A Reason for Faith: Christianity on Trial
This final statement, that the universe is eternal, has particular relevance to the discussion because it highlights a slim point of agreement. Eternity is real. There exists an infinite past and an infinite future. What distinguishes the concept of eternity in both worldviews is that which is thought of as eternal. Christianity sees eternity as a characteristic of the supernatural realm while Objectivism sees it as a characteristic of a “metaphysically given” universe. As Bernstein put it, the universe is not the product of creation or chance but of causal laws based in the nature of reality. Water behaves as water, not because it was designed that way, but simply because it is that way.
Here we bump up against the epistemological wall Objectivism builds around itself. While the concept of eternity is induced from our observation of cause and effect, Objectivism defaults to the only inductive conclusion it can make — that the universe is somehow eternal — because it is incapable of reaching beyond what a thing is to address how it got that way. Like a rat in a maze, we are meant to content ourselves with having cheese, and not question from whence it came. D’Souza put it another way. “Faith goes where evidence [and therefore Objectivism] can’t reach.”
In truth, Bernstein’s characterization of Christianity as violating the primacy of existence is a strawman. The Christian worldview does not regard God as a consciousness independent of existence. The Christian God has always existed and always will exist. His is the eternity which Objectivism ascribes to the universe. What’s more, the primacy of existence goes further to suggest that God does exists than to prove He does not.
There is another primacy to consider, the primacy of consciousness over information. It takes a mind to conceive of language. We behold language in every aspect of our world, from the biological blueprints of DNA to the mathematical precision of physics. To regard the vast amount of information contained in a pair of microscopic cells, adequate to direct the formation of a new human being, as nothing more than a “metaphysically given” is to regard the Library of Alexandria as a curious bit of rubble. As the ongoing Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) will attest, information from an alien source is a sure sign of an alien consciousness. Just as archeology properly regards an ancient text as evidence of an ancient people, the language written within us is evidence of a consciousness which conceived it.
To this point Bernstein would argue that we must account for who designed the Designer. That question proceeds from a false premise, that everything has a cause. In truth, only effects have causes. The First Cause is eternal. In any case, it seems odd for Bernstein to assert that the universe is eternal while insisting a creator god would require a cause.
Thank you for providing these, Walter. I read Dinesh D’Souza’s What’s So Great About Christianity and it made for fairly interesting read.
I once heard an excellent sermon some years ago that at least in part was based on a painting, with the painting representing numerous broken hammers encircling an anvil. I can’t seem to locate the picture. If memory serves, I believe it based on:
“Sire, it belongs, in truth, to the church of God,
in the name of which I address you, to suffer
blows, not to strike them. But at the same time
let it be your pleasure to remember that the
Church is an anvil which has worn out many a
hammer.” – Theodore Beza to the King of Navarre in France
In the sermon, the anvil represented Christianity and the broken hammers representative of the hundreds of philosophical skeptics over the years who have tried to destroy the foundation of Christ.
Andrew Bernstein is the hammer with the glossy broken handle.
It is perhaps wise to remember that in our country we have no established religion. Instead we have cultural/religous pluralism. That is what makes ours a secular state, that entails the forbidding of any state religion.
The choice we have is not between atheism and Christianity, but a number of religions and the possibility of a materialist view of the universe. I wrote about that here: http://clarespark.com/2013/01/24/culture-wars-and-the-secular-progressives/.
I think it more wise to remember the foundations of Christ has no country.
My father, who held a Ph.D in chemistry and worked for years in the US nuclear program, was not a conventionally religious man. Raised in Orthodox Judaism, his observance was less than stringent throughout his adult life. I asked him, in one of our last serious conversations, what his views on religion were. He said:
“When I was young, my friends and I thought that religion was unnecessary; that science and rationalism would sweep everything before them. We were wrong. [I must interject here that it was very uncommon for him to admit that he was wrong---though, in fairness, he very seldom was.]
“We were wrong because we thought that man is a rational animal. We are not rational. We are capable of rationality, in certain circumstances and over certain subjects, but by and large we are not rational. Human irrationality—or, since there is a value judgment implied in “irrationality,” human non-rationality—is a constant. It cannot be suppressed or eliminated; if you try to suppress it, it pops up in some other form. Attempt to eliminate the non-rational portion of the human makeup, and all you get is bad science.
“Human non-rationality is like a universal solvent; it dissolves whatever it touches. The issue with a universal solvent is—what vessel can be used to contain it? How can it be controlled and its capabilities harnessed? How can the non-rational impulse be kept separate from the rational impulse, so that the rational impulse can function properly?
“Religion is the only vessel that has ever shown itself able to consistently contain the non-rational, and to harness it for mankind’s benefit. It is not a perfect vessel—there are cracks and breaks and spillages, and laboratory accidents—but it remains the only vessel that has shown itself capable of doing so over time.”
He opposed the comingling of the rational and the non-rational in all its forms, whether the teaching of Creation in science classes, or “scientists” using science to further an ethical or political agenda. He saw the quasi-religious “scientific” popular hysterias, such as fears of cancer from power lines and cell phones, or of “global warming,” as examples of the corruption of rationality that occurs when the non-rational impulse is suppressed but not contained, and when the containment vessel of religion is discarded.
Your father was a wise man – thanks for sharing that.
Concur. Another thank you here.
Your father-scientist wonderfully explained the contemporary religion:” Religion is the only vessel that has ever shown itself able to consistantly contain the non-rational”-that`s true,C.Marx` definition is similar:”religion is the opium for the people”.
My father’s description of religion’s purpose and function could not be more diametrically opposed to Marx’s dictum. Marx was seeking to disparage religion as addictive, and as an anodyne, intended to delude and subjugate—an anodyne which, not incidentally, Marx wanted to destroy and to replace with his own pseudoscientific worldview. My father’s description describes why Marx’s point of view is fundamentally incorrect—and, indeed, why religion, contrary to Marx’s thinking, is both useful and necessary.
God as Inhibitor as I am wont to say.
Your father is wise and only through experience was he able to gain this wisdom. Were it so that others could follow his example.
Buzz -
Your father had a good insight about religion – mainly, that he saw it as a vessel to contain human non-rationality, period. He didn’t make the mistake of believing in any non-rational imaginings as if they were real, which is what makes religion dangerous. It should not be given the “free pass” to be respected as “real” when it has no factual basis.
Christians should recognize in the dangerous religion of Islam, for instance, what their own religion looked like before it was tempered by the advance of reason and science. Christianity fought tooth and nail against those things, slowing the advance of civilization to a crawl for centuries.
Islam now threatens to usher in another Dark Ages for the same reasons.
Your father may have been right that non-rationality may be impossible to eliminate from human nature, but I think fairy tales and fantasy football might be worth trying as a replacement for religion. They don’t lead to megalomania and genocide quite as directly.
I would not go so far as you do, to speculate whether or not he “made the mistake of believing in any non-rational imaginings as if they were real.” I wouldn’t claim that on his behalf, and don’t think you can, either.
It is a mistake to presume that something is not “knowledge”—or “real,” for that matter—merely because it is non-rational. Charity and compassion and the concept of justice may be rationalized post facto, but they do not begin as “rational” things; that is not their source. Also, the humility which is a necessary brake upon human beings’ arrogant infatuation with their own cleverness is something which stems from the non-rational apprehension there are far greater things than we in the universe.
Your suggestion that religion be replaced by such trivialities as “fairy tales and fantasy football” falls directly into the trap of arrogance and hubris which my father’s effort at separation sought to avoid. Yes, there have been terrible excesses committed in the name of various religions—and, equally, one must be careful to choose the religious vessel in which one seeks to contain the non-rational impulse. But creating such feeble imitations as “fairy tales and fantasy football” is no solution, any more than the feeble modern-day religious imitations of communism or pseudoscience worship are a solution.
By equating Christianity, under which rational thought has been able to take root and flourish—if sometimes in uneasy coexistence with the non-rational—with Islam, which is Judaism with all of the mercy expunged, you are merely displaying a prejudice against religion which manifests itself in moral equivalency, which is precisely the sort of thinking that my father sought to avoid.
This theory, which you present with an appeal to authority veiled with filial respect, does not correspond to the manner in which religion is maintained in human society. Quite the contrary.
Rather than as a container for the irrational, as an asylum for a lunatic, religion is held to be the highest, the purest, the most exalted area of human endeavor. It is the path to Glory. When you glorify something, you get more of it. Do we want more irrationality, or less? Religion is held to be immune from rational criticism; above such pedantic, earthly concerns as logic, evidence, consistency, reason. When you immunize something, you preserve more of it. Religion is held to be, not mental pathology to be quarantined, but rather the source of morality itself; the guiding light for all human action. When irrationality is the guide, the destination is Hell on Earth.
A container for the irrational? Containment should be made of sterner stuff.
Yes; because it is the source of morality. It will be interesting to see what, if anything, you suggest as an alternative source for morality, and what, if anything, your authority for that assertion will be.
The primary goal of Christ-ianity: Replace your “old fallen nature”, the inherently evil one with a new nature, born of God that communes with God via spirit continually. But you have to admit the fallibility of (your) the old nature before you can enter in to the new.
The objective rational man sees no evidence of this fallen nature within himself but does see it in nearly everyone else, a gift which Ayn had in spades:
Selfish interest is best, honestly rational and allowing it in others is good.
Those who seek to take that which they have not earned are the true criminals, the enemies of all mankind and the irrational. This is objectivism, the highest pinnacle of fallen man.
