here on earth.

You then wrote, "By the terms of all these arguments and words, we couldn't be more different, you and I.
In other respects, perhaps very similar."

I believe that you are on to something here and remember two of the things that I have mentioned on here numerous times:
1) God is a searcher of hearts and minds, not of religious affiliations or lack thereof.
2) It is important what one does, and why one does it and what one knows.

APaganplace Part II

Then you wrote, "In still other ways, you're claiming the literalness of a religion that would call you a heretic for suggesting you'll see *everyone* in 'The Kingdom.' :)"

I already have been called a heretic on here and also delusional and psychotic, as I have said, somebody had to be me.

You then wrote, "(I always get the amusing image of running across you in the Summerlands, with you being, 'This is the Kingdom, isn't it great?' and me being like, 'Yeah! I just got out of the Avalon VA. I'm, redeploying yesterday, but I've got a few years to hang out! How you doing, man?)"

I happen to believe that many, many are in for quite a shock, besides the fact that many do not believe that God's Victory is Total, there seem to be quite a few that don't want it to be.

Then, "I don't think 'faith' is made out of words. at least I think we can all agree it surely ain't made out of politics."

Sometimes, words can get in the way, when God the Father came into my heart, there were no words used, there were no words that were adequate or necessary.

Then, "Neither is science."

Science has its place, God wouldn't have given us a brain if He did not want us to use it and also God wouldn't have made things figureoutable if He didn't want us to figure them out.

Then, "I think maybe it's easy to forget that if words are conveniently-provided, whether one's actually 'had one's mind blown' so to speak, or not."

I think that I know what you are saying here and I will be the first to admit it, that meeting God was quite a shocker.

Then, "BB, man. :)"

I am not sure what BB means but it sure was good to hear from you, take care and I'll see you when I see you.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Hi, Thomas, btw. :)

Couldn't help but overhear: bear in mind, there, that 'what's written' is *not* some determinant of what you 'got,' or what I 'got.' Anyone can *say* "I has had Divine Revelation," especially if they have a book to cite about it. Generally, the more they rely on such things, the more you watch out. Especially if it involves arguing with physics or supporting major political and economic powers. :)

By the terms of all these arguments and words, we couldn't be more different, you and I.

In other respects, perhaps very similar.

In still other ways, you're claiming the literalness of a religion that would call you a heretic for suggesting you'll see *everyone* in 'The Kingdom.' :)

(I always get the amusing image of running across you in the Summerlands, with you being, 'This is the Kingdom, isn't it great?' and me being like, 'Yeah! I just got out of the Avalon VA. I'm, redeploying yesterday, but I've got a few years to hang out! How you doing, man?)

I don't think 'faith' is made out of words. at least I think we can all agree it surely ain't made out of politics.

Neither is science.

I think maybe it's easy to forget that if words are conveniently-provided, whether one's actually 'had one's mind blown' so to speak, or not.

BB, man. :)

rentianxiang

I would be one of the first to say that there seem to be quite a few people that know the bible cover to cover, word for word, and don't seem to have a clue what the bible is even about and I am speaking about some of those that know what is written in the bible this well and believe in God.

What do you consider "life's important questions"?

You wrote, "If you think it is an absurdity when non-believers have the gall to point out that some religious people actually believe that,"

Actually, I was referring to you saying that believers "know it all" and I did point out that some may claim to "know it all" but don't quite a few people (believers and non-believers alike) group all believers or all non-believers into one monolithic group as if they all believe or not believe identically?

You mentioned "the beliefs of many people who think that they are eating the flesh of Christ every Sunday".

I used to believe that the Catholic Eucharist was Jesus until the Holy Spirit revealed to me that the Catholic Eucharist is indeed Jesus.

Since Jesus is God-Incarnate rather than just another human being even tho Jesus is just as human as you and I, this brings a totally different dimension to the Eucharist being Jesus.

I know that you do not believe or know that the Eucharist is Jesus but you have probably heard that according to the bible Jesus instituted the Eucharist on Holy Thursday which is before He went to the cross on Good Friday.

Seems as if some people overlook the fact that when Jesus extended the invitation to "Come follow Me" that He asked us to be "Good Friday" people and not just "Easter" people.

You then wrote, "And if faith is the "why" for you in reference to holding a belief, then it merely demonstrates there is no reason for maintaining it."

I never said that faith was the "why" to holding a belief, what I said was that "religion" is looking to see if there is a "why" and not just a "how" to creation or to those that don't believe in creation, if there is a "why" and not just a "how" to the physical universe.

You then wrote, "As soon as someone, in addressing why they believe something, resorts to the claim that they believe because of faith, they have simply admitted that there is no actual reason to believe it."

Could be why some think of "faith" as a "gift".

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

DCHumanist:

""This post makes the claim that the universe and life if random would be like a roomful of monkeys turning out a literary masterpiece. However, that is exactly what science has demonstrated. There are over 100 million galaxies and each can have 100 million stars. That is a large number of solar systems generating a very large range of conditions. ""

Yes, but when Creationists claim it's 'impossibly random,' they are (falsely) claiming that evolutionary science relies upon all structure being based on simply, successive tosses of the dice in a deterministic world... Governed by dice.

Where *they* get hung up is in not accepting that while *mutations,* or other changes may be *random,* the quality of structure-that-replicates is that it's structure that replicates.

Randomness is not the problem.

Replicating structure is not the problem.

A lot of scriptural literalists and atheists argue about 'who or not-who' 'imposed natural laws.'

Either a personified God worried about human peccadilloes imposeed them or 'They are laws that just are,' are the poles of that argument.

What if it's not really quite like that to begin with? What if it's a process, not 'laws?' What if... we start where we are? Including with how we see and think.

The 'laws' aren't *laws,*...not 'imposed' or 'sourceless' ones, even. ...they're *shapes,* as best we can describe them from where we are.

Maybe.... what we think of as 'All there is,' is... Just the kind of shapes we can see and feel. Among all possibilities and actualities....

None of this would seem to really grant anyone much managerial acumen or make anyone someone I'd elect to run my or my neighbor's sex life, or decide who to shoot, though.

When Creationists talk about 'Creation,' what they're talking about is not 'how things work,' but... Ownership. An ownership they want to broker. Thus control.

It's not good for either religion *or* science, and forget about government.

twmatthews

You asked, " was it a text message, cell phone voice mail, registered US postal service letter"

No.

You then asked, "would you agree that thousands of people have claimed divine revelation."

I would venture to say that this is a true statement and it just may be on the low side, but I have no idea of just how many.

You then wrote, "Since I'm assuming you want to believe in God,"

I don't know where you come up with this "assumption" but whether or not I "want" or should say wanted to believe in God, I did, but now I know that God Is.

