In Reply to: Conditions posted by Skep on January 16, 2006 at 14:57:15:
Skep:
Here's an excerpt from something interesting I just read. I recalled your comments here, and thought I'd share this quote, for which I'll also include the URL it came from, so it can be read in its entirety.
Here's the quote:
"It is correct to say that God would never kill. This is because He never does. He gives us the gift of life, and when He takes us from this world we pass into the next and inherit eternal life. There is no death. Moreover, if upon liberating us from the shackles of the material, God takes us into Heaven, a place where pain is unknown and peace and joy immeasurable, has He not done us a good turn?
Another impediment to spiritual understanding is a misunderstanding involving scientific understanding. The ancients had no trouble believing that a storm, earthquake or some other natural phenomenon could be an instrument of God's will any more than they had trouble viewing a sunrise or a baby's birth as a miracle. We, though, are quite different. We learn about barometric pressure, tectonic plates and seismic waves, planetary rotation, conception and chromosomes, and then the scope of our understanding of God's creation changes our understanding of God's scope. Our burgeoning knowledge robs miracles of their mystery, and then we think it's a mystery that anyone would claim that they're miracles.
It really is a fascinating phenomenon. It's much like marveling at an intellect that can ascertain a faraway star's distance from the Earth, but then concluding it's nothing special upon hearing an explanation of triangulation. We are left unimpressed because God hasn't worked His wonders with the magical, but we always forget that the magical fails to make us wonder once we understand it. God had to create the world in some fashion, but had He done so in a different manner, would we be more awed and faithful? Not if we could glean insight into His methods, for it would always be the same old story. As Mark Twain said, "Familiarity breeds contempt."
It's ironic, if we were too dumb to penetrate the outer layer of God's handiwork, faith would not be so elusive. Perhaps, though, our brilliance in the scientific realm is equaled by our ignorance in the spiritual one.
We are children of God, like Him in that we possess intellect and free will. Is it surprising then that those made in the image of He who created the world would have an ability to understand that creation? Would it make sense to grant these creatures dominion over the Earth and enjoin them to subdue it without providing them with a capacity to grasp its workings commensurate to that task? The irony is that God gives us the ability to understand His world, and then we can't understand how the world could be His."
Here's the URL: http://www.newswithviews.com/Duke/selwyn30.htm
Sincerely,
OT2 (OldtimerToo)
PS
Please tell me what you are meaning by your use of the word "nature"; what parameters are you using here; philosophically, please?
I disagree with you regarding probability and the "theory" (linearly weakly-grouped hypotheses; actually--I can demonstrate) of evolution.
I say that there are many reasons, all of them logically and philosophically foundational to any rational discussion of them, that demonstrate this quite logically.
The "pragmatism" of accepting certain belief systems as scientific without actual proof, is actually the opposite of the meaning of pragmatism--it's an a priori argument parading as fact, and it can only make sense as an article of faith; but only blind faith, which should not fairly be confused with real faith.
Faith has to be deserved, and real faith is.
Then, you state that:
"But then we find a sort of missing link, and a huge chunk of that cloud pretty much gels and can be incorporated to the dense core (I am not saying that evolution had that missing link). From that point on the gelled portion as it is integrated into the body of dense knowledge making it more sophisticated, creates new questions which are also more sophisticated."
Questions:
-Just who is the rhetorical "we"; please?
-"A huge chunk...gels...and can be incorporated"; how, please?
Are you claiming that non-linear philosophical assertions can somehow be reframed as linear knowledge without a rationally observable process demonstrating why this should be true?
Are you familiar at all with the Greek Sophists? They asserted a lot about the nature of reality and knowledge without logical foundation, as well. The Greek philosophers preceeding them were not quite as religious. That is, less blind faith was required to give credulence to the belief set they proposed.
I'm afraid that error plus time can only equal error, not a supposed "sophistication". Please exlain.
With all due respect, what you're asserting sounds more like "high thoughts and vain imaginations that exalt themselves against the knowledge of God", as well as "science falsely so-called".
What are your contrary arguments, please? Could you please connect the dots; so-to-speak?
Perhaps you should actually think a bit more?