It is not as if God is unselfish and irrational in desiring those who worship Him to do so in spirit and truth. After all God is a spirit so why should He not finish the job of making man spiritual, one who knows God and therefore all truth, a perfect man.
God does violate the Objectivist principals in giving man something he did not earn, that new nature, but believe truthfully, that if you achieve the highest goal you will feel as though you did earn it somewhere along the way. That is why Paul said “I count all things as loss in order to obtain Christ” Self sacrifice if you will for a better prize. Selfish.
To call God or His true followers unselfish or irrational is same thing as blaming a blind man for falling into a ditch. Leaving the old man behind and chasing after the greatest prize is in a mans best interest and he is chasing what he sees and knows to be real in his heart even if it is sometimes called faith.
As beautiful as it is, Objectivism is still a religion of the dead.
This appears to just another case of a “debate” happening between a competent apologist and a disputant that is simply unprepared. What kind of philosophical hack must you be to separate God’s consciousness from existence, has this guy never heard of the Ontological argument? Does he honestly expect to simply posit the principle of empirical verifiability in the 21st century???
“Reason is the faculty which… identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses. Reason integrates man’s perceptions by means of forming abstractions or conceptions, thus raising man’s knowledge from the perceptual level, which he shares with animals, to the conceptual level, which he alone can reach. The method which reason employs in this process is logic—and logic is the art of non-contradictory identification.”
Simply:
“Prove it.”
Prove, without self-reference, that reason is:
First, a faculty;
Second, capable of identifying material provided by the senses accurately;
Third, capable of integrating those identifications;
Fourth, the competence of those integrations;
Fifth, capable of forming concepts from them;
Sixth, the universality of those concepts;
Seventh, the universal use of logic;
Eighth, the exclusive use of logic;
Ninth, why this is not all just a bunch of First Cause nonsense in and of itself.
And for extra credit:
Demonstrate why it is irrational and illogical to take or accept from others when you can as opposed to “earning” your wealth by your “labor” or whatever.
The Objectivist Atheist demands religion prove itself.
I demand Objectivist Atheism prove itself.
After all, reasoning through logic, the failure of religion to prove itself does not automatically prove Objectivist Atheism is correct. That is a logical fallacy, as both could easily be completely wrong.
Therefore it is not sufficient for Objectivist Atheism to claim that religion is unproven, but it must actively prove itself as well, or accept, by its own standards of logic driven reason, by the requirements it demands of religion, that it itself is dependent on faith in its own initial declaration, and so is just a much a religion as any other religion, and thus by its own standards absolutely false and invalid.
I hope those Objectivist Atheists have paradox resistant crumple zones installed.
“Bernstein points out that Christians do not confine their faith to their own lives and use it as a basis for dictating how others should live.”
So do Objectivist Atheists.
The politically active “libertarian” ones are perhaps the worst, with their “demands” as to how government must be structured, and refusal to acknowledge the rights of others to constitute government any other way.
Hoever even the political inactive anarchist types insist on inflicting their values on others when they reject accepting the delegated authority or sovereignty of others. That they wind up in a court of law for fraud and other crimes should be the first clue that they put no real value on the principles they claim to espouse in the first place, after all they have already used force against others to benefit themselves, but their insistence that others submit to their value judgements and only use personal non-force (or something) against them to secure redress of their greivances is just as much dictating how others live as any canon law or doctrinally inspired secular law.
In the face of such blatant hypocrisy, taking the original claim seriously as an absolute disqualifier is illogical and unreasonable in the extreme.
Between those two we should note that most religions ultimately accept their reliance on faith and various transgressions of their past.
Atheism, particularly Objectivist Atheism, is incapable of either.
Which then has the better claim to operating on the principle of logic-driven reason?
“In order to discern whether Christianity is good or bad for mankind, “good” must first be defined.”
In that sentence Walter you encapsulated the crux of the whole matter. Those of us that fear God must not allow the secularists to redefine the terms. The prophet Isaiah put it in exact words, “woe unto them that call good evil and evil good.” The problem that Christianity has in the modern Western world is that it has abandoned the power behind faith which is the Spirit of the Living God. Peter, when the cripple asked him for alms, didn’t give the man a rational explanation of God. He said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” Peter lifted him up and the man walked and the people around were filled with wonder and amazement.
Hello! Doesn’t anyone recognize that “rationality” requires a postulate (an “irrational” postulate) that can’t be proven true or false? Objectivists=idiocy.
I think Christianity wins by forfeit. Despite Christian belief in a mysterious being who lives on the other side of the Crab Nebula, Christians nevertheless understand that water is wet and sand is dry.
Liberals will tell you Noah took dinosaurs with him on the ark because conservatives believe the world is 4004 years old. Liberals are probably sorry they didn’t insert a scene with Sarah Palin asking if there’s Betamax footage of Noah lassoing dinos in the hit-piece they did for HBO.
Liberals set no limits on reality. It is whatever they want it to be. I’ll believe in 4,000 year old dinosaurs and playing soccer with ghosts before I’ll believe Third World illegal aliens will bring us into the next step of the space age. That bends faith more than a black hole bends light. Ergo liberals are actually more superstitious than Christians since their faith runs counter to what I have which is a history book that shows no Mayan or Somali space stations to date, nor feminist Amazon armies overrunning Europe.
As all people know, the average history book written by a Christian is as pragmatic as a car manual compared to the science-fiction novel that is the liberal version of American history, where white men relentlessly stalked any non-white with machetes and continue to do so to this day in the form of shape-shifting Latinos like George Zimmerman who can change to white at will, according to liberal doctrine.
Politically correct liberals who laugh at Christians say that plastic sexual adjuncts, near-misses and actual reproductive organs each equal the concept of family, i.e., that two men (or women) plus an adopted baby are one of the pillars of society. Ironically liberals are fond of saying this is the “right” side of history, though there is no such history known since Ramses II used dinosaur labor to build his temple at Abu Simbel. My own mathematical formula goes more like liberal + swine = liberal swine.
PC liberals therefore believe that if sand whines enough and wants to be considered as wet as water, they should bring a hanky and push on society until sand is considered wet, not only in popular culture but in law.
I would rather be insane only on Sunday rather than 7 days a week.
Final score: Christianity 6, Liberals 1.
All I know is that Sarah Palin seems to have a deeper understanding of evolutuon than the inquisitors putting her up on trial for heresy.
By the way, Dr. Elmer Radkowski, Chief Scientist of the Naval Nuclear project for 20 years – that is, the man responsible for a lot of the science behind the most stable leg of the triad that kept the Soviets at bay during the cold war – the nuclear submarine fleet – consisdered evolution nonsense from a scientific viewpoint.
As for me, I have no idea. I’m a computer programmer, not a scientist.
Sorry, Alvin.
I think Fall Burton has stumbled into a trap that regularly ensnares citizens. I refer to making this discussion a liberal vs. conservative discussion. Mr. or Ms. Burton seems to think that it’s liberals who don’t believe in Christianity. Not so. I’m just one person, but also a life long traditional conservative Republican. By “traditional,” I mean that one can be a bona-fide conservative without accepting Jesus as my savior. Or, to put it in a different way, I don’t need to be “saved” by somebody else’s religious views. I have my own views; both personal and private.
“Liberals set no limits on reality…..” Rather, I would think it is elements of Christianity that don’t set the limits. It’s not liberals who profess the world was created in 4004 B.C. and that dinosaurs walked the planet at the same time as mankind. It’s not secularists who for the most part try to impose their ideology on American society. But one does have to deal with the continuing efforts of fundamentalist Christians to impose THEIR ideology (the “religious right”). Which is why a group such as Americans United for Separation of Church & State, headed by an ordained minister, exists.
Pray tell, WHERE in the bible does it say that the planet is only 4000 years old? In reading Genesis it seems to me that God didn’t even put up the clock (the Sun) until verse 14 – which was several “days” into Creation. The bible also say’s God exists outside of time where to Him 10,000 years is but a moment.
But go ahead a cling to that illusion that Christians (who gave the world MOST of its science) are a bunch of flat earthers – a concept that apparantly only ever existed in a liberals mind since in no part of nautical history is the thought of a flat earth or falling off ever mentioned.
Then he lives inside a black hole where his time is not my time.
Your mind is very small and you have no imagination. Think………
What if the Universe is really a bubble and He lives outside it?
What if He exists in a different dimension?
What if our reality is really just a concept in His mind?
What if we’re an ant farm He put together for science class?
Don’t ask me where in the bible it says the earth is 4,000 years old. Ask the Christians who espouse that view; particularly the ones who want creationism to be taught as science in the public schools.
Then you need to learn to define your argument to determine if it’s Christianity or certain Christians, meaning individuals and not what the bible itself says.
I have no idea what you’re talking about. What fundamentalist Christians are at CNN and MSNBC and Democracy Now and NPR and PBS pushing an agenda? Does the Huffington Post have a section called “Christian Voices” like they do “Black Voices” and “Gay Voices?”
There may be members of the Dem Party who are Christians but I’m talking about liberal doctrine, not individuals. Who is it who’s constantly trying to take the word “God” out of everything and whining about saying “Merry Christmas.”
As for reality, if liberals can believe that hyper-criminalized and sociopathic black youth culture doesn’t in fact exist, that George Zimmerman is white, that Sarah Palin ordered a hit on Giffords, that the entire Third World are de facto American citizens, that the next class of aircraft carriers will be created by Hispanic culture, and that woman + woman + test tube equals nuclear family, then I can believe that dinosaurs hauled rock for the pyramid of Khufu.
