Ludwig,

"We obviously think in a fundamentally different way mj."

I'm open to that.

"I can’t see the slightest undertones of insolence in my questions or in your inverted questions."

That satisfies my curiousity. Given the way you consider it you obviously had no intention to insult.

Bugsy,

"most premises that start with God not existing are usually going to be offensive to a believer, as it will always imply that they are either stupid or irrational, and most of the time they are neither"

Thank you for noting what you did at the end of your post.

Have you considered that just because most discussions in here include either an implication or a overt assertion that believers are either stupid or irrational doesn't mean the topic couldn't be debated without that? An atheist could believe that they had the better view based on the evidence and argue their case with a believer who had a contrary view. Each could respect each other's opinion. If atheist had no other option then converts to atheism would have a problem.

Theists traditionally argued that the universe must have a cause and God is the cause while atheists argued that the universe has always been there so no cause is needed. No stupidity or irrationality was needed to counter the theists position. Physics was relied upon.

mjpb, I did say 'most'. There is a certain element of religion that relies almost completely on a subjective feeling (anyone for some divine ecstasy?), that totally precludes rationality. The rest of the time seems to be spent applying rationality to justify that feeling.

Any thought that enters the human mind is based in imagination. All advances in ideas, images and products came from immagination - yes fertile ones. Lidwig is an immature thinker. There is nothing inhuman about immagination, it defines man above other creatures. Even the post that came from Ludwig was created by his fertile mind. His vain attempt at put down defines his own mind, attitudes and character.

Oliver

Looking at space with or without a telescope speaks more a of wonderful all power Creator than it does of some unlikely big bang theory. I seem to remember that you seem to pluck 300000 years from some totally obscure formula to somehow try and justify your position. Others pluck billion of years or millions. What is numbers when you are just guessing? No one is arguing about how immensely big our universes is. Some astronomers put it down to God while others have all kinds of wild theories. All are faith based. The 'joke' I referred to was for you to really believe that science backs up the theory you have adopted as your position.

“To the modern, it explains the spiritual - why am I not happy with my lot in life.”

That seems to be a highly plausible theory Pericles.

I guess it is a matter of people feeling deep in their soul that…

all their increased material wealth hasn’t really improved their quality of life,

that the mantra of strong economic growth leading directly to great improvements in their lives, that has been perpetrated upon them for decades, is essentially an enormous fallacy,

that things are not looking at all good in the not too distant future,

that they are perplexed and disillusioned by the strongly contrasting messages that they hear from politicians, scientists, economists and environmentalists,

and that even if they do agree with a certain course of action, they feel powerless to meaningfully contribute to it.

So they turn to Christ.

That’d be wonderful is American Christianity was aligned with environmentalism and sustainability. But alas it just ain’t so.

.
Philo, I can’t get the gist of your post. What “put down” are you referring to?

runner,

Thanks.

It was a COBE photograph of the Universe "at" 300,000 of age, look back over twelve billion years, and its presence was predicted by before it was taken. If memory, serves both Pluto and Neptune were discovered as a results of physics.

One point I was making in a recent post was that the CERN Super Coller will soon be testing some of that funny physics, wherein, the fundamentals of the beginning will be confirmed or refuted.

Religion has been scientific in that on many occasions it has predicted the end of the World. But we are still here. Actually, I suspect the predictions really related to the first and near century, with second coming and the apcolypse no necessarily enjoined as one expect. That is, the second coming probobly was likely first seen to be a first century (Gregorian) calendar event coinciding with the Jewish fourth millinium, whereas Paul was writing decades later, on an island. He writes in the style of Daniel, yet, the metaphors align very closely with the Roman military movements of his period.

Regards,

O