Atheism

[misesfan]

We have nothing other than our brains to achieve any degree of understanding.

I would say arguing for science is more about arguing for the scientific point of view. Accepting things supported by evidence, rejecting old theories that no longer hold up, etc. Based on the evidence currently available, accepting the big bang theory is rational. alsI like arguing for rationality.

If there is some greater source of knowledge, the only way it would be at all useful to us is if we were able to come upon it. We have no means of understanding other than our own brains.

I think this is more a problem that religion has. Science encourages discussion, debate, and the competition of ideas.


I'll agree with this point. I don't think the big bang constitutes evidence against God. It presents an explanation for the origin of the universe other than "God did it," which is useful for a non-theistic argument.

Your argument that science promotes discussion, debate and competition of ideas is demonstrably false. What if a physicist decides that Global Warming is junk science and tries to get a paper published? Given your open discussion and debate and free exchange of ideas, wouldnt it be wonderful if the scientific community be free of prejudice and allow ideas to be analyzes and debated on their own merit? Of course, this is untrue - and blacklisting scientists because of thought that goes against dogma or what is politically correct has happened for centuries.

In fact, if it werent for Christianity and its pursuit of truth, we would be having this conversation via cans and a wire. But I digress. What really irks me about your comment regarding the superiority of the scientific method is the lack of humility, especially when you compare it religion. No one here stated religion as a man made institution was perfect, and yet you preen over how scientists use rational debate even as they have stifled debate throughout history. So, you are full of it.

You may think that science is this pedestal upon which all men should worship, but of course your wrong - science gave the world the eugenic movement which allowed men in Germany to scientifically formulate racial purity laws. As doctors performed surgeries on inferior races that were indescribably vicious they justified their actions that it was done to advance science.

 

[namith]

David: You mentioned colors, which didn't apparently come through in your post. I think I can figure out how you meant to do it, though.

Paul's letters are written by a direct witness of Jesus Christ, not decades later. What you claimed is simply a falsehood, you have
definitely not read the New Testament have you namith.

I have read much of the New Testament, though not all. In several places, Paul is discussed. It is claimed in the Bible that he saw a vision on the road to Damascus and converted to Christianity. NOT that he actually witnessed any of the events of Jesus's life. Personally, I don't like to use one person's vision as a basis of evidence. You probably don't either: one man's vision is the basis of Islam.

How can you make a statement like this, I think you will need to
supply the evidence that supports this wild statement.

I think you were referring to my statement that I thought the claims about Jesus's life are exaggerations. I will reply assuming such. If that was not what you meant, please correct me.

I think the claims about Jesus's life are exaggerations that do not accurately reflect reality for the same reason you think the same about the reports of the life of the Buddha, or the prophet of some other religion. There is not sufficient evidence to back them up.

Your argument that science promotes discussion, debate and competition of ideas is demonstrably false. What if a physicist decides that Global Warming is junk science and tries to get a paper published? Given your open discussion and debate and free exchange of ideas, wouldnt it be wonderful if the scientific community be free of prejudice and allow ideas to be analyzes and debated on their own merit?

If a scientist presented something with good data that pointed towards global warming being untrue, the scientific community would pay attention. Indeed, scientists frequently publish things conjecturing about the extent of global warming, the degree to which it is influenced by human activity, etcetera. If science worked by oppressing good data, then nobody would have been allowed to mention those neutrinos that might be going faster than the speed of light.

In fact, if it werent for Christianity and its pursuit of truth, we would be having this conversation via cans and a wire.

If it weren't for Christianity and its oppression of Enlightenment ideals, we might be having this conversation on the moon.

I don't mean to say that Christianity has been all bad throughout history. Monasteries and Christian universities were great safeguards and sources of knowledge during and after the Dark Ages. However, the church also has a history of suppressing scientific ideas that it disagrees with (see Galileo).

No one here stated religion as a man made institution was perfect, and yet you preen over how scientists use rational debate even as they have stifled debate throughout history. So, you are full of it.

Again, it has often been the church that has stifled debate. Scientists seek to improve their knowledge, churches seek to hold onto the beliefs they have.

You may think that science is this pedestal upon which all men should worship,

Worship? Of course not. Science is a good thing because it makes sense. How do you determine knowledge about the world? Observe it. Formulate hypotheses. Test them.

science gave the world the eugenic movement which allowed men in Germany to scientifically formulate racial purity laws.