You then asked, "how is your revelation different from say those of Pope Innocent III who started the Spanish Inquisition? Or how is yours different from Joseph Smith's in whom God revealed a new bible along with instructions as to the wisdom for man (not woman) to have multiple wives?"

I have not the slightest idea, for the simple reason that I am not either one of these two people so I can only speak of what has happened to me, not to other people.

You then asked, "What makes your revelation truthful and not influenced by presuppositions and/or desires?"

I suppose the answer to that is that time will tell, one thing that I can tell you is that I did not seek this revelation but that it was God's initiative.

It is written, "Remember, I (God) have chosen you, you have not chosen Me".

The "days" written of in Genesis refer to "periods of time", how long each "period of time" (1st to 6th) has lasted or will last, I don't know, but the 7th day will surely come but the night of the 6th day will precede it.

See you and the rest of humanity in the Kingdom.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm....

Aummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

Amennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn.. AND now Sing

EKLAhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhht-i.
.
..
...
............................. ._.
........................ ._.|._.|._.
.................... , .|._.| .. |._.|._
.................... | .|. . |. . |. . |._.|
.................... | .|. . |. . |. . |. . |
.................... | .|. . |. . |. . |. . |
................ ._.| .|. . |. . |. . |. . |
........... | .| .) .\ . . ..^ ..^ ..^ . .|
........... | .| . .| . . . . . . . . . .. |
........... | .| . .| . . . . . . . . . .. |
........... |. | . .| . . . . . . . . . .. |
........... \ .\ . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
............ \ .\ . . . . . . . . . . . ../
............. ). \ . . . . . . . . . . .(
............ /. .. \ . . . . . . . . . . .\
.......... / . . . . \ . . . . . . . . . .. \
.......... . . . . . . \ . . . . . . . . . . .\
.......... . . . . . . . \ .. . . . . . . . . ..\
…
..
.
1) Inhale 'E' (sounds like HE/SHE slightly)

2) Exhale 'KLAH' (use 't' for stop-gap in 'time') pause in a Mini Second, THEN

3) Inhale 'i' (sounds like hhii).
.
PEACE,PAZ,SHALOM,SALAAM,AHIMSA,MIR, ZHINGYU..
.
..... Credit "JJ"
.
http://onwapo.wordpress.com/2010/05/27/w-e-l-c-o-m-e/

It Appears? That the Middle-East & Nearer East via [NATO] Offensive or Counter was based on a "BIG LIE" (something That Governments Do Well in their bags of "WORD-MERCHANTizing" War Games. And So

NOW, It is Time To END those "Big Lie"s With [OUR] Truth, Not Theirs!

Behold: Even Governments Must get on Their Knees or Spread EAGLE & 'REPENT'? i Say!

O' Evil Nations, Whom Know What They Are Doing, Bow Down to YE/YO Holyi EKLAHt-i, and ask the Miraculous "IT" for 'FORGIVENESS', Ask not for 'SALVATION' alone.

Note: SALVATION is Never ever by the JEW's! Not The iSHLAMi's! Nor The ESAUi's! Nor The >a>XRSTIANi's! Nor via the MORMONi's! Nor The HUNDUi's! Nor The BUDDHAi's! Nor The SEIHKi's & Other {HUMAN} PRE-APOCALYPTARIANi's {unlike Us APOCALYPTARIONi's, aka HUUMATES of} crawling on OUR (not Their) HOLYi S.Pace-S.hip momma/poppa EARTH, aka S.S. GEOiD, S.S. GAiA, S.S. TELLUSng something.

OyeVazemeer! eye givolt! Amazing, NO Grace!

As Predicted & Expected via "iNSIGHT & PATTERN RECOGNITION" abilities (power), THAT

The "Pre-Apocalyptic Run "JPOST", aka the "JERUsalem Post" [NOt The Original Secular 1] played into US hands and is once again 'falsley' & WAR-BLESSINGLY, instead-Of-PEACE-BLESSINGLY, creating artificial [intel] News or Stretching the TRUTH (opposite Myth) by attempting to COUNTER the real REVEALATION (opposite Secret or Hidden Manna, aka Hidden UMMAH or Hidden Karma..) or get boldly contrary to thee Fact THAT: Satanic VersUS Lover & Gods player OSAMA BIN LADEN IS TRULY DEAD! Nice Try!

Pleazza see This

'France says Bin Laden tape appears? authentic'?? .. in a new-tape?, al Qaida leader threatens to kill French citizens because of their support for war in Afghanistan and new law banning burkas.

http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=193123

OYEVAY(O' Lordy)! FarVoos(Why)? FarVoos "IT" (G_D, Not A HE nor a SHE)?

SEcret (opposite Revelation) Note: This is the 4th Time or 5th that some Syndicate (can't Mention now) who've Responded with some 'Bin Laden's Message (not Messenger) within a 24/72 hour period!

Talkin about Counter INTELi, Pleazza!

Note: This NOt a 'wicked-Leak' copycat (un)kinda thing.

THE WORLD WILL KNOW THE TRUTH [About the Death Of Bin Laden & how He Died with PROOF, beyond a Reasonable Doubt!!!) So Help me/i EKLAHt-i!

As a Duty; It's A SCOUTS PROMISE (of the Dispensation) Especially to me/my/OUR Dear Fellow sweet sweet AMERICAN(s) et al!

Dear Governments:

STOP THE LiE's, REVEAL THE TRUTH!

STOP THE LiE's, REVEAL THE TRUTH!

STOP THE LiE's, REVEAL THE TRUTH!..

SHAME on 'JPOST" & CO. (Sorry WAPO but you should spank ye little sister/brother Sin-dicate. sorry for telling!)

Praise The Holyi NO MAN/WOM! Praise "IT"!

HAiLAYOUYA to "i[WE] the People", a/k/a Automatic Born Citizenz/Denizens of Blue.Dot

Atheists would have you believe that science is opposed to faith, but real science is not only unopposed to faith -- real scientific study leads us to God. -- DB

The author might be shocked to learn how many religious scientists would disagree with her statement.

Faith is belief without evidence. Science follows where the evidence leads. If a study is designed to reach a predetermined conclusion then it isn't a scientific study.

There's a reason why scientists since the Enlightenment haven't needed God as an hypothesis to explain all natural phenomena to date -- and it wasn't because they were atheists.

This post makes the claim that the universe and life if random would be like a roomful of monkeys turning out a literary masterpiece. However, that is exactly what science has demonstrated. There are over 100 million galaxies and each can have 100 million stars. That is a large number of solar systems generating a very large range of conditions. Likewise it has been richly demonstrated that the mutations in the evolutionary process are random. The principle of the survival of the more fit selects for design that better survives. What appears to be design does arise out of chaos. The scientific details of cosmology and evolution do not support preposterous religious claims, such as life after death or eternal punishment for not worshiping a demented genocidal imaginary being with a particular label. The complete killing of all humanity except Noah and his family must qualify as genocide. There are very few genocides that have been that efficient.

