Josh,
You don’t think theists are closed-minded by nature? When someone says ‘God exists- that’s the end of the story, you’re a fool to believe otherwise’, that’s the epitome of closed-mindedness.”

Apart from pointing out the hilarious double standard, I do have some things to say about atheism.

I used to call myself an agnostic, because I don’t absolutely rule out the possibility of a God. The problem was that people tended to interpret that to mean that I thought the God of Christianity, or Judaism, or Islam, or of [name your favorite organized religion] was a live possibility. I didn’t, and I don’t, so it reduces confusion when I call myself an atheist.

It’s also quite possible to be an atheist without ruling out the existence of God, as Bertrand Russell famously pointed out:
“Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.”

So I would describe myself as an atheist in Russell’s sense, having yet seen no evidence for the orbiting teapot.

The fine-tuning argument is the most compelling reason I see to consider the possibility of God’s existence. But like all other God-of-the-gaps arguments, it depends on science’s inability to supply a naturalistic explanation. Given the poor history of all the other GOTG arguments, I’ll go with the atheists on this one until science has had more time to work on the problem.

You don’t think atheists are close minded by nature? When someone says ‘God doesn’t exist- that’s the end of the story, you’re a fool to believe otherwise’ That’s the epitome of closed mindedness.

As Renard (may he rest in peace) once memorably said,
Oh, Josh. The irony!

Now, that it the truth of Darwinism- no wonder atheists are more likely to embrace it…and theists reject it. I’d wager that few theists who accept NDE theory realize what the theory actually means for them and for life in general. Which is why I think, if more of these people knew what it entailed- fewer would embrace it.

As I said before- atheists are close minded by nature. It’s funny when atheists claim to be so open minded and free thinkers when in reality it’s impossible to be an atheist- only someone with knowledge of everything and every atom in the universe could ever truly call themselves atheists. The best you can say is- I don’t have a belief in God and I don’t know…to say I KNOW there is no God is as close minded as you can get. Furthermore- atheists have the reputation (and rightfully so) for too often being depressing bummers who have way too much time and interest in attacking religion nonstop.

Finally, abiogenesis is definitely related to darwinism. Darwinists claim this isn’t the case, because the complete failure of this model- but why do you think they so often bring up Miller and his experiments? Why do they always sit on the edge of their seat when discussing SETI or possible life on Mars? Face it- you can’t get the origin of species until you get the origin of life…you always hear Darwinists explaining how it HAD to have happened to start it all off, yet then they claim- ‘well, it isn’t part of the theory.’ They only do this because of the impossible odds of life arising from non-life, which is why Hoyle had no interest in supporting the model.

Don’t worry- if scientists showed that life could arise from non-living materials, darwinists would rush out and say- ‘see, we told you it had to have happened once a few billion yrs ago!’

Once again…The theory that purports to explain everything usually can’t explain much of anything.

I hope you had a merry Christmas.

Regarding the old thread, I responded to you at
http://www.uncommondescent.com.....chives/605

Meanwhile, some comments on your last post:

PaV writes:
“You make the mistake of thinking that there is a conflict between reason and faith. There is none.”

PaV, you assume too much.

I brought up the DI and the NAS survey results to dispute your statement that it is
“…a big error to think that the popularity of ID and IC has to do with people’s religious faith.”

Behe admitted during testimony that ID was more plausible to theists. Josh says the same thing above. If faith has nothing to do with ID’s popularity, why do DI folks overwhelmingly believe in a personal God, when only 7% of NAS members do?

“Darwinism only exists because of people who don’t believe in God keep it alive.”

Tell that to the 31% of mainline Protestants, the 28% of Catholics, and the 6% of evangelicals who accept unguided evolution by natural selection. How do you think they would feel about your assertion that they “don’t believe in God”? What about someone who believes that God created the universe but is allowing processes within it (including evolution) to unfold without his intervention? Is such a person an unbeliever by virtue of not believing in your particular God?

Statistics from:
http://people-press.org/report.....portID=254

“About Hoyle: he wrote a book called, “The Mathematics of Evolution”, or something like that. He’s not sympathetic to neo-Darwinism at all.”

I didn’t say that Hoyle was a Darwinist. I simply pointed out that his tornado argument was directed at abiogenesis, not at Darwinism, contrary to your statement.

Merry Christmas!

You make the mistake of thinking that there is a conflict between reason and faith. There is none. The most reasonable thing to believe is that God exists and that He created the world. Other ideas are contrived. Darwinism only exists because of people who don’t believe in God keep it alive. But they do that with twisted, tortured logic. How long can that go on?

About Hoyle: he wrote a book called, “The Mathematics of Evolution”, or something like that. He’s not sympathetic to neo-Darwinism at all.

On the post regarding the “Response to Dover Decision”, or what have you, I’m still waiting for your response. You might not have noticed my responses to your prior posts there.

So, if the 7% you’re speaking of…they don’t believe in God because of what? NDE? Well then, NDE theory is atheistic and we’ll paint it with that brush from now on. Your logic must go both ways.

Of course design will be more friendly to a theist- but does that make the idea itself religious? Hardly. An atheist- close minded by nature (I mean, what on earth is an atheist anyhow? You can only reasonably called yourself agnostic) No amount of evidence in any field will convince most closed minded people of something they would rather not believe.