And religion gave the world the Crusades, the Inquisition, 9-11, female genital mutilation, arguments for the continuation of slavery, discrimination against homosexuals, restriction of women's rights. Are you willing to accept that the actions of perverted individuals operating under the name of a certain ideal are indicative of the ideal itself?

As doctors performed surgeries on inferior races that were indescribably vicious they justified their actions that it was done to advance science.

Science doesn't tell people to kill others or violate their rights. It is merely a means of learning.

 

[Chad]

namith, let me make it real simple for you...

read the motto.

Since you are NOT here to learn about Jesus nor a serious Christian, you need to leave and find another hobby. You're just wasting your time and ours. You cannot and will not persuade anywhere here that Jesus Christ is not Savior and GOD and that GOD does not exist. Your "wisdom" is "exaggerated" and your evidence is non-existent. So please find a new hobby.

 

[misesfan]

David: You mentioned colors, which didn't apparently come through in your post. I think I can figure out how you meant to do it, though.


I have read much of the New Testament, though not all. In several places, Paul is discussed. It is claimed in the Bible that he saw a vision on the road to Damascus and converted to Christianity. NOT that he actually witnessed any of the events of Jesus's life. Personally, I don't like to use one person's vision as a basis of evidence. You probably don't either: one man's vision is the basis of Islam.

I think you were referring to my statement that I thought the claims about Jesus's life are exaggerations. I will reply assuming such. If that was not what you meant, please correct me.

I think the claims about Jesus's life are exaggerations that do not accurately reflect reality for the same reason you think the same about the reports of the life of the Buddha, or the prophet of some other religion. There is not sufficient evidence to back them up.

If a scientist presented something with good data that pointed towards global warming being untrue, the scientific community would pay attention. Indeed, scientists frequently publish things conjecturing about the extent of global warming, the degree to which it is influenced by human activity, etcetera. If science worked by oppressing good data, then nobody would have been allowed to mention those neutrinos that might be going faster than the speed of light.

If it weren't for Christianity and its oppression of Enlightenment ideals, we might be having this conversation on the moon.

I don't mean to say that Christianity has been all bad throughout history. Monasteries and Christian universities were great safeguards and sources of knowledge during and after the Dark Ages. However, the church also has a history of suppressing scientific ideas that it disagrees with (see Galileo).

Again, it has often been the church that has stifled debate. Scientists seek to improve their knowledge, churches seek to hold onto the beliefs they have.

Worship? Of course not. Science is a good thing because it makes sense. How do you determine knowledge about the world? Observe it. Formulate hypotheses. Test them.

And religion gave the world the Crusades, the Inquisition, 9-11, female genital mutilation, arguments for the continuation of slavery, discrimination against homosexuals, restriction of women's rights. Are you willing to accept that the actions of perverted individuals operating under the name of a certain ideal are indicative of the ideal itself?

Science doesn't tell people to kill others or violate their rights. It is merely a means of learning.

Sure - science doesnt kill people - scientists do. In a very disturbing fashion in the case of German eugenicists.

As far as the sins of the church fathers - there are many, no doubt. We are not proclaiming perfection. But please dude.... You have heard of the abolition movement in the US correct (oh those pesky Christians thinking that all men are equal...) or the fact that the right for women to vote came from a Christian organization, or that discrimination of homosexuals dont come Christians but from government.

But I guess historical inaccuracies doesnt matter - you state that the church has stifled debate and yet, the church actually built most of the universities in which science flourished during the renaissance.

You mention Galileo - which of course tells me that you have really no clue of history, I apologize for making a brass statement like this, but the fact is Galileo met with oppostion regarding heliocentricity not from the church but from fellow scientists. In fact the Jesuits at the time agreed with Galileo. Rome however didnt want the controversy. Galileo went on to seemingly irritate the Pope on a personal level, and he gets slapped around a bit It wasnt about the science at all.

And if you think that scientists accept data about Global Warming or any other theory (even creationists) with an open mind and open heart - you have not been within the scientific community.

If I may, dogma and reiteration of the party line does not make something true.

 

[s.i.e.]

We have nothing other than our brains to achieve any degree of understanding.

We have no means of understanding other than our own brains.

How depressing! You believe that a thing the size of two-fists weighing about 3lbs is the entire means of gaining or gleaning knowledge of a universe around you that may be infinitesimally large?

There is a wonder, a mystery, a story, a beginning, an ending, a whispering, and a story...all around you my friend...that may speak to things other than simply your brain, regarding your world/universe/place. Things that pure "science" or "observation" may never pin down.