We need to remove stubborn and prideful men and women who disavow our nation's history by attempting to silence those who believe in God. DB

Who has tried to silence believers? How have they tried to silence them? These aren't rhetorical questions. You've made a serious charge here and you really do need to back it up with some evidence.

The author claims that Jon Stewart is "anti-faith". I suppose that is because the author is a Catholic and therefore believes, as Ann Coulter has said on many occasions, that Jews such as Jon Stewart are heathens who are headed straight to hell and should have no say in this (or any other) "Christian" country.

Perhaps she doesn't realize that Stephen Colbert's rally is the exact same one as Jon Stewart's. Colbert is a devout Catholic. How can the author reconcile the two?

Thomas Baum said;
As far as "evidence" goes, I have none in the scientific sense of the word but nevertheless God did reveal to me that God Is.

Putting aside for a second the method of revelation -- was it a text message, cell phone voice mail, registered US postal service letter -- would you agree that thousands of people have claimed divine revelation. Since I'm assuming you want to believe in God, how is your revelation different from say those of Pope Innocent III who started the Spanish Inquisition? Or how is yours different from Joseph Smith's in whom God revealed a new bible along with instructions as to the wisdom for man (not woman) to have multiple wives?

What makes your revelation truthful and not influenced by presuppositions and/or desires?

lufrank1

You wrote, "The Bottom line is that NO human being Knows what or who or if "God" is, and certainly no mere human can SPEAK for God - if there is such an entity or phenomenon."

And just how do you "know" that this is the bottom line?

Kind of strange isn't it, that you can say that no one can "know" that God Is and you know this as a fact?

Merely an opinion, stated as a fact, is it not?

As I have said before the words, believe and know, do not mean the same thing even tho there seem to be quite a few that use them interchangeably.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

twmatthews

You asked, "So how do you know this as opposed to believing this? Have you evidence that there is a God and he/she/it is pure love?"

I have met God the Father, He came into my heart and by the way referring to God the Father as Father is not acccurate as far as language goes because God the Father is neither a Male, a Female nor an It but is a Being of Pure Love.

I have met God the Holy Spirit because He came into my body and revealed to me that the Catholic Eucharist is Jesus, also the Holy Spirit is neither a Male, a Female nor an It.

God-Incarnate was a Male but before He became One of us, He also was neither a Male, a Female nor an It.

As far as "evidence" goes, I have none in the scientific sense of the word but nevertheless God did reveal to me that God Is.

You then stated and asked, "And as he was uttering these words there was a hurricane over central America which was in the process of killing over 20,000 men, women and children. So Thomas, let me ask you, "where's the love?""

I, most definitely, do not look at just this temporary time that all of us have on earth but also to the Fruition of God's Plan which God has had since before creation.

It is quite obvious that with life, we also receive a death sentence, we all die one way or the other, sooner or later, is that not right?

If you have to ask "where's the love?", all I can say is, open your eyes, it is all around you, there is also heartache, sorrow, happiness, joy, the list goes on.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Most of this discussion misses an obvious point, there is no consensus concerning the content of religion. There are religious views that pick fights with what is scientifically known. Religionist like to leave the content ambiguous so those who believe in reason can't disprove their views. The simple fact remains that most Christian religious views do assert things that are empirically false. The use of reason will find that they are false. Obviously secularists will not have any disagreement with those who do not make false assertions.

"From a knowledge of God's work we shall know Him."

Let's just take a couple of genetic diseases to 'get to know him.' Cystic fibrosis causes its young sufferers to drown in their own mucus. Progeria causes a child to grow old and die of old age at the age of 15- 20 years.

I think I know enough about this god to really dislike him, if he even exists.

Thomas Paul Moses Baum,

In referencing the assertion that atheists claim to have all of the answers I was merely addressing the author's statement "Anti-faith personalities like Jon Stewart and Richard Dawkins might think that they have all the answers, but real believers know that only God does." My comments were about statements by the author, not religious believers as a whole, and certainly not you since I don't know anything about your or your beliefs beyond the fact you believe in God. The author's statement indicates that believers have access to knowledge that non-believers do not is the arrogance to which I referred when speaking of believers who claim to know everything. Of course it is absurd for anyone to think they know all of the answers but there is ample evidence that at least some believers, albeit not all, feel the the answers to all of life's important questions can be found in the pages of the Bible or the Quran. If you think it is an absurdity when non-believers have the gall to point out that some religious people actually believe that, well, I suppose that belief is at least as justifiable as the beliefs of many people who think that they are eating the flesh of Christ every Sunday.

And if faith is the "why" for you in reference to holding a belief, then it merely demonstrates there is no reason for maintaining it. As soon as someone, in addressing why they believe something, resorts to the claim that they believe because of faith, they have simply admitted that there is no actual reason to believe it.

Science is how the universe works; religion is why the universe works. The two can be complementary in resolving existence. It is when the basic concepts of one area are co-opted by proponents of the other area that we seem to get heated, emotional and often inaccurate arguments.

I see the upcoming rallies as more of a reaction to the attempted polarization of the populace by demogogues of both types rather than deliberate mockeries of belief systems.

Here is the bottom line:

Science is defined ans using observations and tangible, empirical evidence. This evidence is systematically arranged to prove patterns and propose theories as well as reveal facts (that must be falsifiable in order to be scientific).

Faith is by definition the belief in something without evidence.

They are fundamentally different notions whose definitions contradict each other. Accept it.

kenk3: Ease up on the misogyny. It's completely inappropriate, and doesn't actually add anything to the discussion. You can have a lack of regard for what she says, but when you start going after her because of personal choices she's made as a woman, you start derailing in really stupid and unhelpful ways. It doesn't matter how many kids she has, and not only does it not matter how much she weighs, your fat-shaming isn't useful, either.

I mean, seriously. You didn't find enough in her post worth going after, so you had to call her a fat overbreeding whatever-whatever? Maybe you should read again. =P

"Atheists would have you believe that science is opposed to faith, but real science is not only unopposed to faith -- real scientific study leads us to God."

========

B.S. You just can't accurately generalize this way about a group so diverse as atheists. Most atheists I know, including myself, think that science is "apart from" and not related at all to religious faith.

It is religionists, who have already decided that god(s) exists without any credible much less scientific evidence at all, who claim that there is any kind of connection between the two.

