Atheists are often asked whether there is any sort of argument or evidence that would make them believe in God. Of course, the answer is yes. Jesse at Pandagon mentions one example.
After a July 14th commentary in the Philly Inquirer on Intelligent Design, ID proponents wrote in to the Inquirer to defend their rigorous scientific methodology.
Mr. Franek mentioned that “most educated religious authorities affirm that belief in God and evolution is not in conflict.” How can this statement be true if it leaves God (creator) out of the picture in creating man? God says he created man in his own image in Genesis, the first book of the Bible.
How is it that scientists can examine a rock specimen from Mars and “affirm” that there was once water on Mars (which has no water), and look at our planet, which is 70 percent water, and declare that there is no evidence of a worldwide flood?
Scientists and religious authorities are, indeed, fallible.
It’s called “science”. You see, massive flooding leaves evidence. You do know what evidence is, don’t you? It’s that stuff that convicts the B-list celebrities on Law & Order. Think about that…but on a big, global scale.
You see, one thing has nothing to do with the other – whether or not there was ever water on Mars has no bearing on if the entire planet flooded several thousand years ago. It’s not like Noah built an intergalactic starship and bumped his ass to Mars to dump off the extra water, all the while bringing the pure power of funk to benighted Martians.
And if he did, I have to rethink this whole atheist thing, because that’s sweet.
It’s true. Any credible evidence of God using his omnipotence to help humans bring the funk to other planets, and I’d become a regular churchgoer.
So, from your title, am I to presume that my soul is in my ass? : )
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In college I had a recently born-again housemate ask me whether, if I was presented with evidence of a miracle, I would accept it, or whether I’d still refuse to believe because miracles are “scientifically impossible”.
I wish I’d heard of Karl Popper back then.
And George Clinton.
Doesn’t this assume that God is the god of christian mythology? What about Odin or Zeus or the various Aztec or Hindu deities? After all wasn’t Quezecoatl was a snake with wings? Surely the fact that there are snakes and creatures with wings can’t be pure coincidence!
Yes, Steve, this is what gets me about the creationists. There are so many creation myths and religious stories, why is *theirs* the one that is correct? It is so Christian-centric it’s ridiculous.
Christianity/Islam/Judaism have essentially the same creation story.
The Hindus have a cyclic cosmology with time-scales of billions of years; plus parallel universes. Some idea of the time-scales involved are here:
http://www.aaronsrod.com/time-cycles/time-cycles-03.html
has as good a translation as any of part of the Surya Siddhanta. One needn’t take the rest of the material seriously.
As to what the numbers mean, God alone knows 🙂 while some people (continue with the URL above) find in its ratios an “analysis of the mean solar motion…. a conceptual structure based upon three mean motions for the Sun and two seven-fold subcycles of the precession”.
And don’t forget to give Sun Ra his props:
http://www.missioncreep.com/mw/sunra.html
See the Top 10 Intelligent Designs for a one-stop reference to your choices among the popular creation myths.