You are very very small in all of this. As am I. This isn't a bad thing...but for us to understand all of this, we need to approach it in a very humble way first. Non-theists inherently have a problem doing this, for obvious reasons. Again, you are caught in a catch-22, but don't see it this way. Ignorance is bliss, I suppose.

I think this is more a problem that religion has. Science encourages discussion, debate, and the competition of ideas.

Go watch Ben Stein's documentary movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed if you want to see many good examples of why I think your statement is not only blatantly false, but actually the opposite of what is true. This is just one movie, of course, and you may have your biases against it or whatever...but there are many many examples of good science being black-balled from the "scientific community" from time to time. Global warming "science" is another good one to look for examples of this.

It presents an explanation for the origin of the universe other than "God did it," which is useful for a non-theistic argument.

Yes. You're right. And this may give you a hint on another quesion you asked me, as to why it is that the scientific community seems to want to embrace the idea of the big-bang.

The big-bang is very (as you said) useful for a non-theistic argument of the origin of things. You don't need God for it.

Hence, the vociferous arguments that we witness regarding the big-bang. Truth is, I think many times the argument is just a red-herring, and the real thing being vehemantly argued for or against is GOD Himself.

Big-bang arguments are just an excercise in data-mining by "scientists" who are really building a case against God. Why? Because science can't explain God...therfore, science (generally) rejects God. Again, the human brain cannot rationalize a concept such as God.

It is far safer to simply reject the notion of God.

 

[ItinerantLurker]

Sure - science doesnt kill people - scientists do. In a very disturbing fashion in the case of German eugenicists.

May want to check yourself before you wreck yourself there - most of those German eugenicists were, in fact, Christians who were explicitly rejecting Darwin's theory of common descent and instead drawing justification from the divine separation of the races.

As far as the sins of the church fathers - there are many, no doubt. We are not proclaiming perfection. But please dude.... You have heard of the abolition movement in the US correct (oh those pesky Christians thinking that all men are equal...) or the fact that the right for women to vote came from a Christian organization, or that discrimination of homosexuals dont come Christians but from government.

No doubt the church has done some amazing things, but these really great things do not wipe away century upon century of oppression.

You mention Galileo - which of course tells me that you have really no clue of history, I apologize for making a brass statement like this, but the fact is Galileo met with oppostion regarding heliocentricity not from the church but from fellow scientists. In fact the Jesuits at the time agreed with Galileo. Rome however didnt want the controversy. Galileo went on to seemingly irritate the Pope on a personal level, and he gets slapped around a bit It wasnt about the science at all.

That's a nice piece of revisionism. So it was fellow scientists who must have taken an elderly Galileo to tour the many devices of torture employed by the inquisition. It must have been fellow scientists who responded to his work with the formal statement that,

"The doctrine that the earth is neither the center of the universe nor immovable, but moves even with a daily rotation, is absurd, and both psychologically and theologically false, and at the least an error of faith."​

Oh wait, that was the Church's formal declaration to which Galileo responded,

"The doctrine of the movements of the earth and the fixity of the sun is condemned on the ground that the Scriptures speak in many places of the sun moving and the earth standing still. . .I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the Scriptures, but with experiments and demonstrations."​

From the primary sources of the time, then, it would appear that the bolded section above was the actual issue, rather than some professional dispute among "fellow scientists" that the church sorrowfully took part in. Indeed, Galileo's recantation, he makes it absolutely clear that the dispute is one between science contradicting theology and not, as you seem to imply, one of science contradicting science.

"Because I have been enjoined, by this Holy Office, to abandon the false opinion that the Sun is the center and immovable, ...I abjure, curse, and detest the said errors and heresies...contrary to the said Holy Church."​

And if you think that scientists accept data about Global Warming or any other theory (even creationists) with an open mind and open heart - you have not been within the scientific community.

Science is biased towards theories which consistently explain evidence and against theories which are contradicted by evidence. The fact that scientists are unimpressed by climate change skeptics and/or creationists is not a flaw in the way science works - it is due to the lack of supportive evidence for those positions and the plethora of evidence which contradict them.

If I may, dogma and reiteration of the party line does not make something true.

Curiously, neither does making bald assertions that are unsupported by evidence.




Lurker

 

[ItinerantLurker]

How depressing! You believe that a thing the size of two-fists weighing about 3lbs is the entire means of gaining or gleaning knowledge of a universe around you that may be infinitesimally large?

Of course, how else do you think we can learn new things? Doesn't it strike you as rather odd how things without brains (or brain-like structures at the very least) don't learn? Or how people with traumatic brain injuries have trouble learning new things? Or how brain development affects how people can learn new things?