It's circular (i.e. faulty) reasoning to accept a conclusion (in this case that god(s) exist) without reliable evidence. Your claim "that real science leads us to God" obviously begs the question, (do god(s) actually exist?) which is illogical reasoning at best and certainly not a product of "real" scientific inquiry. Not even close.

kenk3 -

There are many valid criticisms that have been offered about this poorly written column. Yours was not one of them.

What does the "Rally to Restore Sanity" have to do with a discussion of religion and faith? What has been and remains insane is the attack rhetoric used by some -- mostly conservatives -- to imply political opponents are not true Americans or Christians or whatever. We need to bring intelligent dialog back into public discourse.

"Danielle Bean, a Catholic author and mother of eight, is editorial director of Faith & Family magazine and Faith & Family Live."

Why is Bean's motherhood of eight children listed as a qualification for her presence on this panel?

One thing I can say for sure, is that I would rather rally with John Stewart's "restoring sanity", than to rally with a Right-Wing Extremist FIXED News entertainment "fake" preacher and historian, who uses "his" god (Rupert Murdock) to unleash his hate filled messages and bigotries on society every day.

There is a big difference between Glenn Beck's god (Rupert Murdock) and my God, and that is my God loves all of his creation's. Beck's god loves and worships money and so does Beck.

"In fact, it is entirely unreasonable to believe that a perfectly planned, perfectly balanced, and perfectly beautiful universe happened at random, with no Cause, no Origin, and no Creator."

Perfectly planned? Really? The human body is only about 25% energy efficient. We have an appendix for no other reason then to apparently have it occassionally burst. The imperfectness of 'creation' is astounding. If god is a watch maker, he's not a very good one.

The author wrote:
"Believing that the human body is a haphazard collision of cells"

--------------------------------------------

We aren't a random collision of cells, our bodies evolved from natural selection...You fat disgusting woman with 8 kids.

The universe is "perfectly planned,"perfectly balanced" and "perfectly beautiful"?

By what definition? One need not be a pessimist to realize seeing the universe as perfectly anything is unrealistically chipper.

As others have noted, complexity and beauty do not indicate intent. The U.S. tax code is complex, but it hardly got that way intentionally. Paint spills can be beautiful without having been made purposefully.

"[R]real believers" (whatever that means - Who determines authenticity?) "know" God has all the answers?

No, they don't. They have a feeling. To merit the title, knowledge, generally speaking, must be able to be transmitted. One can teach the rules of arithmetic to others regardless of how anyone feels about math. One cannot transmit feelings. One cannot make another person happy or sad or irritated to the same degree about the same thing for the same reasons no matter how receptive the other person. So there is no such thing as to "know in my heart," not about a job, not about who one plans to marry, not about God.

If people have a feeling about God, fine. They can tell anyone they want about it. But they should not try to equate feeling with knowledge. In serious matters, knowledge must remain superior to feeling. Society would suffer if doctors performed operations based only on hunches and police officers arrested citizens based on the officers' feelings about the arrestees' guilt.

"1. By definition, God does not have a creator. That part of your post is irrelevant. If you want to present a REASON for no God, then present it (spare me that you cannot prove a negative - just phrase it as a positive)."

So monotheists just ignore the problem of causation with a definition? How does that work?

"2. There is a proof that there cannot be many gods."

Really? How can that be?

"The possibilities are either no God or 1 God. The man who made the argument concluded: I choose to believe that there is 1 God."

At least that person understands the difference between faith and knowledge.

"You may choose to believe that there is no God, but until you present a REASONed argument for that, it remains a belief."

Lack of belief is not a belief. Bald is not a hair color.

My reasoned argument is:

- Theists have failed to provide evidence that any gods exist,

- Their arguments for gods have all been shown to be defective, and

- The hypothesis that one or more god exists explains nothing that cannot be explained with zero gods.

For those reasons, I reject the belief of theists that god(s) exist.

The author says,
"We don't need to remove faith from politics in order to restore reason and sanity."

Is it not true that the US Constitution maintains the separation of state and religion?

Also the author says,
"... real believers know that only God does."

If that is the case, how come so many Christians claim to possess the absolute truth? If I were god, I would be very angry with them.

Anyone who asserts their supremacy by tearing others down (especially by inventing lies about themselves and others) is an egotistical maniac. I am sure WaPo can find someone saner to represent the religious or even Christian point of view. Unless of course the march towards "c"hristian Talibistan of America is almost over.

CHAOTICIAN101:

“ . . . We need to remove stubborn and prideful men and women who disavow our nation's history by attempting to silence those who believe in God.”

Atta Boy, People like you and Glenn Beck and Jerry Fallwell and the Pope and Muslim extremists, etc, “NEED TO REMOVE anyone who happens to reject YOUR particular religious belief. Religious fundamentalist who BELIEVE that THEY know God and want to ram their “God” down everyone else’s throat are . . .
MANKIND”S BANE! (If you don’t know what “bane” is, look it up in a secular dictionary).

Steward has never presented himself as an atheist. Moreover, his personal religious beliefs are NOBODIES' business unless he wants to speak about it!

The Bottom line is that NO human being Knows what or who or if "God" is, and certainly no mere human can SPEAK for God - if there is such an entity or phenomenon.

Also - - The basic cause of all our growing environmental disasters is the exponential growth of the human population, and the Vatican's dark ages dogma (totally without scientific basis) on reproduction and contraception has been and still is a significant contributor to the Population Bomb.
Parents of large families are rapidly (exponentially) bringing us toward sharing the fate of lemmings. It's a case of Faith gone over the top.

Thomas Baum said, "I have also mentioned that I know a little and some of that "little" is that there most definitely is a God and that God is a Being of Pure Love and that God is a Trinity and that Jesus is God-Incarnate and that the Catholic Eucharist is Jesus."

So how do you know this as opposed to believing this? Have you evidence that there is a God and he/she/it is pure love?

When John Glenn circled the earth for the first time he looked back and said, "To look out at this kind of creation out here and not believe in God is to me impossible, ... It just strengthens my faith. I wish there were words to describe what it's like."

And as he was uttering these words there was a hurricane over central America which was in the process of killing over 20,000 men, women and children. So Thomas, let me ask you, "where's the love?"

"Beck said he was called by God to hold the rally. Now atheist groups are planning to use Stewart's event to promote "reason." Are "reason" and "sanity" the opposite of religious belief? Is taking religion out of the political debate the answer for restoring reason? Or do we need more faith?"

You are equating Beck with the "faith" side of the argument and Stewart with the "atheist" side?

Sounds like you need more "reason."