The original article by Mr. Hudson was an account of a philosophical debate between two academics regarding Christianity. You’re the poster who just had to bring in the tired old liberal vs. conservative arguments. You’re the person who thinks that the next class of aircraft carriers has anything to do with a debate about Christianity. ???????
How may Christians answer this view of knowledge?
They only have one option: they must first find license to permit the arbitrary — to “deny knowledge in order to make room for faith”, as D’Souza’s hero Immanuel Kant sought to do.
That’s what those demanding “proofs” of atheism are doing – they are shirking their epistemological responsibility to back up their initial positive assertion that “God exists”. Sorry bub, the onus of evidence is always with the first claim to positive knowledge. That is the purpose of rejecting the arbitrary – it’s the mind’s first and most crucial filter in discriminating between the signal of possibilities worth investigating, and the noise of fantasy, hallucination and made-up bullshit. Without this filter, a person can be conned into believing anything – and they do, from Christianity to Scientology to Islam,, from the morality of slavery to astrology to collectivism.
Rejecting the arbitrary is itself not an assertion of any sort, anymore than wearing earplugs to a rock concert constitutes screaming; it is preposterous, therefore, to assert that it requires positive justification. You wouldn’t permit that in the physical world – you would not accept that the onus is on you to justify refusing entry to any random stranger at your door who wants in… so why do you go around demanding an unearned entry into someone’s mind?
“Prove that He doesn’t exist,” is just a Christians polite way of saying, “shut it and don’t bother me,” as we’ve grown weary of the CONSTANT assault upon our religious freedoms in this country. And before you defend them (atheists) let me remind you it isn’t US bringing the endless lawsuits against little towns across the country by out of towners who have no business filing the lawsuits in the first place. It also isn’t US bringing lawsuits against these same towns to remove crosses from war memorials (read: graveyards).
I give up: why do progressive liberals do that?
Because maybe, just maybe, it is not “progressive liberals” who are doing that. Maybe it’s just plain average citizens who believe in the 1st amendment to the US Constitution.
If lolly was to do some research, he might find that it’s usually local people living in a community who object to overt displays of certain religious views in their community, outside of churches. Maybe it’s local people who don’t want only one religion erecting memorials on government property thus creating an impression that government endorses a certain type of religious view. Maybe it’s local people who want their children to be taught science in the public schools and not creationism masquerading as “science.”
Miss Lolly HAS done her research. It is ALWAYS an outside group such as FFRF that have been going to every small town they can find at Christmas time and filing a lawsuit. They don’t even pretend (like the ACLU) to be standing in behalf of an unnamed person (and in ACLU lawsuits the complaintant is ALWAYS unnamed – which leads me to believe they are an invention) but that they are acting in behalf of the entire United States of decency and that these graveyards and creches at Christmas in the town square are violations of the hightest order.
Even if I believed they had a leg to stand on I despise these groups because they are bullies going around and removing every vestage of religious symbolism from states and city seals just because they are on a Crusade to stamp out every sign that religion had anything to play in this country’s founding or history.
Their one premiss is that they ARE bullies and actually COUNT on the town not having enough money to fight a lawsuit in court and they’ll capitulate without even understanding their rights. Miss Lolly has also directed a lot of these towns to the Thomas Moore Law Firm for pro-bono legal advice/defense.
We can’t define anything precisely. If we attempt to, we get into that paralysis of thought that comes to philosophers… one saying to the other: “you don’t know what you are talking about!”. The second one says: “what do you mean by talking? What do you mean by you? What do you mean by know?”
and
I have approximate answers and possible beliefs in different degrees of certainty about different things, but I’m not absolutely sure of anything, and of many things I don’t know anything about, but I don’t have to know an answer. I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in the mysterious universe without having any purpose which is the way it really is as far as I can tell possibly. It doesn’t frighten me.
— Richard P Feynman
Christian proof of god (ontological argument, descartes, kant etc) seems to hinge on the premise that what can be imagined must be reality, and said proof seems to be premised by the notion that certainty is required. Atheism doesn’t need to prove anything. It simply disputes the requirement of certainty.
Atheism must prove that the universe is eternal in time. This cannot be done because no one was or could have been present to observe the beginning of a universe with no beginning, thus atheist belief, like religion, is based on faith.
Stonewall
Atheism needs to prove nothing; it’s the null hypothesis. Any and all proof is responsibility of the challenger positing the null hypothesis is wrong. It’s why I quoted a scientist.
Agnosticism has no need to prove anything because they make no claim regarding the origin of the universe, but atheism must prove that the universe is eternal in time. Notice that Andrew Bernstein made the claim that the universe is eternal; that is the core belief of atheism, but it cannot be proven by human observation, just as God cannot be proven by human observation. Please read my more extensive explanation below.
We can’t define anything precisely.
A circle is the set of points a fixed distance from a given center.
The quantity pi is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter.
A parabola is the set of points that are at equal distance from a given point and a given line.
An equivalence relation is a relation which is symmetric, reflexive, and transitive.
This isn’t very hard. One can go on ad nauseam.
but I’m not absolutely sure of anything
Not even of a priori relations, like the definition of pi?
but I don’t have to know an answer
Not even when the answer could have implications for how you ought to live? To some that will seem like a reckless and needless form of self-denial.
I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things
You need not protest, Mr. Feynman. No one here is accusing you.
being lost in the mysterious universe without having any purpose
Whatever floats your boat, Mr. Feynman.
stonewall — atheism must prove that the universe is eternal in time
No. Bernstein might if he agreed to this as an intellectual starting point in his debate, but atheism in and of itself postulates nothing of the sort. For all we know the universe is a 50 billion year bubble. From the standpoint of science atheism is simply the null hypothesis. While I am given to understand that there are people who claim that atheism is a belief, it is not. I’m thinking that the notion of null hypothesis isn’t being understood here; you seem to somehow think that atheism and belief are on equal footing. They are not.
The null hypothesis in climate science is that what we see is natural, that man has no effect. It is up to the researcher to prove otherwise; it is never up to a researcher to prove the null hypothesis. You can’t prove the null hypothesis, you can only disprove it. Thus by definition, being the null hypothesis, atheism doesn’t have to prove a thing. Believers claim god exists. It’s up to them to prove it, not up to the atheist to disprove it.
Stan S
PI is transcendental so even if something is calculated to 2000 decimal points it’s still not PRECISE, which was Feynman’s point. At the quantum level things are probabilistic, not precise. Apparently Feynman’s use of the word “precise” is throwing you off; in context precision and science claiming to prove anything at all is similar. Science never proves anything, there is no certainty. Certainty was what Feynman addressed.
But we were not talking about representing PI using the decimal system (i.e., “calculating”), we were talking about defining it. The definition of PI as the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter is exact. What has quantum physics to do with it? Feynman was making a blanket statement about the impossibility of defining anything precisely, which is clearly wrong.
Feynman may have been a great physicist but, outside of physics, he’s not even a mediocrity.
Let me give another example. Does Feynman doubt the Pythagorean theorem? Does he think it’s only an “approximation”? I hope not!
The definition of PI as the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter is exact.
Hi Stan, it’s an approximation else there’d be no need for supercomputers to try calculating PI to the 8 billionth decimal point and still not hit the end. The definition is is rule of thumb. Your argument smacks me as similar to claiming we can loosely define fire as combustion and it’s hot and we can spell it hence it’s defined.
I see the point you’re trying for though. You just need a better example.
That definition is exact for Euclidian geometry. What it implies, however, is that the diameter of the circle and its circumference cannot both be expressed as integers or as the ratio of two integers. One can be rational only if the other is irrational, and not merely irrational, but inexpressible even as any root of a rational number. It is, of course, possible that neither of the values is rational, for one could, mathematically, have a circle whose diameter is pi and whose circumference is pi^2.
It is self-evident that if the universe was not created by God, and since a self-created universe is an unscientific belief in violation of the law of conservation of mass and energy, and since mass and energy and the universe its self cannot be destroyed, the universe must be eternal in time, both in the past and in the future – possibly an infinite series of Big Bangs – or a universe in rotation around an eternally old ultra-massive black hole at its center. So, we are left with either an eternal un-created God, with no beginning and no end, who created our finite universe with a Big Bang (religion), or we have an eternal un-created universe with no beginning and no end (atheism).
Atheism is belief that the universe is uncreated and therefore eternal. True, this belief can be considered a null hypothesis with belief that an eternal God exists and created a universe finite in time with a beginning as the alternate hypothesis. The case can also be rationally viewed the other way around, where belief in God is the null hypothesis and atheism is the alternate hypothesis. Neither hypothesis can be proved by human observation because without revelation God cannot be observed with human eyes, and no one was or could have been present to observe the beginning of a universe with no beginning. Observation of the phenemonon in question, in this case the origin of the universe, is required to settle these issues, but, as mentioned, such observation is not possible in the issue at hand.
It is the agnostic, not the atheist, who has nothing to prove, because the agnostic makes no claim about the origin of the universe. Apparently many who consider themselves atheist are actually agnostic.
The conservation of energy is a man-made principle. We only use it because it has worked so far, albeit with various modifications that had to be introduced here and there. The universe is under no obligation to obey it, particularly outside the realm of our experience.
Not true. The conservation of mass and energy is the most fundamental law of science. This law of science is not a man-made principle; it is a man-observed scientific law. The universe is in fact obligated to follow this scientific law of the universe, and does so at every observation. Neutrinos were theorized based on the law of conservation of mass and energy, and they were later detected by observation in water chambers placed in deep underground caverns. What you proposed is science fiction.