There is a wonder, a mystery, a story, a beginning, an ending, a whispering, and a story...all around you my friend...that may speak to things other than simply your brain, regarding your world/universe/place. Things that pure "science" or "observation" may never pin down.

I think you're talking about the brain as a metaphor whereas Namith is talking about an actual brain.

Go watch Ben Stein's documentary movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed if you want to see many good examples of why I think your statement is not only blatantly false, but actually the opposite of what is true.

I've watched it - it's a cacophony of errors and falsehoods that preys on people's ignorance.

Big-bang arguments are just an excercise in data-mining by "scientists" who are really building a case against God. Why? Because science can't explain God...therfore, science (generally) rejects God. Again, the human brain cannot rationalize a concept such as God.

Do you have any evidence for this? Or do you just "feel" as though this "must" be true?




Lurker

 

[ItinerantLurker]

Your argument that science promotes discussion, debate and competition of ideas is demonstrably false. What if a physicist decides that Global Warming is junk science and tries to get a paper published?

Why should a physicist expect get a paper published based on his "decision"? Is there some reason why that decision shouldn't be expected to be backed up by evidence?

science gave the world the eugenic movement which allowed men in Germany to scientifically formulate racial purity laws. As doctors performed surgeries on inferior races that were indescribably vicious they justified their actions that it was done to advance science.

More revisionist history. Check your primary sources, those scientists who informed pre-WWII Germany's racial policies were almost universally Christians who rejected the theory of common decent and, instead, justified their treatment of inferior races on the divine separation of races.



Lurker

 

[ItinerantLurker]

Not meaning to be critical, but what are some examples? All the ones I have seen are at least decades later, and written by people who did not witness the events, but simply report either what they've heard or what Christians believe.

Josephus springs to mind, and yes I know that his accounts about Christ were added to by Christian "editors", but most scholars seem to agree that his basic descriptions of Christ existing are pretty solid.

I make these points not to actually argue that Jesus never existed. I think it's fairly likely that he did, and the stories about him have been wildly exaggerated. But to assert that the evidence for his existence is proven and obvious is unfounded.

Meh, given that we have several independent sources that mention him and which don't have a vested interest in doing so (like the gospels) seems pretty solid to me.

Certainly that doesn't speak to his proposed divinity, but I think it provides strong evidence for his historical existence.




Lurker

 

[misesfan]

Why should a physicist expect get a paper published based on his "decision"? Is there some reason why that decision shouldn't be expected to be backed up by evidence?



More revisionist history. Check your primary sources, those scientists who informed pre-WWII Germany's racial policies were almost universally Christians who rejected the theory of common decent and, instead, justified their treatment of inferior races on the divine separation of races.



Lurker

Yeah - after all when Galton read Darwin, he converted to Christianity. Or perhaps the Christianity of Mengele or Karin Magnuson was simply overlooked.

Of course, as Sophie Scholl shows - Christians did fight the Reich. This young woman was beheaded by the Nazis when she was 22 years old - for handing out pamphlets describing the atrocities at extermination camps.

Sophie Scholl -22- died saying:

" How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause. Such a fine, sunny day, and I have to go, but what does my death matter, if through us thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?"
​

I much prefer her to the banal evil of those eugenecists in Nazi Germany who redefined themselves after the war as genetic scientists such as Otmar Freiherr.

 

[s.i.e.]

I've watched it - it's a cacophony of errors and falsehoods that preys on people's ignorance.

I half-expected you or namith to say that. Ok...write it all off if you will, along with the science that has been presented and black-balled before the global-warming powers-that-be.

If you think there aren't ideologies or political persuasions that shape the data-sets that get accepted or rejected into scientific communities, your ignorance may provide you your bliss. Bliss has it's uses, I get that.

 

[misesfan]

May want to check yourself before you wreck yourself there - most of those German eugenicists were, in fact, Christians who were explicitly rejecting Darwin's theory of common descent and instead drawing justification from the divine separation of the races.



No doubt the church has done some amazing things, but these really great things do not wipe away century upon century of oppression.