In science God is characterized as 1 over 0 - an unknown. This implies that God is rational. If you had real understanding of faith and religion you would know that any kind of divisiveness is a sign of ignorance and not divinity. The religious organizations promoting my way or the highway are divisive and by definition not divine. If you ever reach divine truth you would have compassion and not hate. To think that Glenn Beck has anything do with rationality and compassion is pure blindness. Here are some articles on Glenn Beck (http://www.kbucket.com/main/search?reset=1&keywords=glenn+beck¤t_page_number=1)
And here are some on Jon Stewart (http://www.kbucket.com/main/search?reset=1&keywords=jon+stewart¤t_page_number=1). If you can not see the difference, then God help you!

Valuing reason over faith
The Washington Coalition of Reason have put up advertisements on bus shelters around the DC area just in time for Jon Stewart’s rally to “restore sanity” and Stephen Colbert’s rally to keep fear alive.

I think it should be pointed out that the Washington Coalition of Reason is not promoting reason with these advertisements. They are promoting their organizations… which promote reason. The distinction is that these ads are not designed to get religious people to think rationally about there religion. That might take more then a few words on words on a bus shelter.

You can read the rest of my response to this topic:
http://exm.nr/cAYuVB

I will be responding to every issue posted in the 'On Faith' section. If you would like to be notified when my new response is up, please subscribe.

"I am not sure just how atheists have managed to secure exclusive rights to use of the word "reason." There is nothing at all reasonable about believing that the universe is a colossal accident. In fact, it is entirely unreasonable to believe that a perfectly planned, perfectly balanced, and perfectly beautiful universe happened at random, with no Cause, no Origin, and no Creator."

Too many more posts like this and we'll claim exclusive rights to imagination as well. Just because something is big and complicated and seems unlikely doesn't mean it cannot be so, and that we should ignore evidence which states that it might be.

This is argument from lack of imagination. "I cannot imagine how this all happened without God, because I don't understand physics, geology, biology, or math. Therefore none of those things must have factored in. It must be God, because God is easier for me to think about."

rentianxiang

You wrote, " First of all, ahteists and agnostics, in contrast to religious believers, do not claim to know all of the answers."

You are not the first person that I have seen to write this absurdity.

There may be some theists that claim to know it all but I, most definitely, am not one of them.

As a matter of fact, I have stated quite often on these postings that not only do I not know it all but I do not even have the desire to know it all whatever "knowing it all" would happen to mean.

I have also mentioned that I know a little and some of that "little" is that there most definitely is a God and that God is a Being of Pure Love and that God is a Trinity and that Jesus is God-Incarnate and that the Catholic Eucharist is Jesus.

As others have stated on these different postings, science is about the "how", the physicality, the mechanics, as it were, of reality or creation or whatever one wishes to call it.

And as others have also stated, faith is about whether or not there is a "why" and just what that "why" may be and is it without our reach, so to speak, of knowing more about the "why" and whether or not we may actually be participants in the "why".

Science will not prove that God Is and it is not in the province of science to do this but God will in God's Time.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Did the author pass fourth grade?

"Anti-faith personalities like Jon Stewart"

??? Has this person ever seen Jon's show?

sux123

You wrote, "Oh, why? Matter can neither be created or destroyed. Everything you have ever know has existed before in some form. As far as we know it has always existed."

As far as we know is that we don't know.

Unless something new has come down the pike, from what I have heard, all computer models based on all of the mathematical formulas that we have come up with, seem to work fine but then totally break down at a certain time in the past.

This is what I was told happened in the scientific quest concerning the "big bang", have they ever figured out why all of the math goes down the tube, so to speak?

You then wrote, "And ther is also that little matter of where did the perfectly beautiful Creator come from?"

Have you ever thought that "I AM" has always been and reality as we know it hasn't?

Takes a lot of faith to believe what you believe.

I used to believe in God and God rewarded that belief, which was a gift anyway, with a personal revelation of God and guess what, God is not only a Being of Pure Love but is a Trinity.

Before any reality, as we know it, God had a Plan and God's Plan will come to Fruition.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Faith, and specifically Christian faith, is an important part of our nation's founding principles, history, and culture. We don't need to remove faith from politics in order to restore reason and sanity. We need to remove stubborn and prideful men and women who disavow our nation's history by attempting to silence those who believe in God.

That is such a bunch of lies, and not very relevant to the discussion I might add! Most of our founders were quite intent on making sure no faith, especially the various Christian varieties, had no influence on the Constitution of the emerging nation. Even minimal readings of most of the founders' thoughts about the founding of the nation would reveal their opposition to embedding any religious dogma into the secular nation they were creating!

Essentially nothing of the Abrahamic religions has anything remotely resembling reason in defining what their religions are about! Most especially, the Christians, who by the way are essentially Jews who have decided that a man, Jesus, fulfilled some of the prophecies of the Torah.. and isn't it interesting that the so called 2nd coming is all about Jesus not doing a complete job the first time! In any case, rejecting the Bible all 2-3000 versions, completely eliminates any basis for Christianity. This alone puts it beyond reason which at a minimum requires its truths to be independent of any particular view, person, or condition. Almost nothing of Christianity makes "sense" and one of its few strengths is the idea that nothing so absurd could be made up, so it must be true! Unfortunately, the mind of man is infinitely inventive!

-cont-
It is most likely the process of symbolic analysis itself that establishes and creates the acausal connection to the object of analysis (out of experience, that). I don't really know if you can 'see'/'project'/'reflect' just yourself, or anything and anyone you might consciously or subconsciously be looking for.

This is what being reasonable about so-called spiritual phenomena means. Not recitals of the Nicene creed and denouncements of the theory of evolution.
It also implies some weird physics in the scientific sense, that would allow such things to happen, as neurons are solid and physical, and analytical thought is done with neurons.
The scientific method might be inapplicable here, as there can be no independent observer/experimenter/data analyst, but this doesn't mean that a useful method can't be found and that people should just make stuff up, as it suits them.

Interesting how 'reason'-based faith keeps popping out all over the place these days
(like here as well: http://www.chabad.org/multimedia/media_cdo/aid/1314646/jewish/Science-Faith-and-Creation-Part-1.htm )

So lets debunk it a bit for what it is.

- Manifest destiny kind of arguments imply that 'god' desires scientists and non-belief in intelligent design, otherwise he wouldn't create them 'after' religious people.

- The argument against ancestry from apes is silly. That we are cousins with chimps and neanderthals is a fact here and now. To claim that the grand-grand-parents were not ape-like is like saying "I'm a rabbi, my cousins are not, therefore I can not claim that my grand-parents were jews".

- To bring anthropocentrism into universal matters is silly, if one is catholic in the original meaning of the word (not the christian). Adam experienced gravity, Newton revealed gravity to the rest of us - something invisible and non-existent. This doesn't mean that gravity has anthropic properties - it doesn't think or desire that people should fall or not fall. The same goes for so-called god.