“With the advent of relativity physics (1905), mass was first recognized as equivalent to energy. The total energy of a system of high-speed particles includes not only their rest mass but also the very significant increase in their mass as a consequence of their high speed. After the discovery of relativity, the energy-conservation principle has alternatively been named the conservation of mass-energy or the conservation of total energy. When the principle seemed to fail, as it did when applied to the type of radioactivity called beta decay (spontaneous electron ejection from atomic nuclei), physicists accepted the existence of a new subatomic particle, the neutrino, that was supposed to carry off the missing energy rather than reject the conservation principle. Later, the neutrino was experimentally detected.”
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/187240/conservation-of-energy
stonewall
…and since a self-created universe is an unscientific belief in violation of the law of conservation of mass and energy…
You’re assuming that the what we take for laws are laws and that laws apply at all time. Can’t recall the name of the physicist (Martin Rees? I hope) but he made the point that ours is one of the few possible universes with laws that allowed for life as best as we can define it. I would think that the goldilocks quality of our universe would be a better argument for the existence of a god than reliance on the hope that what we take for laws are viable at the time a universe comes into being.
If I were prone to religion and proving god etc then Rees would be the better starting point — too many coincidences. In fact Stephen Baxter — a mere sci-fi writer, true — had a book in which WE (life, anyway) were in fact god and WE created this universe as one that would create sentient life again, all in the hope that entropy can be solved (sort of like purposeful reincarnation, similar to a phoenix.) The goldilocks aspect is pretty compelling. In a few trillion years, after all, the stars will have all burned up. What does the universe do then?
Good luck with your proofs. Nice chatting with you.
The laws of science apply all the time or they wouldn’t be scientific laws.
The idea that there may be “other universes” is not science because it is not based on observation, so you and the scientist you mentioned are engaged in science fiction. Science fiction is fine as long as it is not put forward as science.
I have not attempted to prove the existence of God. My whole point was to show that the law of conservation of mass and energy requires either the existence of God or the existence of an eternal un-created universe, and that either belief requires faith. The reasoning apparently went over your head or you didn’t read it carefully and thoughtfully, nor let the argument distill in your mind.
The idea that there may be “other universes” is not science because it is not based on observation
Learn something about string theory.
Meanwhile this article — although somewhat tongue in cheek — is interesting; physicists (people who do science for a living) certainly seem to have no problem with the idea.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/02/19/higs_data_says_universe_unstable_will_end_when_alternate_reality_bubble_erupts/
String theory is a theory but not yet science. In order for a theory to become part of science it must be observable, then it must be observed, then it must be tested, then it must be re-tested and confirmed.
Weird how that premise sounds just like modern liberalism. Liberals gerrymander reality like Maxine Waters at a science fiction/redistricting/wig convention.
Or did I miss the gay and female empires that dominated history and soaring interior gothic spaces of pre-Columbian pyramids otherwise known as stuccoed rock piled onto a hill so heads could be rolled down from a great height more easily?
“Like all religion, Christianity is a faith-based belief system”
I’m not sure this is true. Classically, there were two proof of Judaism, one the philosophical (not so much in vogue now) and the other “simple faith”, by which is meant reliance on the tradition going back the entire nation listening to God at Mount Sinai, whioh itself is a form of rational argument.
Simply put, Judaism is a tradition-based belief system.
I don’t know if Objectivism is a rational system, “the Fountainhead” does not appear to be grounded in anything approaching reality.
A belief system cannot be based simultaneously on tradition and on reason. The more it is of one, the less it is of the other kind. Christianity is much more rationalist than Judaism, with some of its forms constituting a closed system not unlike Marxism. Thomism is a good example.
The group of people who became Judaism is based upon a linage of people who had sense experience with God. As Bob Dylan might have said while visiting Highway 61, “God said to Noah, build me an arc” or “God said to Abraham, go look at this land”. Or, “God said to Moses, come look at this bush” and “God said to Moses. let’s talk on this mountain.” “God said to the millions of people. “Follow me where I go and camp where I stop”. God said to John, “It is I, be not afraid”.
From the time of Jesus until today, I doubt the earth has ever been without a human having direct experience of God, and that person forever convinced and certain he has been with the most high God, and that person is eternally sure that God loves him beyond understanding.
“There is no God. There is no creation. The universe is eternal.” Andrew Bernstein
Science is the process of determining the behavior of matter (the universe) using observation, testing (controlled observation), and reason; with reason defined as the ability to observe, comprehend and accept self-evident truth.
[Reason is] “the discovery of the certainty or probability of such propositions or truths, which the mind arrives at by deduction made from such ideas, as it has got by the use of its natural faculties; viz, by the use of sensation or reflection.” John Locke
Faith is any belief undiscoverable by science, which is to say any belief based on that which is unobservable and un-testable, which is to say any belief beyond the discovery of reason and science.
“Where revelation comes into its own is where reason cannot reach. Where we have few or no ideas for reason to contradict or confirm, this is the proper matters for faith… that Part of the Angels rebelled against GOD, and thereby lost their first happy state: and that the dead shall rise, and live again: These and the like, being beyond the discovery of reason, are purely matters of faith; with which reason has nothing to do.” John Locke
We know from the first law of thermodynamics and the law of conservation of energy that without outside force neither mass nor energy can create its self, nor can mass or energy be destroyed; the sum of mass and energy is always constant in any closed system, including the universe it’s self. Mass can be converted into energy, and visa-versa, i.e.: mass and energy are limited to interchangeability (E = MC2), but according to the first law of thermodynamics only nothing can come from nothing. According to the most fundamental law of science, a self-created universe is an un-scientific belief – an irrational belief.
“The law of conservation of energy, first formulated in the nineteenth century, is a law of physics. It states that the total amount of energy in an isolated system remains constant over time. The total energy is said to be conserved over time. For an isolated system, this law means that energy can change its location within the system, and that it can change form within the system, for instance chemical energy can become kinetic energy, but that energy can be neither created nor destroyed.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_of_energy
It is self-evident that if the universe was not created by God, and since a self-created universe is an unscientific belief in violation of the first law of thermodynamics, and since it cannot be destroyed, the universe must be eternal in time, both in the past and in the future – possibly an infinite series of Big Bangs – or a universe in rotation around an eternally old ultra-massive black hole at its center. So, we are left with either an eternal un-created God, with no beginning and no end, who created our finite universe with a Big Bang (religion), or we have an eternal un-created universe with no beginning and no end (atheism). Since faith is any belief based on that which is unobservable, such as belief in God, and since no one was or could be present to observe the beginning of a Universe with no beginning, belief in an eternal un-created universe (atheism) is a faith. Adherence to the first law of thermodynamics (conservation of mass and energy) does not require us to choose one faith over the other – it requires that one faith is true and one is false – so choose one of the two mutually exclusive faiths – or become agnostic. I, a former atheist, have switched to religious faith, but have intellectual respect for any atheist who understands and accepts the truth, as explained above, that atheist belief is based on faith – to the same degree as religious faith – but in opposite direction.
Just one question. Could you explain the first law of thermodynamics, as well as you understand it? No external links or quotations allowed!
The first law of thermodynamics is part of the law of conservation of mass and energy. The total amount of mass and energy in a closed system, including the universe its self, is always constant. In a nutshell the law of conservation of mass and energy boils down to this:
M + E = K
To avoid confustion it might be better to only refer to the law of conservation of mass and energy rather than the first law of thermodynamics since the latter is a version or subset of the former.
You are right: speaking of the first law of thermodynamics (with its concepts of closed system, isolated system, heat, and work) seems to add a lot of confusion when we are concerned with the universe as such.
So let’s take the law of the conservation of energy. I understand what conservation of energy means in classical mechanics: when two billiard balls collide, the sum of their kinetic energies (i.e., the energies due to motion) is the same before and after the collision. Anything that can impart motion to an object, like gravity or a spring, is said to have “potential” energy; and the condition that the sum of all the potential and kinetic energies in the system be constant predicts the dynamic evolution of the system.
But when you speak of the whole universe, what are the billiard balls? What does “energy” even mean at this point? It’s not clear to me that the concept has any applicability.
In regards to the universe as a whole its total energy is:
The amount of its kinetic energy – the amount of energy required to set the enormous mass of the universe in motion,
Plus the current total electromagnetic energy of all wavelengths,
Plus the current total mass of the universe times MC2.
This massive amount of energy is at all times constant, and when I say all times I mean the eternal past as well as the eternal future, except, of course, in the case of God, and in that case the universe would not be a closed system, and would have a finite starting point, and in that case it would be God who would be present in the eternal past and in the eternal future. I have faith in the eternal God of creation, not an eternal un-created universe.
Oops,
Plus the current total mass of the universe times MC2.
should read:
Plus the current total mass of the universe times C2.
“The amount of its kinetic energy”
This is only intelligible if the universe is conceived like a billiard table, with balls that could be enumerated and whose kinetic energies could be simply added together. But according to quantum mechanics, elementary particles have not even definite energies except right after a measurement (whatever “measurement” means).
“the amount of energy required to set the enormous mass of the universe in motion”
I’m afraid I can make no sense of this statement at all. Set all the mass of the universe in motion? At five kilometers at hour? Or shall it be seven? And relative to what? I’m really confused.