That's a nice piece of revisionism. So it was fellow scientists who must have taken an elderly Galileo to tour the many devices of torture employed by the inquisition. It must have been fellow scientists who responded to his work with the formal statement that,

"The doctrine that the earth is neither the center of the universe nor immovable, but moves even with a daily rotation, is absurd, and both psychologically and theologically false, and at the least an error of faith."​

Oh wait, that was the Church's formal declaration to which Galileo responded,

"The doctrine of the movements of the earth and the fixity of the sun is condemned on the ground that the Scriptures speak in many places of the sun moving and the earth standing still. . .I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the Scriptures, but with experiments and demonstrations."​

From the primary sources of the time, then, it would appear that the bolded section above was the actual issue, rather than some professional dispute among "fellow scientists" that the church sorrowfully took part in. Indeed, Galileo's recantation, he makes it absolutely clear that the dispute is one between science contradicting theology and not, as you seem to imply, one of science contradicting science.

"Because I have been enjoined, by this Holy Office, to abandon the false opinion that the Sun is the center and immovable, ...I abjure, curse, and detest the said errors and heresies...contrary to the said Holy Church."​

Science is biased towards theories which consistently explain evidence and against theories which are contradicted by evidence. The fact that scientists are unimpressed by climate change skeptics and/or creationists is not a flaw in the way science works - it is due to the lack of supportive evidence for those positions and the plethora of evidence which contradict them.



Curiously, neither does making bald assertions that are unsupported by evidence.




Lurker

I guess you havent heard of Rev Foscarini then. No matter, because that would clash with dogma. I wonder how all the Christian scientists were able to resolve the issue? You know, people like Newton, Leibnitz, Bernoulli, Gauss, Maxwell, Planck, Pascal, Napier, Gallileo (yeah, he was a Christian..), Boyle, Bayes, Euler, Cauchy, Faraday, do I really even need to go on?

I guess they were simple, feeble-minded individuals who couldnt think outside of anything but their environment - and these Christians had really no contribution to science or mathematics, I assume because of their belief in God prevented them from discussing the truth.

C'mon man... To deny that science was based on men who despite Christianity were able to observe the world is false. Newton alone transformed science and mathematics as a CHristian!

 

[Chad]

namith doesn't seem to understand, outside his own very limited understanding.

Maybe you'll read these resources

Bible Prophecy Truth > Home
CARM - Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry
Answers in Genesis - Creation, Evolution, Christian Apologetics

All the science, evidence, proof you need nicely summarized in 3 links.

 

[misesfan]

With their latest tactics Namith and Lurker need to learn of one Friar Albert Mangus, who in the 12th century showed that science and religion were compatible. Or perhaps another Friar - Roger Bacon who invented the scientific method. Acknowledging this requires some serious intellectual honesty.

 

[ItinerantLurker]

Christians did fight the Reich.

Of course Christians fought the Reich. No one is saying otherwise. What I'm trying to tell you is that those scientists who most influenced Germany's racial policies were Christians who rejected common descent. That is an unavoidable fact.




Lurker

 

[ItinerantLurker]

I half-expected you or namith to say that. Ok...write it all off if you will,

I certainly did not "write it off". When I initially heard about and saw the film I was a solid supporter of Intelligent Design. What I came to realize, however, as I delved into its claims was that it was undeniably and simply wrong.

along with the science that has been presented and black-balled before the global-warming powers-that-be.

More bald assertions. Do you have an example? We could start a new thread on it if you'd like. A lack of knowledge is something I can help you with; a desire to be wrong is not.

If you think there aren't ideologies or political persuasions that shape the data-sets that get accepted or rejected into scientific communities, your ignorance may provide you your bliss.

Certainly ideologies and politics influence scientists, but the process of science is built to be largely self-correcting by focusing so much importance on evidence. The failure of movements like Intelligent Design and skeptics of climate change is not due to ideology and/or politics - it's due to an utter lack of evidence supporting them.





Lurker

 

[ItinerantLurker]

I guess you havent heard of Rev Foscarini then. No matter, because that would clash with dogma. I wonder how all the Christian scientists were able to resolve the issue? You know, people like Newton, Leibnitz, Bernoulli, Gauss, Maxwell, Planck, Pascal, Napier, Gallileo (yeah, he was a Christian..), Boyle, Bayes, Euler, Cauchy, Faraday, do I really even need to go on?

I guess they were simple, feeble-minded individuals who couldnt think outside of anything but their environment - and these Christians had really no contribution to science or mathematics, I assume because of their belief in God prevented them from discussing the truth.

C'mon man... To deny that science was based on men who despite Christianity were able to observe the world is false. Newton alone transformed science and mathematics as a CHristian!

You appear to have moved your goal posts from "Christianity has a history of impeding knowledge that contradicted certain interpretations of scripture" to "No Christian has every contributed to our knowledge of the world."