The surface of the air that covers one's face and body has a human shape and form. The boundary between the air and any human has a human form, carries sound, some of it of human origin, some of it with meaning and thought and emotion. This doesn't make the air is a thinking and a feeling entity, or an entity for that matter. The same goes for so-called god.

The prophets of abrahamic religions are wrong and unreasonable. Believers of abrahamic religions are even wronger and more unreasonable, because they talk about things they have no experience with, and they are merely reciting 1500 pages of lesser wrongness.

The prophets (and mystics) of abrahamic religions are like cats who think their reflection in a mirror is another, very strangely acting cat ("god").
Believers of abrahamic religions are like cats who have never seen a mirror, they have just read about mirrors and the strange cat in them.
Humans are intelligent partly because they can pass "the mirror test" and recognize themselves in a mirror, unlike cats.
A partial exception must probably be made for Jesus, who probably thought he was that other strange cat behind the mirror ("god") rather than the cat in front of the mirror (the human).

The mirror, in that analogy, would be all that surrounds a person in his life that is strangely related to him or her symbolically and acausally. Few people are surrounded by events that are related to them in a miraculous fashion, and if you ask me that's probably a byproduct of being (more) analytical.

Pick something (a picture, a story, a news story in a newspaper, a real event fro memory, a dream) and analyze it as a piece of art. The better you are at analyzing it, the more likely you are to see yourself in it, or whatever it is that you are subconsciously searching for in there.

"real believers know that only God does."

Wait a minute, real believers KNOW? Where did you get the proof? May I see it? Oh, your proof is your BELIEF?

Ok, thought maybe you actually had some credibility there, guess not.

The unmoved mover.
1. There exists movement in the world.
2. Things that move were set into motion by something else.
3. If everything that moves were caused to move by something else, there would be an infinite chain of causes. This can't happen.
4. Thus, there must have been something that caused the first movement.
5. From 3, this first cause cannot itself have been moved.
6. From 4, there must be an unmoved mover.

The problem with this is really 2 and 3.
2 implies that all things moving were moved by something. It is more accurate to say that nothing we know of in motion did not have something to move it.

3 states 'this can't happen.' Should have added 'that we currently know of.

Or better 6. there must be an unmoved mover, therefore contraceptives are evil and gays shouldn't marry. (Leapus Gigantus: unmoved mover=specific creator)

AMviennaVA said:
1. By definition, God does not have a creator. That part of your post is irrelevant. If you want to present a REASON for no God, then present it (spare me that you cannot prove a negative - just phrase it as a positive).

Really; that's your evidence, you define God as not having a creator and that's your argument?

Or, send me your evidence for God. And while you're at it, you might want to define God -- is it a loving, caring being which interacts with its creation or is your definition of God closer to Einstein's -- where it is kind of an all inclusive, non interacting label for the universe? Or is it something else?

Jon Stewart is "anti-faith"? I gotta tell you, I've been watching his and Colbert's shows both for quite a few years, and I have no idea what you're talking about.

If you're talking about skewering people who use religion as a weapon, who are sanctimonious in public and then have private issues while trying to make faith the watchword...we should all be that anti-faith.

And where the hell does Richard Dawkins come into this? I haven't heard that he's coming.

Where to begin with this drivel that merely serves to undermine the credibility of believers. The ridiculous so-called arguments in this article, when compared to the writings of people like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins, only add emphasis to the position that there is no reason why anyone should ascribe any weight to religious positions or religious definitions of reality. First of all, ahteists and agnostics, in contrast to religious believers, do not claim to know all of the answers. They merely claim that religions don't provide any justifiable or supportable answers based on evidence. I have not read anything in the writings of atheists that could lead anyone taking the arguments seriously to conclude that atheists claim to have all of the answers.

The position that their is nothing unreasonable about religious belief is a wholly unsupportable statement. Religious beliefs require faith which, essentially, is the belief in something without having any empirical or objective evidence to give authority to that belief. That is unreasonable to me, since I have no reason to believe it other than just my faith that it is so. In short, arriving at religious belief (divinity of Jesus, divine nature of the Quran, Zeus is the most powerful of the Gods on Olympus) can not be achieved through reason, although one might be able to reject some beliefs through reason and choose to live by some system that is the most aligned with what one intuits is the best of what is available or is the most culturally acceptable. So, it might be reasonable in this sense if I am in Pakistan to at least live as if Islam were the true religion since to do otherwise could result in my persecution or death, just as it is reasonable for politicians, such as Obama, to live as if and act as if they believe in Christianity since it is often required to be elected to higher office. But this still doesn't mean that truly believing in religious doctrine is reasonable per se. The irony of the article is that the author makes completely unsupportable claims about what believers can know. "Anti-faith personalities like Jon Stewart and Richard Dawkins might think that they have all the answers, but real believers know that only God does" Notice the totally arrogant proposition that believers both know their is a God and the claim they know that God has all of the answers. Evidence? None.

1. By definition, God does not have a creator. That part of your post is irrelevant. If you want to present a REASON for no God, then present it (spare me that you cannot prove a negative - just phrase it as a positive).
2. There is a proof that there cannot be many gods. The possibilities are either no God or 1 God. The man who made the argument concluded: I choose to believe that there is 1 God
----------------------
Ok, so what is the "proof" that thre cannot be many gods. Have you ever heard of one of anything? I can name a lot of things that do not exist, a lot of things that ther are many of - never encountered just one of anything. So, it is more reasonable (there is that word again) to assume no gods or many gods. And let me guess , the proof is some bible passages right. please.

Believing that the human body is a haphazard collision of cells and that the earth is randomly placed in space, at precisely the correct distance from the sun for supporting life
------------------------
Oh my! Talk about turning reason on its head! saying that god put people on this planet because it it at just the right sistance from the sun to support human life is like saying trees in humid rainforest were put there in just the right humidity to support the mold that god put there. What hubris.

In fact, it is entirely unreasonable to believe that a perfectly planned, perfectly balanced, and perfectly beautiful universe happened at random, with no Cause, no Origin, and no Creator
--------------------
Oh, why? Matter can neither be created or destroyed. Everything you have ever know has existed before in some form. As far as we know it has always existed. And ther is also that little matter of where did the perfectly beautiful Creator come from? Is is reasonable to believe that it happened at random, with no Cause, no Origin, and no Creator. pushing the, oh so unreasonable, proposition back a level does not make it reasonable.

This was a truly ridiculous and self serving read. Stewart has never proclaimed himself anti-faith, in fact he references his faith with some regularity (do you watch his shows or did you let divine forces do your research?). Where exactly also did you get the information about "God not being invited" or "atheists suggest they own the rights to reason?" or even that this is a faith/non-faith rally at all, rather than a political one as it is billed?