“Plus the current total electromagnetic energy of all wavelengths”
Can’t this be considered as the kinetic energy of the photons making up the electromagnetic waves? In which case, it would already be included in your previous term.
“Plus the current total mass of the universe times MC2.”
At least I think I get this part. But what happened to all the energy binding the quarks together in atomic nuclei? Was that included in the energy necessary to set all the mass of the universe in motion?
“This massive amount of energy is at all times constant, and when I say all times I mean the eternal past as well as the eternal future”
On what proof does that assertion rest?
Actually measuring the total amount of mass in the universe is impossible at this point because such measurement would require observation of the entire universe, and that is currently not possible. What if the universe is in rotation around an ultra-massive central black hole, just as each galaxy is in rotation around a super-massive central black hole? At this stage of astronomical science it may not be possible to observe such a thing. It is not necessary to enumerate each bit of matter in the universe in order to conclude that there is a finite amount of matter and therefore a finite amount of matter-derived energy.
The speed of rotation or expansion of the universe is irrelevant to the discussion. It only matters that there is rotation or expansion of the universe, and since we know this is the case (one or the other) then there is kinetic energy in the universe on an ultra-massive scale. It only matters that this energy exists. How much energy would be great to know, but the question at hand is where did the energy come from?
Electromagnetic energy is not the same as kinetic energy. The amount of energy in electromagnetic radiation can be calculated using Plank’s constant: E = hv where h is Plank’s constant and v is electromagnetic frequency.
Quarks are simply smaller sub-particles which are the building blocks of protons and neutrons. The energy contained in a certain mass is still calculated based on Einstein’s formula E = MC2 whether or not quarks are considered.
There is a constant amount of mass + energy in the universe at all times because that is a re-statement of the law of conservation of energy, and is considered the self-evident starting point in science. Over and over, when sub-atomic particles are observed in collision, there is conservation of mass and energy.
Whatever energy is released by any exothermic process, whether that is quarks forming nucleons, nucleons forming nuclei, nuclei and electrons forming atoms, atoms forming molecules, or any other process that releases energy, the energy so released must become either the kinetic energy of the products or radiation. Heat is simply kinetic energy of the products of such reactions having been spread out by many collisions or transferred by radiation.
Really? Tell me how the Earth travels in a straight line through curved space and exactly what gravity is, cuz we don’t have even a single clue. Sounds like observable but undiscoverable magic to me.
And who did all that – itself?
The earth travels in an elliptical orbit around the sun. Both light and mass travel in a straight line unless acted upon by the gravitational force of another mass, then they follow a curved path in proximity to the mass. Curved space is a metaphor that is helpful in understanding the force of gravity. Gravitational force is an intrinsic property of mass – the force being the product of the two masses in question divided by the square of the distance betwen their centers times the gravitational constant – ask God about that, and ditto for who did all that. One thing is for sure – the universe did not self-create – that is a violation of the fixed law of the conservation of mass and energy – so either God creatd the universe or it is un-created and eternal.
It doesn’t matter whether you say, “Space is curved,” or “Space is flat,” as long as the measurements are identical. When we say that space is curved, what we mean is that the change in radius from the center of mass (measured by time-of-flight of a light beam in a vacuum) is not equal to the change in the circumference of a circle divided by (2*pi). Saying that gravity stretches distances or that gravity dilates time are the same thing. You can say that space is flat and time is dilated by gravity, or you can say that space is curved and time is unaffected by gravity (I am speaking only of regions outside of the event horizons of black holes; inside the horizon, things get WEIRD), for both are equivalent.
Fail Burton,
You forgot to mention liberals in that comment.
Actually, that definition of faith is too narrow, for it places the belief that Jesus rose from the dead in the domain of reason, to the exclusion of faith, or else it places all court decisions in the domain of faith, to the exclusion of reason. It is possible to prove, using reason alone, by a courtroom standard of evidence, that Jesus rose from the dead.
John Locke’s understanding of faith is the best that ever been expressed by a modern Christian thinker, and reiterates the Biblical definition of faith which boils down to belief in that which can’t be seen, i.e.: belief in God. In modern terms faith is any belief undiscoverable by reason and science, which is to say any belief based on that which is unobservable and un-testable, which is to say any belief beyond the discovery of reason and science.
Belief that Jesus rose from the dead is faith in part because no one living today was there to observe it, so we believe it because the Biblical story is a credible account of eye-witnesses to his resurrection, so there is an element of both faith and reason.
Actually, this question WAS put to a bunch of lawyers and they wouldn’t touch it………too many witnesses.
The Hobbits when they confront Christians fear they disturb the peace of the Shire and frown. But what we have already seen with the atheist they turn into the black breath, The Nazgul, the Ring wraiths so it seems if not this generation what about the next?
what to do?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlEhEw52kBg
footnote
this is a mystery how the soul put in the Jesus hell for protection but the sin energy is searching for a master to gain power again so the Christian must be wise as a serpent yet innocent as a dove
“God is dead”
– Andrew Bernstein
“Andrew Bernstein is dead”
-God
“Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6).
The Inquisition followed as the night the day.
Actually, the Inquisition followed 780 of muslim occupation. The same invasion that sparked the many Crusades to rid Christendom of islamist encroachment.
Thanks for playing……
The Inquisition was established in the year 1184 by a papal bull entitled Ad abolendam. Most of its initial victims were Cathars. The Inquisition contoinued into the early 19th century. Most of its victims were Catholics of Jewish descent who were accused of being secret Jews. Some of them were indeed secret Jews. Most of them were people who knew nothing about Judaism, but had been denounced by other victims of the Inquisition and who named names in order to save themselves. Once a name was named, the person charged confessed after torture.
You’re confusing an earlier byproduct of the original Crusades that some people call an inquisition. In fact it was crusades against heretical sects and areas not under the direct control of orthodoxy or rule. They were often military, such as the Albigensian Crusade within France. This morphed into a different crusade, one of enforced orthodoxy, the Inquisition proper, against individuals already living within a central system, much like a type of sharia. It controlled even things like your diet. They are two different things.
Not really. At the time of the inquisition the only moors left in spain were in granada. Most of spain was otherwise under control for quite some time before that. Their big problem at the time was just as much jews (read “Rivers Of Gold” for a pretty good and accurate exposition of columbus era spain.) Isabella by the way was a pretty decent sort, wanting to end slavery (blacks were slaves in spain in that day), wanting good treatment of the natives in the new world, etc. the very picture of the nice christian you have in mind. The era itself though and what was actually common was pretty much as George describes…
You’re still leaving the WHY out of it. One did lead to the other.
I think those who have a religious faith about the ultimate reality are more rational than those who presume to understand it based on the evidence.Just think how the world has changed since Rand penned her opus. Humans have no way of knowing where they stand or what the scale of intelligence in the universe or how many dimensions exist, whether time moves in a linear fashion, etc. etc. There could exist an intelligence so vast and deep that human intelligence is something akin to an amoeba. Remember the cargo cult? There were natives who thought the technologies and capabilities of the military refueling station implanted on their island were the product of white skinned Gods. What is the proof that on the scale of the universe we are equivalent to these native islands? because we believe we aren’t? So who is deluding themselves? Who is the real believer?
I’m Jewish not Christian but it seems to me Objectivism is essentially upside down Marxism and given Rand’s early background it is not too shocking.
Basically the Objectivist argument is the same as the materialist argument adopted by the Marxists. Since everything is at some point physical it is wrong to assume an outside component for the unexplained. All is rational even when the rational doesn’t explain things (such as human consciousness, the idea of beauty, music, a shared moral universe and that the idea of religion is found even where men have been isolated).
The second is that work is the essence of man. The Marxist believes in tribal work assigned and supervised and for the benefit of the tribe and the objectivist believes in work bringing joy and defining the individual even if the tribe does not value the work. The market stands in for the Marxist tribe. The idea that mankind can be motivated by finding a reason to live and endure beyond the creation of material wealth is beyond both.
Strict adherence to this means of acquiring knowledge (reason) precludes entertaining the supernatural.
Not for me.
Pairs of opposites, artificial dichotomies (e.g. “natural and supernatural”) may well stand in the way of understanding.
(Shouldn’t we at least entertain the possibility that our very categories, the frames and lenses we have invented, muddy the waters ?)
However, the amount of truth we can know through that process is capped by our perception.
Truth is revealed not through human analysis or argumentation but through transcendence.
(Or as Ralph Waldo Emerson put it: “We lie in the lap of immense intelligence which makes us organs of its activity and receivers of its Truth.”
… a color red. Yet the color exists, not just as a concept but as a metaphysical reality.
Like all color, redness doesn’t inhere in the object but is a function of reflection/absorption of light of an object. Turn out the lights, there is no color anywhere.
Yet all the stars exist whether we perceive them or not.
Truth/the universe/it the all and everything isn’t a function of our prevailing theories about it.
Objectivism does not stop at an agnostic skepticism. It claims to prove through logic that there is no god or supernatural realm of any kind.
Ayn Rand’s highly moral version of rational self-interest fits well with a human being’s highest functioning within current states of understanding.
Rand’s ideal man demonstrates virtue by acting upon his own judgment in pursuit of rationally conceived values which serve his life and long-term happiness.
In my reading of Any Rand, acting upon rationally conceived values extends beyond the individual, serves mankind and is not “selfishness”.
…a kingdom not of this world
I get that.
… the discovery that a world governed by objectivist principles is not only fully compatible with Christian living but as ideal an environment as possible this side of glory.
Yea, we agree !
Those who don’t believe can never get enough proof.
