The Holy Trinity

Quote: FrGamble

You would be a good priest. The penance not only fits the sin but helps me in overcoming it.

Thanks Padre! I'd like to think I'd at least be good at that aspect of the job. I'd be awful at others.

Quote:

1. Evenbob really loves his dogs and in general likes animals. This also means he shows great care for his dogs.
2. Evenbob is a big contibutor to this forum and probably others and adds to the community with the variety of his posts. This contributes to discussion and doesn't let things get boring. He also doesn't seem to let others mean comments about him (including to my shame my own) get to him. He lets it roll off his back and I believe is confident enough to not let mean people drive him away from something he likes and gets value from, namely this forum.
3. Bob seems like an entrepreneur, something I really respect. He has worked many jobs and worked hard in them, that also is worthy of respect.

Very nice heart-felt compliments. You get an A on your assignment. You are forgiven (at least by me). Go forth and sin no more.

Quote: Wizard

That, I think, was beneath you, Padre.

I'd like you to take a look at this list of famous atheists in science and technology. Would you call them idiots?

Wow, that is some list.

Quote: petroglyph

Wow, that is some list.

Yes indeed. People like these are
the reason science is advancing
so quickly. They kicked the idea
of god and religion to the curb
and plunged ahead with nothing
to hold them back.

FrG will have a list of religious people
who were scientists, but it's meaningless.
Saying you were a Catholic in 1550
was like saying you wore pants every
day. You had no choice in the matter,
if you said you were an atheist your
career was over. So you just went along
to get along..

Bob how does believing in an ordered universe that is understandable because it was made by an all powerful and intellegent being hurt science? In fact that is the whole reason science began! If any scientist took seriously the athestic notion that the universe popped into existence with a cause or worse yet is an impossible infinite regress without any beginning at all then studying it wouldn't be worth it. When will the universe break the laws of logic or the physical laws again. When Will something else just pop into existence without any cause or purpose? If you are looking for a faith that is against science it is atheism! The reasons these scientists don't believe in God and can still do science is because they either make the universe itself into God or they believe in a general higher power or watchmaker type of God who rightly does not deserve to be believed in.

Also Bob, do you see the inconsistency in your posts? You admit in one part that many of the greatest scientists that ever lived, in fact the fathers of most of the disciplines of science were men of faith. But in another part you make the ridiculous claim that rwligion hinders science or makes it impossible. How can you square your acknowledgement that there were many great scientist who believe in God with your idea that you have to throw off religion to make progress in science. History demonstrably shows you can't hold both these ideas.

Quote: Dalex64

I won't believe in something that you need a "leap of faith" to believe.

All of that other stuff you talk about which people take on faith does not require a leap of faith.

I also am a leap of faith kind of guy. Especially a blind leap of faith, which I think we can agree on is different. A couple of thoughts.

First, of the vast majority of people do live based largely on faith. You are right that almost all of them could be examined. studied, and known for certain but in reality this is impossible and not done. So what is the difference between a leap of faith for something that can be known definitively and a leap of faith for something than cannot? Both can have evidence, in fact I would say require evidence. Trusting a stranger with your ATM code with no evidence is equivalent in my mind to believing there is no God. You are making a leap of faith in the dark without any evidence. In fact in both cases you are making a leap of faith against evidence that strangers sometimes steal ATM codes and that something cannot come from nothing, etc., etc.

Secondly, to start down any road to knowledge always involves some little leap of faith. To start a relationship with someone is a little leap. You might think you know a lot about them but you are venturing out on trust especially at the beginning. Learning a musical instrument begins with a little leap of faith. You've started practicing you think you like it a lot but you are not sure. A relationship with God is similar. Yes, sometimes people are figuratively knocked off their horse in a profound miraculous conversion like St. Paul. But far more likely is meeting someone who introduces you to faith in God and you start reading the Bible a little, discussing it, maybe reading some spiritual books, and then you start praying and learn how to pray. You encounter God little by little until you experience God in a personal loving way that you know He is as real as your best friend. Remember it is the accumulation of evidence that leads on to belief slowly and surely, not in one big leap (usually).

Thirdly, there is a difference between knowledge gained through experience, experimentation, and the scientific method and knowledge that can be arrived at by pure logic. We keep saying God cannot be known because He can't be observed or experimented on. However, God or first cause or unmoved mover is a logical necessity for anything to exist. If you know of way to explain existence without what we commonly refer to as God without falling into an actual infinite regress I am open to hear it. It is a very bad philosophical mistake to think that the only knowledge we can have is based on experimentation or the scientific method.

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Let's not pretend that there is no difference between taking faith in something that can be proven and taking faith in something that can not.

I don't think there is but I await to hear your response.

Quote: FrGamble

fathers of most of the disciplines of science were men of faith.

They had no choice, it was be a Xtion
or die or be otherwise punished. So
they did the best they could with
that millstone around their neck.

Quote:

rwligion hinders science
.

Indeed it did and again, these brilliant
men did their best in spite of religion.
They make such great strides now because
it no longer holds them back.

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We keep saying God cannot be known because He can't be observed or experimented on.

Pretty much. Look again at that long
list of atheists you think are idiots.
All they want is a little real evidence,
and you consider that way too much
to ask for. They should all be 'leap of
faith' people, because you are.

But you're really not. You're the guy
who had his religion drilled into his
head at an early age and it took hold
and now you can't get rid of it even
if you wanted to. Your 'leap of faith'
has nothing to do with it.

Quote: FrGamble

Bob how does believing in an ordered universe that is understandable because it was made by an all powerful and intellegent being hurt science?

Your 'leap of faith' is really just
throwing yourself off the cliff into
the abyss of fantasy and delusion.
What good does it do anybody.

Quote: Evenbob

Indeed it did and again, these brilliant
men did their best in spite of religion.

What evidence can you provide that would support this claim?