Amadd wrote on Oct 27
th, 2008 at 7:36pm:
Sprint I was setting you up for a line...you were supposed to reply "the bus is going straight to hell".
FD, Dawkins talked about a scale of 1 - 7 regarding belief in an interventionist God, where 1 = total belief and 7 = total non-belief.
He stated that although he was an atheist, he gave himself a 6. This is because he realises that he cannot be totally sure of anything, but it is in the category of believing in fairies at the bottom of the garden. This is the most common response for atheists.
However, most religious people scored themselves at a 1, because they are totally and absolutely sure about the existence of an interventionist God.
The point being, the atheists reply to the question more realistically.
Hi Amadd,
Atheists are realists.....
.....whereas, religious people are people who believe in faerie tales?
LETS EXPLORE THIS A LITTLE FURTHER....
As we know, it is impossible to prove a negative.
Correct?
Therefore yes, a reason-able atheist,
would give himself a 6 [on the above 1 - 7 scale].
+++++
On the other hand,
it is possible to prove a positive.
Have you considered, just perhaps, some ppl have 'proved' a positive [within their own experience]?
Hence some 1's from the religious bod's?
Amadd,
In my experience, there are 4 kinds of people walking this earth...
1. There are people who believe that there is no God.
2. There are people who believe that there may be a God. But hey, they don't know.
3. There are people who believe that there is a God, and they pray to him.
4. There are people who
know there is a God.
I can guess your next response.
"How can anyone
know there is a God???"
May i suggest, those ppl who have been in his presence can.
And many ppl alive today, do in fact make such a claim.
That they have had a 1st hand experience of God.
Saying this [above], i know that atheists, and many others, are always going to be sceptical about such claims.
So be it.
But additionally, let me ask you this Q.
Does the experience of a[nother] person become [in fact] invalid, because YOU have not shared such an experience?
What is
YOUR answer to that question?
[Answer recorded]
NOW, PROCEED BELOW....
++++++++++
Now Amadd,
To demonstrate a point of logic, imagine that it were possible for you to take
a one way trip, back in time 500 years, to lets say 1500's England.
And you begin to tell the natives of that time, about things from the distant future.
And you tell them [for instance] that it is possible for....
1/ A man-made metal 'bird' of gigantic dimensions [a 747 Jumbo], weighing 300 tons, to fly through the air.
2/ And that it is possible to build a machine which can send images, and messages [by radio waves], many miles away, through the ether, to other people.
Besides the fact that after you tell the natives of those parts these things, you may very well be the very next candidate to be taken to the town common, to be burned at the stake as a witch.....
Wouldn't it be almost impossible for you to prove to those ppl, that you have been a witness of these things, of which you spoke of?Wouldn't your claims that you had
seen those wondrous things, be regarded as unprovable non-sense?
Amadd,
Do you think that the minds, of some ppl who live today, are
any less 'closed', than the minds of ppl who lived 500 years ago?
People like Dawkins
believe in their own experience.
And that is a reasonable position.
And what ppl like Dawkins are really saying [to those who have a
different experience] is,
....."Please don't challenge my reality, with your different experience. Because i can not handle my reality and my truth being wrong!"
Reality and truth?
Sadly, reality is reality.
And truth is truth.
And we all come here,
to choose our own reality, and
to choose our own TRUTH.
.....in much the same way, as the ppl who lived 500 years ago were compelled to choose their reality and their truth.
Let me clarify those last words.
Do i believe in an absolute reality, and an absolute TRUTH?
Yes.
Or should i say, ABSOLUTELY!
But, i do not believe that we humans, being finite creatures, can understand such absolutes,
except in a limited [by our own finite-ness] way.
Is my God a 'reality'?
For me, yes.
p.s.
I'm a 1 [on the above 1 - 7 scale].
++++
1 Corinthians 2:9
But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
10 But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.
11 For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.
12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.