Those who do believe need no proof.
The two lines of thinking that limit today’s Post-Modernist society:
Rationalism: Putting human reason above God as the highest form of knowledge.
Skepticism: The idea of relative truth, or that nothing is truly “knowable”.
Marxism is the child of the first, as is Objectivism. Marxism gained acceptance because it taps into the very powerful sin of covetousness.
Incidentally, both form the Christian heresy known as Socinianism, which attempts to logically explain away or edit out the supernatural events of the Bible, and rejects the doctrine of Atonement, reducing Jesus to a wise teacher instead of the Savior of mankind.
I like watching those “scientific” shows where they try to explain away the miracles in the bible – most of which were “myth” until they actually found archeological evidence of those mythological places and events.
While they may be able to “explain” some of the how’s what they can never touch is the when = the TIMING of these events which just happened to coincide with God telling His people to get out of Dodge as He planned to blow it up. Or stand here against the sea because I’m going to blow back the waters so you can cross a shallow land bridge – but then drown the Egyptians who just happen to be following you.
It was probably Santorini’s volcano. But there’s nothing to say God didn’t light the fuse.
Morning Bell: George Washington’s Example on Religious Liberty Julia Shaw February 18, 2013
http://blog.heritage.org/2013/02/18/morning-bell-george-washingtons-example-on-religious-liberty/
Mr. Hudson,
Christendom SHOULD be aware of the following, OR PERISH:
RABBI-D-NICAL JUDAISM (AND ITS ENABLERS/ENFORCERS) SUCCEDED IN KILLING CHRIST 2000 YEARS AGO. THOSE VERY SAME SOCIO-PSYCHOPATHS ARE SUCCEDING IN KILLING CHRIST AGAIN, IN YOUR SPIRIT, AND THE WORLD WASHES ITS HANDS AS A LATTER DAY “PONTIUS PILATE.”
THE PROVERBIAL “SODOM AND GOMORRAH” IS ALSO HERE AGAIN, WITH THE SAME CULPRITS HERE AGAIN, BUT ONLY THE MENTALLY BLIND CANNOT SEE THE SAME PATENTS AND OUTCOME.
REASON AND JUSAISM ARE AS FAR APPART AS DAY IS WITH NIGHT.
WAKE UP AND FIGHT FOR WHAT IT IS WORTH…
Jesus died for the sins of mankind. If he had not been crucified we would all have to go to Hell. We should be grateful to Judas for denouncing him as well as to those who did the crucifixion.
God created the heavens and the earth. Nevertheless, He does not have the power simply to forgive sin. Punishment has to go somewhere. That is the defining doctrine of Christianity.
It is sometimes hard to decipher here what is posed as fact and what is posed as pun. But if yours was meant as fact, you seem to have a strange recollection of biblically based fact, or a strange idea of exactly the who and what Jesus represents.
First, from either Old or New Testament, we indeed know God before the crucifixion did have the power to forgive sins. For instance, we know there were Jews centuries before Christ was even upon this earth. Was it not Moses and Elijah that Jesus spoke to upon the Mount of Transfiguration? They were very Jewish. And even before there were Jews, we know that Enoch experienced no physical death and was taken.
Second, Judas so denounced Christ that he hung himself upon reflection of the magnitude of his sin. I can no more be grateful to Judas than I can of my own sins, or anybody’s sin for that matter.
Finally, your basis of Christian Doctrine is fundamentally flawed on premise alone. The New Testament is the story of redemption; not punishment. If I could point to one chapter of one book of the New Testament that most clearly defines what is Christian Doctrine, it would be the First Chapter of the Gospel John where it clearly states that Jesus is God manifested in flesh. There isn’t a theologian alive who can explain to mortal man with understanding three persons and one God, but that is clearly what the New Testament says and what we as Christians choose to accept:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
followed by…
The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Judas’ suicide was on account of his despair. Peter’s betrayal was grievous, too, that the one Jesus picked to lead the Apostles three times denied even knowing Him, but Peter’s sorrow led to repentance. Had Judas begged for Jesus’ forgiveness instead of killing himself, he’d likely be exalted as a saint today and mentioned in the same breath as St. Paul.
Agreed, at least to a great degree. Though Judas never seemed to hold quite the same standing as say a Peter or John when I read. Partial St.
I fear that the attacks on Christianity will only increase, since we are NOT in the habit of cutting off limbs, putting a million dollar bounty on someone who speaks ill os us.
Yet they are still called the religion of peace?? LOL
Nope. The only reason it was rabbis voting to kill Jesus is there weren’t any cardinals or pastors around. But not to worry. If you reflect on it there aren’t too many groups of men who haven’t had the chance to torture the godly to death.
Up to the resurrection there is nothing unusual or noteworthy about the crucifiction at all. Nastier and more unjust than usual. But not out of line with what men can do if they really put their minds to it.
Excellent point. When someone likes to blame the Jews or the Romans for the death of Jesus, I always answer, “If it would help, you can blame me. I’m equally as guilty.”
An individual who had the intelligence & prescience to describe Barry’s World over 60 years ago can’t be all wrong.
“When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion —
when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission
from men who produce nothing — when you see money flowing to those who
deal, not in goods, but in favors — when you see that men get richer by
graft and pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against
them, but protect them against you — when you see corruption being
rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice — you may know that your
society is doomed.”
Ayn Rand
That’s not Barry’s world, that’s simple corruption. Barry’s world is a faith-based religion grounded in a belief in things never seen in civilized history. The presumption being that all failure in history has been the result of oppression rather than failure itself. Liberal faith in this unseen historical force seeks to right the ship. That is the pure essence of progressive liberalism as practiced today in the Dem Party.
Id est, fractal geometry in old Africa and skyscrapers built by women in Victorian Brazil, woulda, coulda, shoulda.
Conservative thought: didn’t.
Neither were Marx or Mohammed, but their conclusions were deadly.
I choose to believe “The Cause” had purpose, and that men can exert “Free Will” and I will live my life according to this belief.
I don’t know why there should be any tension between the Objectivists and the Fundamentalists. America is full of television evangelists who have profitably squared that circle and proved that you can, after all, serve both God and Mammon. Salafi Muslims are also typically in favor of predatory capitalism. A stupid religion goes perfectly well with stupid philosophy.
This is all a lot of B.S.
Christianity and objectivism can’t be reconciled. What is P.J. Media trying to pull on us?
And, no, we don’t let Objectivists, atheists or anybody else define what our religion is, or set the terms of the debate. Yeah, yeah, objectivists worship “Reason”—which, as it turns out, seems to be (for them, at least), whatever Ayn Rand said it was.
You cannot worship both God and Rand.
thanks for speaking up.
The first law of “Objectivism” is already disproved. Rand, who bootstrapped herself to the status of philosopher, started her philosophy with the tenet that “A is A.”
Quantum physics has pretty much proven that this is wrong. (even after decades of trying to debunk and disprove it)
The fact is that A is only A if and when it is observed. If you read an excellent book called “Quantum Enigma,” you can get a great primer in quantum physics quite quickly.
The book points out what physicists since Bohr have tried to avoid and run away from, and that is that there is a direct link between existence and consciousness.
It doesn’t “prove” that God exists. It merely gets one to understand that is much much more to what goes on than simplistic Newtonian physics and shallow philosophies purporting to answer questions that mankind has wrestled with since the dawn of time.
Well, we know she didn’t start the Peace Corps.
The Scriptures were (claim to be) inspired by the Creator in the original Hebrew and Greek; therefore, correct, concordant translation into English is of critical importance. The King James Version is loaded with mistranslations. The most accurate is the Concordant Literal Version. Concordant.org. To best understand God’s revelation to us in English, you must use this translation. And you must abandon all manmade creeds, and you must recognize that Paul is still the one with the true doctrine for the body of Christ today. Christ specifically commissioned Paul as our apostle (Acts 26). I got an email from someone saying “Why I am a Calvinist.” Why would any sane person believe John Calvin instead of God’s chosen apostle to us?
The Scriptures do not teach that God created the universe out of nothing “seeing that out of Him and through Him and for Him is all: to Him be the glory for the eons!” (Romans 11:36). God is Spirit; therefore, the universe was created out of God’s Spirit. See atruergod.com
Objectivism is a silly side show, like Marxism and Freudianism. It is garbage, generated by a narcissistic self-publicist. The intellectual clash today is between a purely materialistic Darwinism, distilled through Mendel into the modern synthesis, and a spiritual neo-Darwinism that gives adequate space for us to hear God’s message, at least for those of us willing to listen.
Ayn Rand’s morality (enlightened self-interest) comes very close to being an extension of the true nature of man and, as such, necessarily has God’s approbation
It is very unlike the profit based morality espoused by televangelists or even much of the fear based morality espoused by the church. (“believers” in many faiths claim to have special credentials in terms of earning God’s approval & being deserving of an afterlife)
All of our false prophets (aka politicians)who declaim endlessly over “the common good” are driven by nothing but self-interest, but a variety that is far more devious and ill-intentioned from that described by Ayn Rand.
The irrefutable evolution of species over millennia in no way precludes a Creator.
Should ever a Rand get the upper hand, it’s likely to be the Krugerrand.
I had rather believe all the fables in the Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a mind.
And therefore, God never wrought miracle, to convince atheism, because his ordinary works convince it.
It is true, that a little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.
