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Originally posted by marksw59:
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Originally posted by Dawkins7:
I certainly accept that science is fully capable of explaining "everything" given enough time. We've only had the tools of science for about 500 years and look how much we have discovered thus far.
So, in essence you have faith in science. I know you will deny that word, but use "confidence" instead to ease your mind
Why, yes, that's exactly the word I would use. The same word you thought I would use. I'm glad you recognize the difference.
Yes, my "confidence" is based on 500 years of observable progress that science has brought to us. It has not a damm thing to do with faith and everything to do with observable, verifiable facts, logic and reason.
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Here's the thing, I used to be one of you guys, an unbeliever. Rational logic decrees that the primacy of all things is existence. Consciousness can not come first, because without existence, what would there be to be conscious of? How could there be a god that exists outside of existence? Since existence, i.e. the world and the universe must come before anything including a god? Therefore there can be no such god.
Mark, that whole paragraph is one long non-sequitur. If you based your disbelief on this, no wonder you have embraced the irrational.
This is a statement based on your refusal to study the theories on how things came to be. There are rational, logical, mathematically justifiable ways of discerning these things. No Great Boogyman In the Sky is necessary.
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Then I began to read "The Elegant Universe" by string theorist Brian Green. String theory, whether any of the scientists would ever admit it or not, opens up infinite possibilities. Infinite possibilities. Now after some time considering infinite possibilities, I began to encounter situations that are not logically explainable, and no I will not elaborate. After one such dramatic encounter, I was enlightened by just a glimpse of a very small part of a larger picture. My life has since been changed and I can not imagine for a second how I lived even as long as I did as a lost being.
Ahh, here we have Nash's perennial "People change, therefore god exists!"
I'm not sure I understand you point for being here if you don't want to share what it is you believe and why you believe it. You experience some mystical "something" that you refused to describe. You have had "situations" that you can't explain. If it is so logical and "real" to you, it should be just as logical and real to me.
There is nothing in my experience that I will not logically explain and clarify for you. All I ask if the same of you. This "I had some stuff happen to be that I'm not going to tell you about but you better trust me because your immortal soul is at stake" is just silly. Fess up!
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I would ask that in the midst of the ridicule, what is it that you are trying to accomplish?
To spread the disease of reason and rational thought and hearty debate. No more or less.
No one has ever committed evil because they were thinking too rationally, ya know.