The year 2010 and you can still read such nonsense, in the Washington Post, no less!

I've heard this argument for god before:
"Everything we can know in the natural world is a reflection of its Creator and bears evidence of a divine plan -- from the intricate beauty and perfect form of a microscopic mosquito heart to the majestic grandeur of a Giant Sequoia, and the breath-taking beauty of the Milky Way Galaxy."

The only problem with it is that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If I had gotten malaria from a mosquito, I wouldn't be so taken with its heart. If I was a lumberjack, I would look at the Giant Sequoia as profit. If I had been born 10,000 years ago, the starry scape of the Milky Way might have evoked fear.

BLASMAIC wrote "Stewart doesn't use sanity as a antonym to unreasonableness or irrationality.

He uses it to imply that Beck and his followers are insane, as in mentally deranged. Stewart's humorous attack against Beck gets an extra lift by pandering to the hatred people hold toward the mentally ill."

-------------------------------------

And who, pray tell, is Beck pandering to when he makes wild and "crazy" allegations against the President, liberals in general and all those that don't hew to his very warped view of the world? Beck is sane, vicious and self promoting but sane. He is the man screaming fire in a crowded theater and then defending his action by claiming that he was "just saying" and didn't mean harm. Many dead but he didn't mean it.

You state that Stewart is "pandering" to the "hatred" that people hold towards the mentally ill is a wildly off base. Mental illness is not something that humanity HATES!! It is something that is not fully understood, or is pitied and feared.

wow, hard to know where to begin here ...

"perfectly planned, perfectly balanced, and perfectly beautiful universe" is such a subjective thought, and is circular... assuming the existence of a plan makes it pretty easy to prove the planner's existence! and why quote boyle, and not hawking, who recently said that science makes god unnecessary? if the earth's abundance of life is a proof of the existence of god, then is the barrenness of mercury a proof of god's non-existence?

believers believe because they want to, or need to. if they require proof, they find a way to interpret the world to support their beliefs. the atheists that i know reject belief simply because they have never come across a compelling argument for the existence of god. the universe can be complicated, and butterflies can be pretty, without a god. that these things impress us may tell us something about our nature, and our limitations ... but not anything about higher powers. in fact, it may be that a good definition of "believer" is simply someone who has the limitation that they are uncomfortable living in a universe which does not have a god.

articles such as this one may be one reason why atheists are associated with being rational. the arguments presented are unsophisticated, subjective and circular.

Glenn Beck's religion-infused "Restoring Honor" rally had nothing to do with religion or honor and everything to do with enriching Beck and dividing the United States.

As for atheist groups taking over Stewart's rally you'd have to provide some proof or evidencve of that for me to accept it.

You state that atheists would have you (us) believe that science is opposed to faith. On the contrary, religion (faith) IS opposed to science. History tells us that and there is not much you could put forward to prove otherwise. Would you care to reference the folks that were excommunicated for believing the earth revolved around the sun?

And the rally has nothing to do with portraying reason and religion as opposites? Is this something you got from FOX?

For all the comments, it remains the case that Science makes no statement, and no case, for or against the existence of God. That happens to be central to what the author wrote.

As for religion and science, they are compatible: science tries to describe how things work; religion tries to explain why it all happened. Unless you understand that, you cannot make a reasoned argument on either topic.

twmatthews @ October 26, 2010 10:48 AM: A couple of points:

1. By definition, God does not have a creator. That part of your post is irrelevant. If you want to present a REASON for no God, then present it (spare me that you cannot prove a negative - just phrase it as a positive).

2. There is a proof that there cannot be many gods. The possibilities are either no God or 1 God. The man who made the argument concluded: I choose to believe that there is 1 God.

You may choose to believe that there is no God, but until you present a REASONed argument for that, it remains a belief.

Could you show us how "real believers know that only God [has the answers]"?

Ms. Bean your article is unadulterated tripe. Nothing you claim to be perfect, is actually perfect. Everything is flawed to some extent or the other. Human body taken as whole is really a poor design by our standards. It isn't fault tolerant nor has any redundant parts except for kidneys and Lungs. Every thing in our anatomy and that of most mammals clearly demonstrate the fact that one was built on the existing infrastructure. So much for your perfect creation mythology. likewise the earth and everything else being perfectly position and designed is nothing but a lot of horse manure. Any given moment a single asteroid could annihilate all life on the planet, does not make for any kind of perfect design. Everything about faith and religion smacks of unreasonableness.

Stewart doesn't use sanity as a antonym to unreasonableness or irrationality.

He uses it to imply that Beck and his followers are insane, as in mentally deranged. Stewart's humorous attack against Beck gets an extra lift by pandering to the hatred people hold toward the mentally ill.

Ambroselittle:

Your reference to the unmoved mover is simply another way of saying "everything has a cause except of course God who was always there".

This demonstrates that by defining the rules, rather than demanding evidence, anything can be postulated.

Because Jon Stewart is Jewish, you somehow equate that with "anti-faith"? That's pretty outrageous and offensive.

You have said nothing in this piece to indicate that Stewart has ever said anything remotely "anti-faith." You've said only that some atheists have tried to equate "reason" with being "anti-faith." What does that have to do with Stewart, exactly? Is it his fault that all sorts of people plan on attending the rally for all sorts of reasons? Do you presume that they all speak for him on matters of faith? That makes no sense.

Any time anyone questions the beliefs of Christians, the answer is always GOD knows all. Tell GOD to give me a call and answer the question of faith for the rest of us directly without hesitation. I am waiting for his/her answer. BTW, I am a Buddhist, and we believe in reason as a basis for faith. Is it reasonable to belive in the ubnknown and put substance to that? If all the preachers quit using GOD's name for their own personal gains, the workd would be a better place.

Believe in what someone else tells you to believe, with threat of GOD's wrath or believe in reason?

Free Choice!

Science is not in support of creationism, so science outclasses religion every time. Science is proven, religion is unproven.

You should use this, not the "infinite monkeys" example....
http://www.simulation-argument.com/

It doesn't at first appear to give you what you want. After all, this isn't the Biblical account. Until you realize that it in fact does.
1. In the simulation argument, there are infinite or nearly infinite universes. We can't speculate as to the original universe, which also agrees with the bible which has so little to say about Heaven.
2. In the simulation argument, the universes are made for a purpose.
3. In the simulation argument, the universes are parsimonious and would start at the beginning of human civilization. (Young earth creationism), despite seeming older.
4. In the simulation argument, the universe would be not fully "real". That matches both the biblical AND scientific account.

It's good. Use it.

Stewart doesn't use sanity as a antonym to reason.