Francis Bacon -Of Atheism
Being someone who “converted” from Protestantism to Objectivism, I dislike the approach of mainstream objectivists against Christianity. I think nobody can dispute on the incompatibility between the sacrificial way of life of Jesus (who was a singularity too) and the objectivist selfishness. And nobody can affirm there is an objective, rational, scientific, final proof of the existence of God.
However, Objectivists like to go bombastic talking about Christianity when they are really talking about any faith, any religion and any irrationality. That could be well a debate of atheism against theism. They could well talk against “that God of the jewish people”, or against Zeus. But it seems to me like they just want to make a fuss by taking aim against Christianity.
While it makes a fuss, it effectively diverts from the main point, IMO.
Second, EVERY TIME somebody talks against “Christianity”, as an universal system, IS objectively in an error. How could it be that me, being grown in a Christian family, ended up teaching logic, then questioning God, and learning Objectivism? (I also do scientific research now). If my brain was damaged by “faith” or “irrationality”, how could it be?
The answer is simple: I was not the type of Christian that accept things on the basis of tradition or authority (which is what is at the root of the Protestant movement). So, obviously, I’d question my own religion someday. On the other hand, there is still a big portion of traditional blindly-obedient Christians who may obey the “thou shalt not steal” without understanding why.
So, criticizing Christianity as a unitary ethical system is an error. For instance, Catholic church is a vertical structure, based on authority, ranks, hierarchy and it has one supreme leader. Perfect place to “grow” obedient people. While Protestant movements were born as a rebellion against that. Protestantism doesn’t have a vertical structure with hierarchy, but many cell-like groups with smaller hierarchies. Protestant cells are thus living in perennial competition between them, and sometimes ugly rivalry, but it is the same competition that makes the market better and better: diversification, competition, decline, renewal, revivals, etc.
To conclude, I think Objetivists debating Christians may have a valid point, but they still show an outstanding ignorance of christianity of all around the world. Sometimes they start plainly criticizing the Pope which me, as a Protestant, did a lot in the past too. So, what’s the point? Saying that you can’t live by revelation? There are protestant churches defending that. They don’t understand that a lot of Christians would benefit from an Objectivist shower. True Christians would be hungry of reasoning and would want to listen and consider what Objectivists have to say-even if they later on decide in one way or another. As T. Jefferson said: “Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.”
Thanks for your post. I’ve got a feeling that you wouldn’t be surprised when God actually does show himself to you in convincing fashion. You won’t be able to prove that he is and he did it, either. I can hear you LOL about it.
May you live in peace, whatever happens. There oughta be more folks like you, on both sides.
“Protestant cells are thus living in perennial competition between them, and sometimes ugly rivalry, but it is the same competition that makes the market better and better: diversification, competition, decline, renewal, revivals, etc.”
just a simple question from a simple person. How does “diversification and competition” of Gods Word benefit Christianity or any of the religions? How does a myriad of different ‘church’ doctrines benefit Gods Word? Seeems to me Gods Word ‘was and is’ what God had to say or it isn’t and subject to screenplay ‘sequals’ at the whim of any philosopher or group.
So, it is just Christianity that is being questioned, eh?
It seems to me that we have here something that combines a) the collision of two worlds and b) the comparison of apples and oranges.
The Christian approach – as best developed in the Catholic theological vision – presumes a Multi-planar reality, while the Objectivist approach presumes a Mono-planar reality.
The Christian approach is based on the assumption that the Multi-plane (i.e. God) created and imprinted and empowered human Reason with the ability to work its way toward a working-familiarity with the dynamics and nature of the Multi-plane, while the Objectivist approach presumes that reason must work completely from scratch and may or may not (presumably: n-o-t) arrive at any satisfactory demonstration of the existence of the Multi-plane.
Personally, I see the Objectivists as masters of checkers, trying to play their game on a Vulcan chess-board. (Readers may recall Spock’s Vulcan chessboard: several levels, all interacting.) By this I mean no disrespect to Objectivity or to Science or to human-reason. I simply point out that – in the classic (Catholic) Christian view – what works on the checkerboard is yet insufficient to handle the dynamic complexities and nuances of the Vulcan chess-board.
Thus Christianity in this classical vision is not opposed to reason or reasoning or science or objectivity; rather, Christianity in this classical vision realizes that what science and objectivity and reason are equipped by themselves to accomplish is all limited to the Mono-plane, while the fundamental and ultimate reality (perhaps: Reality) is Multi-planar.
Hence, in a most fundamental sense, bringing bare reason and objectivity and science to matters of the Multi-plane is like bringing a set of hacksaws (no matter how well constructed) to brain surgery.
A stimulating dramatization of my immediately prior comment’s point is the series of exchanges in “Ben Hur” (1959) between Judah Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston, as a slave-rower in a Roman galley) and Quintius Arrius (Jack Hawkins, as the Consul in command of the Roman fleet) as to whether a ‘sane’ and ‘rational’ man can believe in any gods at all.
Thank God for pjmedia.
Matter/Energy is indeed eternal. The atheist must brew the weak tea of saying that it’s always been here for no reason and no purpose. God, on the other hand, has always been here for a reason and for a purpose.
In the end the debate comes down to whether Jesus rose from the dead or not. It either happened in time and space or it didn’t. It’s not like we have a buffet full of choices here.
Anyone exposed to a Cult 3 of 5 of them when they see the movie the passion of Ayn Rand may say : Yikes! “so it could have been worse for me after all” but they may not be like this anymore , got more moral as atheist to compete with the uppity very moral righteuos.
this locked in a box feeling I got , caught in a cage with a she-devil sucking the life out of me , I glad I do my business with her in forest sanctuaries and know where she is all the time
” Wild cats meet with hyenas
goat demons shall call
to each other
there too Lilith shall
repose
and find a place to rest”
The Book of Isaiah
Proof Jesus has mercy she find a place to rest
footnote
movie review and download to the Passion of Ayn Rand
http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/176668/The-Passion-of-Ayn-Rand/overview
I think it also important to recall that while the general consensus of the Framers was that the nation should not have an established religion, yet very few of them were of the radical-Deist position that a People could exist coherently and cohesively with no morality, and that a sufficient morality could be conceived and sustained with no religion (or sense of the Multi-plane) whatsoever.
Jefferson had hoped to square the (Multi-plane/Mono-plane) circle by simply cutting and pasting the New Testament to get at the ethical and moral prescriptions (which for him – as they would be a century later for William James and others – were the only ‘practical’, ‘pragmatic’ and thus ‘real’ bits). But Adams certainly realized that this was some form of Shylock’s Gambit (i.e. you can have a pound of flesh without interfering with any viscera, fluids, and so forth) and wasn’t really ‘practical’ at all and was actually more of a fantasy.
The result was a sort of agreement-to-disagree: n-o-t on the necessary formal independence of any particular denomination and the government, b-u-t rather on the Question as to whether one could (as Tom Paine and the French Revolutionaries would argue) create a morality that would be simultaneously free of ‘religion’ and equally a ‘substitute’ for it in the lives of the Citizenry.
In a world-historical Coincidence, the Framers lived in an era when they could have their cake and eat it too: they could formally separate religious denominations and government, while presuming cheeribly and accurately that the vast majority of the Citizenry were well-grounded in the religions Afterglow of ‘Christendom’ and thus enjoyed that fundamental consensus and unity.
Put under increasing pressure as the 19the century drew toward its close, this ‘modus vivendi’ was finally put under intolerable stress in the 1960s as assorted newly-erected demographic Identities made demands that required the country (or at least the federal government) to abrogate this ‘modus vivendi’ and choose the Mono-plane: this was necessary because a) some of the most vital demands made by certain of the Identities required the removal of ‘moral’ boundaries long-espoused by organized Christianity and because b) the guiding cadres of those Identities and their Identity Politics drew their life-strength not from the Framing Vision (although they would strive mightily to cloak their efforts under that Vision) but rather from the reductionist, objectivist, scientist Mono-planar visions of 19th-and-early-20th century Marxism and Leninism, Romanticism (Nietzsche playing no small role here), and a more recently-derived ‘postmodern’ nihilism that denied not only the existence of any Multi-plane but also the possibility of any coherent Narrative of the Mono-plane whatsoever.
For their own political and demographic purposes, both the Democrats and then the Republicans played to this theme, and over the past 40 or more years the entire Beltway – Branches and bureaucracies – fell into line.
And here we are today.
Interesting read! However….
“For their own political and demographic purposes, both the Democrats and then the Republicans played to this theme, and over the past 40 or more years the entire Beltway – Branches and bureaucracies – fell into line.” Our government is formed by the people, of the people and for the people. Therefore, the government cannot ‘fall into line’ it can only ‘follow the progression’ of a majority of the people in its representations.
That aside, the founders of the constitutions leaves all things of any religion to ‘individual’ citizen freedoms and not to the government. We’re where we are today, as a nation, not by the failing of a religious government, but rather, a majority failing by the nations citizens of their individual freedoms of religion. That is of course, if one subscribes to the suggestion that the nation has failed because of religious decay.
Christianity has some serious problems which I fear it will never overcome: that “Resist not evil” (*always* turn the other cheek) bit; the “Vengence is (ONLY) the Lord’s;” and “Judge Not (EVER)!” themes are all exercises in cowardly idolatry, in deferring one’s right and duty to distinguish good from evil, and to act accordingly, in order to more easily SUBMIT to evil and the perverse, false “moral high ground” notion, that: “Since you say you’re better than me, and force me to Sumbit, that means it’s all your fault, so none of it’s my fault, so I’m still better than you! Whee!”
