On 12 Jan 2013, at 12:03, Roger Clough wrote:
Hi meekerdb
As you observe, beliefs can be slippery, because reason is the
devil's whore.
That's a rumor propelled by the Devil :)
Reason is bad only for those of bad faith. Religion does not oppose
with reason.
It extends it.
Reason is the best ally to honest religion.
Reason is the enemy of those who want to manipulate you in religion's
name.
From your post, I am sure you agree on this at some level. The more
you trust God, the less you fear the use of reason, even if not
especially in theology.
To oppose science and faith perverts ... science and faith. I think.
Bruno
That's why we Lutherans rely first on faith (trust in God).
Second on the Bible.
[Roger Clough], [rclo...@verizon.net]
1/12/2013
"Forever is a long time, especially near the end." - Woody Allen
----- Receiving the following content -----
From: meekerdb
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2013-01-11, 17:42:15
Subject: Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.
On 1/11/2013 2:17 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 11:25 AM, wrote:
In a message dated 1/11/2013 2:27:33 AM Eastern Standard Time, jasonre...@gmail.com
writes:
1) Choose some religion, it doesn't matter which
2) Find an idea some adherents of that religion put forward but
almost no one seriously believes in or is easily shown to be
inconsistent
3) Assume that because you have disproved one idea of one religion
that all ideas found in all religions are false and/or unscientific
4) Bask in the feeling of superiority over those who are not so
enlightened
Jason
Ok, so in Darwinian fashion you sort through hundreds of faiths, so
what happens when you cannot dissprove a religion? You sort them
down till you hit a toughie, does that make it automatically
correct, or is it the intellectual limitation of the sorter? Your
Basking, is angering many non-believers, even. Witness Higg's
criticism of Dawkins. Believers, Jason, I suppose will merely, pray
for your soul (poor lad!).
Perhaps if you decided to create your own religion, that couldn't be
disproved, based on physics, or math, you would be coming up with
the best faith? Then we could all be converted to being Jasonites.
Or Reschers-whichever you prefer?
I'm nor sure I understand your point. My point was only that John's
adherence to atheism, which he defines as belief in no Gods, is less
rational than someone following his 4-step program to become a
liberal theologian.
In particular, it is the above step 3, rejecting all religious ideas
as false without giving the idea a fair scientific evaluation, which
is especially problematic. John is perhaps being prescient in
turning a blind eye to these other ideas, as otherwise we might have
the specter of a self-proclaimed atheist who finds scientific
justification for after lives, reincarnation, karma, beings who
exercise complete control over worlds of their design and creation,
as well as a self-existent changeless infinite object responsible
for the existence of all reality.
He would rather avoid those topics altogether and take solace in
denying specific instances of inconsistent or silly definitions of
God.
But your parody fails as a serious argument because the ideas put
forward by *almost all theists* include a very powerful, beneficent,
all knowing superbeing who will judge and reward and punish souls in
an after life and who answers prayers. Now some, far from powerful,
humans with far from complete information, eliminated smallpox from
the world. God therefore must have had that power and simply chose
not to do it. So if any very powerful, very knowledgeable
superbeing exists, it is not beneficent and not an acceptable judge
of good and evil. These are not just a peripheral idea of theisms
and it's falsehood is not a minor point because all theism insist
that these ideas are definitive of their religion.
John didn't say that all religions are false or unscientific. His
point was that you can avoid those attributes by becoming a *liberal
theologian* - and incidentally that nothing follows from liberal
theology.
Brent
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