He uses it to imply that Beck and his followers are insane, as in mentally deranged. Stewart's humorous attack against Beck gets an extra lift by pandering to the hatred people hold toward the mentally ill.

Danielle:
Wow, where to begin.

“it is entirely unreasonable to believe that a perfectly planned, perfectly balanced, and perfectly beautiful universe happened at random”

You use the word ‘perfectly’ in an odd way. Set aside for the moment planetary collisions, asteroids the size of a county, craters and even the collisions of galaxies… let’s just look at the earth for a moment.
Volcanoes, tectonic plate shifts, tsunamis, hurricanes, volcanoes, pestilence, disease, birth defects, etc. You’re dismissing a lot of things, really bad things, in your definition of ‘perfect’.

“Atheists would have you believe that science is opposed to faith”
No, we simply posit that faith and science are two different things.

“but real science is not only unopposed to faith -- real scientific study leads us to God.”
No it doesn’t. You simply look at a rainbow, a bolt of lightning, magnets and stars and planets and say ‘God Did It’. That’s not science.

“Everything we can know in the natural world is a reflection of its Creator and bears evidence of a divine plan”
You can only see this if you presuppose there is a god.

“at precisely the correct distance from the sun for supporting life”
You’ve got it backwards. Life evolved how it could, where it could.

“as expecting a roomful of monkeys with typewriters to turn. . .”
You for got to add that ‘over billions of years’ part. It’s kind of important to the process.

“There is nothing at all reasonable about believing that the universe is a colossal accident.”
It’s not an ‘accident’ it’s chemistry, cause and effect, plus billions of years.

“As Robert Boyle, the founder of modern chemistry, once said”
He also pre-supposed a god, he admitted as much, his very scientific goal was to show god’s handiwork.

In a nutshell Danielle, everything you stated is pretty much bunk. Which is okay of you want to believe it as a matter of faith. But pretending that your religion is scientific is absurd, and quite simply, wrong.

There may be reasonable believers, but this column is not an example of reason. Arguments about the characteristics of God are meaningless when there is no evidence at all for any gods, no matter what the characteristics are.

Where did you get the idea that Jon Stewart was anti-faith?

Can you name anyone who is "attempting to silence those who believe in God"? Is merely saying that I do not believe in any gods an attempt to silence you?

Caitiebmoregmailcom:

The unmoved mover was actually suggested by Aristotle. There's a decent wikipedia entry on it, which I looked up after seeing some of the comments here.

I'm not claiming to be a great philosopher, but I don't like this argument because it postulates that things in motion must have been moved, but then contradicts itself by saying that something in motion did not have to be set in motion.

One thing about the radical right, they sure good at co-opting the English language. No one, least of all Jon Stewart himself, said he was anti-faith. Jon Stewart is a well-known non-Christian. Being non-Christian doesn't make you anti-faith. Unfortunately, there are too many people who think it's their way or the highway.

It is very strange that opposition to a nut like Beck is interpreted as being anti-faith. Beck and his ilk are using religion for their own purposes. Nobody who is really Christian would be so nasty and hateful.

joe_allen_doty,

"Jesus even predicted that there would be many anti-christs in the future."

Did he happen to mention my name?

I think Danielle is merely brushing upon arguments like St. Thomas Aquinas' 5 Ways to prove the existence of God, one of them being the unmoved mover. It never ceases to amaze me when people challenge that, as it is such a fundamental concept, but hey! Who am I to force someone to agree with some of the greatest minds of our time? ;)

Science is the reflection of our human ability to measure the world. Since we, as humans, do not have the capacity to fully understand God, science will never fully explain Him. But that's science's limitations, not God's. And confusing the two is pretty darn dangerous.

What Danielle seems to be saying is that, although science is unable to fully measure the existence of God, is DOES NOT contradict it. Though people take that inability and assume that if science can't explain it, it doesn't exist. That's like looking at a painting and saying, "Well, there's no signature.. It must not have been painted.." Say What?

Ambroselittle:

Wow, what a useless response to TWMatthews' comment. If you're willing to postulate an unmoved mover, you're defeating the idea that everything needs a creator.

This article accomplishes exactly the opposite of what its title suggests it's trying to do. I do think that religious belief is unreasonable and this author's appeals to various tired, ridiculous, nonscientific beliefs do nothing to change my mind.

Jon Stewart is a Jew and he talks about being one. How can he be anti-faith.

Richard Dawkins is definitely anti-Christ. Jesus even predicted that there would be many anti-christs in the future.

The convenient thing about faith is that when the facts are obviously in opposition with what you are promoting, you can simply skew them to suit your purposes, as the author so adeptly does above.

Reason, however, is held to a much higher standard. Empirical reason insists that supporting evidence be provided; hence, scientists cannot make the bold statement that the universe must have been created by a higher intelligence just because it appears so. Read Stephen Hawking's latest "The Grand Design," for plenty of evidence to the contrary (by a real scientist).

Christians once looked up into the sky, saw a sun that rotated around the earth and imagined that a god (whom they created in their own image) put the egocentric Homo sapiens and his homeland at the center of the universe. It would seem little has changed in the minds of those who navigate reality with faith. www.killingmother.blogspot.com.

TWMatthews, your comments belie a total unawareness of basic philosophy. We are talking about the Unmoved Mover.

Ms. Bean,

Almost everything you state in this blog contradicts the notion that faith (religion) and reason are in accord.

You said, "There is nothing at all reasonable about believing that the universe is a colossal accident. In fact, it is entirely unreasonable to believe that a perfectly planned, perfectly balanced, and perfectly beautiful universe happened at random, with no Cause, no Origin, and no Creator."

These statements simply avoid the obvious question -- if the universe has to have a creator then who created the creator and why is there just one creator?

Your faith tells you that God created it all and that the universe must have a creator by definition. But it ignores the fact that God too must have had a creator, and so forth as far back as you want to go.

Simply making God the exclusion to all other rules is not reasonable it's just defining the rules the way you want them to be. It's neither reasonable nor objective and lets face it, science and religion are not compatible as long as people base beliefs on faith rather than evidence.

Jon Stewart is not anti-faith by any stretch of the imagination. You misread the question - the rally is being *used* by athiests. If you actually listen to the reasons Stewart states for the rally, it's focused on reasonable discourse in the country. The place that hits back at Beck's rally is saying that we shouldn't be abusing religion to make political points as some believe Beck did/does.

As a mathematician, I should point out that you lack an understanding of the monkeys with typewriters notion. It deals with infinite events. Good luck making that happen in reality... So using it in the way your did is mildly offensive. In fact, humanity being able to understand even a little bit about infinite events says a lot about our being a reflection of the (infinite) Creator.