And the paulianity gets even worse: Col 2:8 “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.”
In other words, never think for your self!
The false “saint paul” (Christian-murdering Roman-serving Kappo, Saul of Tarsus) warns us not to think for our selves!
As Thomas Jefferson pointed out, the first one to corrupt Christ’s words was paul (!)
So, Why don’t Christians defend them selves from threats (like islam) these days?
I’d posit it’s because Christians here have been fed liberal lies for too long – that the One and only Christian Commandment is your “JUDGE NOT – EVER!”
(and “ALWAYS Turn The Other Cheek!”)…! In other words, they’ve Submitted to the liberals’ lies that one isn’t supposed to think for one’s self, only Obey!
They’ve been fed immoral relativism and the idolatrous excuse of victimology:
“There’s no real crimes nor criminals nor sins nor sinners, because we’re really all only helpless victims anyway!
“Vengeance is ONLY God’s; don’t try to defend yourselves, sheeples!”
Not to mention, they even “liberalized” (corrupted) the Ten Commandments, by mistranslating #6 – from the original Hebrew:
“Thou Shalt Not MURDER” (‘kill unjustly’/as in: ‘not in self-defense’ etc) – into:
“Thou Shalt Not KILL” (as in: ‘at all, EVER – EVEN in self-defense’)!
etc etc etc.
It’s simple, cowardly, treasonous masochism: (which all liberals are afflicted by) – when they see something they fear, their immediate response is to Submit to it:
“We have to let the violent criminals do what they want to us, or else they’ll do what they want to us anyway!”
In this way, they hope to avoid the fear of pain, by pre-emptively inflicting that pain on themselves (thus cancelling the auxiliary pain caused by the fear)! See?
But what it really means is they fear thorny, painful thinking, because thought is a two-step process: heed the fear to solve the problems and fix the mistakes
which cause the pain you fear, in order to be able to get to the hope of no pain; ignore and avoid the fear, and you will never have anything except false hope.
They call this idolatry the “moral high ground:”
“If I Submit to you because you say you’re better than me, then it’ll be all your fault! And since it’s all your fault, then none of it’s my fault, so I’ll still be better than you!
Whee!”
Revenge IS Justice!
Liberalism pretends that “attacking is always bad – even in defense of one’s self, &/or of innocent others!” Being immoral relativists, they pretend one can’t have love without hate, pleasure without pain… or attackers without defenders! This is victim-blaming slander, pretending people won’t be attacked if only they refuse to try to defend them selves!
And it really only serves the kindergarten-teacher-like nannystaters: *I* don’t care who started it – *I* only want it all to stop!” This pretends the victims are equally to blame with their attackers, by ‘splitting the difference.’
The only real Law is the Golden Rule of Law, which, by defining morality as “Do Not Attack First!” enables trust, progress, and civilization.
The only real right we have, is to not be attacked first, and our only responsibility is to not attack others first. Bear in mind that threats ARE (psychological) attacks, too.
After all, when you choose to attack others first, your choice defines you as the predatory criminal aggressor, and they as your innocent victims; there’s no two ways about it!
Similarly, attacking second (or counter-attacking) in defense is not only a requirement for deterrance and justice, it’s also pretty-much mandatory; to refuse to stop crime is to be a willing accessory to it, and to enable it; at ‘best,’ it’s delinquent, criminal negligence! Revenge IS justice! Months after the crimes are committed, the court system isn’t limited to a situationally in-context scenario of passively defending the victim from an ongoing attack any more; it’s still after collective revenge aka justice!
As for “Love your enemy” – that is the cerebral, most coldly-calculating response to threats; it allows us to reflect that our enemy is as equally motivated by the binary impulse of FEAR and GREED (fear of pain is greedy hope of no pain) as we are, and so to realize that the best way to defuse their fear and negate their greed is to imagine how to make them feel SAFe and HAPPY (safe to cancel fear, happy to assuage greed) respectively. In other words, we try – first – to turn our fear-OF-you, into fear-FOR-you. This is the opposite of the moslem’s barbaric and reactionary fight fire with more fire approach, where if someone makes you feel afraid, you try to make them feel MORE afraid of you! However, this cannot be the sole abstracted context-free standalone response to all threats, because to do so would be to give in and self-enslave us to whilly intransigent enemies (like moslems).
So, that “Turn the other cheek” bit – in fact, the whole ‘Sermon on the mount’ – is a forgery; a made-up fraud and corruption! Yeshua never said that stuff! Those are all ‘paul’s words!
That paul’s vile, Muhammad-like “Submit-to-injustice” (“Giving Up is a holy virtue!”) creed still remains to pollute Christ’s tenets is a sort of intelligence test for Christians – anyone who pretends to “have faith” and to believe in the words and tenets of BOTH, is an idolater! The only book of the Tanakh Yeshua ever quoted was “Yishiah” (Isaiah) which holds that G*d hates empty rituals and burnt offerings (sacrifices) and ONLY wants us to reason with Him – in other words, to think for our selves!
So, here’s what I get from then being able to deconstrcut the Ten Commandments: The ‘Ten’ Commandments are really only a bunch of listed symptoms, illustrating this simple binary; the first five are all cautions to “Fear and Obey!” while the second five are all admonishments not to steal! (Even “Thou Shalt Not Murder!” only comes in at #6)!
Thus, they can be summed up as “Greed NOT; Be Fearful!” (or, as in The Golden Rule of Law which defines all situational morality: Don’t Attack First)! – from which we get trust, progress, and civilization.
Islam embodies the exact opposite (“Fear NOT; Be Greedy”) – or: “Always attack first!” from which they self-inflict distrust, stagnation, and barbarism. Simple!
The only real right we have, is to not be attacked first, and our only real responsibility is to not attack others first.
Go away, heretic! It is the Rabbi you have an issue with, not St. Paul. Why do you ignore the multitude of verses from the Torah that the Rabbi quoted, or the fact that the zealots are dead and gone, while Christians overturned the Roman Empire?
Those exposed to the HOLY one from up above believe they can do holy better them him. It was not that way with Moses , the passover , the blood of the lamb on the post or you die or in the wilderness for 40 years rebellion against God and Moses mean the the ground would literaly swallow up you and all your relatives for the great Glory of God to not be turned into a shadow. Those were the does of instant holy justice. And it continued with the ark of the convenaut so man touch this holy not being the priest fall down dead
What a revelation , The holy God in the flesh is chosen to fall down dead. And by eating his flesh and blood you will have eternal life. this gave the holy in their own eyes good reason to walk away.and Saint Paul open the door for the cannibals to be chosen who go through the withdrawal from not eating fallen human flesh but only the eating of the flesh and blood of the holy lamb from God so those with addictions who suffer from withdrawl from drug and alcohol addictions cigarette withdrawal sex demon withdrawal the miracle of the great change in their lives wheres as the self righteuos hold their nose high in the air or change the meaning of the bible text to make the words sound sweet to their ears
John 6
52 Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
53 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. 57 Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” 59 He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.
Many Disciples Desert Jesus
60 On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”
61 Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you? 62 Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! 63 The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit[e] and life. 64 Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. 65 He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.”
66 From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.
67 “You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve.
Allahu akbar, does NOT mean “God is great.”
In Arabic, “God” = Allah and “great” = kabeer.
Allahu means “My/Our God” and akbar means “greater.”
Allahu akbar, therefore, means “My/Our God is greater [than yours].”
When a Muslim gunman shouts this, he is being very clear about his motive: jihad, the holy struggle to defend Islam by killing infidels. So apart from confirming that any Terrorist who shouts this while commiting his act of terrorism is a Mohammedan it also exposes the reality of Islam. Because if THEIR god is greatest then there must be perforce other ‘lesser’ Gods,which reveals Islams Polytheistic roots. It also reveals the confrontational and supremacist nature of Islam. Needless to say the Mohammedans are very happy that the Western Politicians, moronic moonbats and the Islamophile, antisemitic Lame Stream EneMedia continue to mistranslate it as “God is Great” as this also gives them the opportunity to say that their God allah is the same as your God, which is patently and clearly insane. The Mohammedan allah is an evil , self contradictory, illogical, violent,misogynistic, vengeful , antisemitic, Arab supremacist God (its all in the Koran) totally unlike the Judeo/Christian God.
Matthew 7
7 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
6 “Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.
Vladdi, I hear your anger against a pusillanimous liberal ‘Christianity’ wrongly so described, which fails to defend its people against even radical Islam. I share that anger, but ask you to consider that it was not so in the 20thC when the US [after defeating its FDR liberals] and the UK ‘Empire’ [I am an Australian] stood against real evil in two World Wars, and then Communism, with military force and many dead. Why? Because they had a robust, clear-eyed Christianity then. You do not read the Paul who wrote ‘the powers that be are ordained of God’ and carry the sword to do justice [Romans 13]. Paul even appealed to the just laws of Rome in his case. The belief in Just War by these countries saved the world then. It is the remnant of these views in the Republican Party that stands for a strong defense today [also of Israel itself]. Take a good, longer look at the real Christian faith my friend. Anger alone will not save you, but the Messiah can.
All the wasted time, brain power and effort involved regarding “God” – “is/isn’t”, can be eliminated by accepting the fact that all religions are man-made money-making movements or evolve via mental gyrations.
Except that’s not true. Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, started the Catholic Church after He rose from the dead.
Aside from the headache I have from reading all these comments, I’ve come away with a great feeling of joy that I don’t have to explain or defend my faith. I’m one of the lucky ones – I simply go into my studio and paint it.