Individual Christians have certainly made amazing scientific contributions. What I'm pointing out is that, while many Christians have found a way to reconcile science with faith they most often do so not by trying to use scripture to inform reality, but by using reality to inform their understanding of scripture. Unfortunately, most Christians throughout history don't seem to have particularly liked this approach and so Christianity has a very long and tragic history of suppressing knowledge and inquiry.

It was not until we followed Galileo's advice that, "in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the Scriptures, but with experiments and demonstrations." that the scientific revolution began. The Christian church cannot claim responsibility for a movement towards empiricism and away from mysticism that it fought from the outset and, in truth, is still trying to fight today.




Lurker

 

[ItinerantLurker]

With their latest tactics Namith and Lurker need to learn of one Friar Albert Mangus, who in the 12th century showed that science and religion were compatible. Or perhaps another Friar - Roger Bacon who invented the scientific method. Acknowledging this requires some serious intellectual honesty.

As I've explained before, science and religion certainly are compatible, to me that is a non-issue as long as religious adherents grant that either reality must inform their understanding of that faith or reality is inherently deceptive. What I'm more interested in is how any given religion can build a convincing case for its legitimacy in a universe that doesn't seem to provide us with any evidence for a particular deity.

I can certainly grant that God could have set up the natural laws that allowed for the expanding energy from the big bang to settle down into matter, planets, plants, and people. What I want to know is how those people are to really determine what god is responsible for those laws, and what it really is that we're supposed to do with that knowledge.




Lurker

 

[misesfan]

Of course Christians fought the Reich. No one is saying otherwise. What I'm trying to tell you is that those scientists who most influenced Germany's racial policies were Christians who rejected common descent. That is an unavoidable fact.




Lurker

Ernst Rudin was a Christian? The psychiatrist who wrote the short book "Permission to Destroy Life Devoid of Value." I dont think Jesus stated this principle. In fact, I do not think that this is found anywhere in the Bible. Ernst Rudin was drafted into Expert Committee of Population and Racial Policy. He was never convicted of war crimes and allowed to continue practice after the war. Outrage is not a word strong enough to show my contempt for this evil man.

Alfred Ploetz was a Christian? Hmmm - since his main claim to his religious upbringing was his circle of friends who enjoyed the works of Darwin and Haeckel, somehow I doubt it. He is author of many racial hygiene textbooks in Germany, including 'Racial Hygiene Basics' and so forth. He was an accomplice in the '33 programme with Rudin in which racial purity was given a scientific veneer in the name of eugenics. When he died at the age of 79 Otto Freiherr praised "his inner sympathy and enthusiasm for the Nazi movement. (He died in 1940)

Hans Gunther was a Christian? Perhaps when the "Jewish problem" at Wansee was being discussed, a Christian might object. This man thought the meeting, 'rather boring.' Never brought to trial of course, but what does 7 million deaths of innocent men, women and children really matter to someone who thinks their race makes them superior?

Shall I continue? Alfred Rosenburg - this pussycat didnt escape the gallows because he was a minister of eastern territories and the Soviets didnt take kindly when they were executed en masse. Of course, he rejected Christianity - his membership in the wierd Thule society was more akin to your beloved pagans than Christians.

Or how about Eugen Fischer? He sterilized children even before the Nazi's were in power with his eugenics experiments. During the war years, with plentiful human subjects to perform experiments, he was able to enunciate the Fischer-Saller scale - it tells us how likely a person will be born with blonde hair. Hey - science is about the results right? I wonder if this theory was self-corrected...

I must laugh, or else I will become cynical at people who want to blame Christ for evil, even when this evil is obvious at its source. You can make every argument you want to blame Christians for eugenics, but you would be wrong sir.

No other religion on the planet believe that all men are equal and free under God, and promotes liberty at the hand of the tyrant.

 

[misesfan]

As I've explained before, science and religion certainly are compatible, to me that is a non-issue as long as religious adherents grant that either reality must inform their understanding of that faith or reality is inherently deceptive. What I'm more interested in is how any given religion can build a convincing case for its legitimacy in a universe that doesn't seem to provide us with any evidence for a particular deity.

I can certainly grant that God could have set up the natural laws that allowed for the expanding energy from the big bang to settle down into matter, planets, plants, and people. What I want to know is how those people are to really determine what god is responsible for those laws, and what it really is that we're supposed to do with that knowledge.




Lurker

I must say, thank you, sir. I think I was attributing to you more malcontent than was justified.