mhaze,

My last post was a bit vague, so I’m not entirely sure if we’re on the same track here, but anyway…

<<That is dark matter/dark energy have all the properties of Yahweh other than intelligence.>>

Well, there is also the fact that dark matter/energy is a prediction whereas God is a blind guess.

Dark matter/energy is also useful in that it helps to explain something; a god does not. Inserting a god in as an explanation for something is a dead end; it is an excuse to not look any further. There are no models of the universe in which the presence of a god is required, productive or useful.

<<Nothing science has discovered in the last century or three disproves God.>>

And nor is it required to. The burden of proof is another thing that has been covered extensively on this thread.

That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.

<<…I admire your chutzpah in believing that your post totally demolished a way of thinking.>>

Well, I didn’t say “totally demolished”, I said “discredited”. But yes, over the course of this whole thread, I guess you could say I totally demolished a way of thinking. Please point out how I haven’t, if you don’t agree.

<<I note within these threads a certain absolutism among the activist atheists...'you're either with us or against us'. So in my post, since I hadn't come out unequivocally opposed to any thought of the divine, I must be, according to AJ et al, an advocate for Yahweh.>>

Please point to where I said you were an advocate for Yahweh (or anything of the sort).

Forgive me, though, if I ever confuse agnostics and theists. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my years on OLO, it’s that agnostics (please do see my discrediting on the common use of that term too) and theists make the same errors in reasoning as each other and argue using the same logical fallacies. And no other thread on OLO has demonstrated that more than this one.

It’s a bizarre phenomenon.

Continued…

…Continued

Worse still, self-proclaimed agnostics/fence-sitters/etc. attack atheists far more than they ever attack theists.

What’s with that?!

<<It seems to me, reading through these posts, that the believers in the divine, have made a mistake in being forced to defend their beliefs from a scientific viewpoint.>>

How is that a mistake? They allege that their god exists, and anything that manifests in reality is (or will eventually be) demonstrable, measureable and verifiable. Otherwise, we can’t distinguish between their god and something that doesn’t exist - and neither can they.

Of all the claims that one could ever make, religious claims are the ONLY claims that no-one expects the claimer to justify. So why does religious belief get a free pass here? What has it done to earn that?

You see what I mean about agnostics?

And they don’t just reserve all their attacks for atheists; they’ll defend religious belief tooth and nail.

Your last paragraph to me was just paranoid conspiratorial delusion that failed to demonstrate any understanding of how science works. But I’ll address the following just briefly, because earlier another poster here didn’t seem to understand what indoctrination was either…

<<What others will see as indoctrination, you'll see as just laying out the facts.>>

Indoctrination, in the context of this thread, is teaching one to think and believe uncritically and unquestioningly.

It’s no co-incidence that religious parents feel an urgency to get their children believing in their god before the critical thinking skills begin to develop. Most of us who had a religious upbringing remember being taught that it was a sin to question God’s existence.

So the implication in your statement here - that it’s all relative or subjective and who’s to say what’s indoctrination and what’s not - is just plain wrong. We can know what indoctrination is and there's a pretty clear line as to what does and does not constitute it.

Oh boy, mhaze. I can’t believe I missed this…

<<Merely asserting that something isn't so, isn't the same as proving it isn't so.>>

Could you show me where I have “merely asserted” anything here?

AJ Philips,
FACT: God is not defined by science as God is not physical.
Give me a scientific analysis of motive, character, immagination and creativity, which is where God is revealed in the physical. I do not want the physical analysis of the brain function.

Josephus,

So does this go for gravity too?

<<FACT: God is not defined by science as God is not physical.>>

I think what you're really getting at here is that whole bit about God transcending the physical world. If so, then fine, but if that's the case, then you have no way of distinguishing between your God and something that doesn't exist. And while that may be all fine and dandy too, it doesn’t portray you as someone who really cares much about the truth of their beliefs.

<<Give me a scientific analysis of motive, character, immagination and creativity, which is where God is revealed in the physical. I do not want the physical analysis of the brain function.>>

Yeah well, I could challenge anyone to explain anything without using its explanation and I'm going to stump them. But that doesn't mean the next logical step would be to insert a god in as a second explanation. And if there's already one explanation, then why add an unnecessary second layer?

Could you point to any evidence that God is in fact revealed in motive, character, imagination and creativity? Or are you just asserting this?

AJP,
Since Stephen Hawkins can define his TV presentation as "THE GRAND DESIGN" indicates there is intelligence in the universe understood by man. A grand design indicates a designer at work in the physical.

If you had read my previous post you would recognise God is revealed in the spiritual. The Scripture forbids the immagination making or invisaging in the physical an image of God. God is Spirit, that is why we are to exhalt in worship pure motives, holy character, grand design, great deeds, and sacrificial acts. All these are found in Christ, we do not worship the body of the man but the expression of God through his Spirit to our world. As the Scripture says, "No one has senn God in the physical at any time". Jesus has revealed God to us.

You yourself are expressing a low view of wonderment that is beyond the physical. You are more than a body, you are an expression of your convinced view of how life is to be understood. To you everything is only physical sciences that can be defined by man.