How to argue against a particular delusion.
Hello everyone,
A friend of mine is a pretty die-hard Christian (shock horror, both of his parents are missionaries/vicars) and he often posts little sayings of some kind or another on Facebook, which I usually ignore. However, today he posted something that really irritated me for some reason:
"The more I look at science, the more in awe of God I become."
And just to make that worse, one of his Christian friends commented "Boom" as if he had made some kind of infallible argument. Somehow, I feel as though nothing I say will make any difference because they must be incredibly deluded already to believe that God just "invented" science. Basically, this is the guy who thinks he's a "modern and intelligent" Christian by saying that things like Noah's Ark are "just stories and aren't meant to be taken seriously by Christians". But if that is true, then why take ANY of the Bible seriously and where does he draw the line between stories and (what he believes is) the truth?
In the past I asked him and his friend where the evidence was. He claimed science (yes, seriously) helped prove Christianity and that Christianity was about "opening yourself" to it and believing, and then you "feel God" or whatever. How do you argue with someone like that??
What do you all say to religious people (not necessarily just Christians) who claim that science is just an invention of God? Is there a specific way to argue with someone who twists everything to awkwardly suit modern day thinking?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Marc on -
I am not going to mock you. I am going to give you a comparative example. Here is another explanation for the universe from a different literary source. Please differentiate how my evidence written by humans to explain the origin of the universe is different from your bible evidence written by humans to explain the origin of the universe.
The supreme deity is called Eru Ilúvatar. In the beginning, Ilúvatar created spirits named the Ainur and he taught them to make music. After the Ainur had become proficient in their skills, Ilúvatar commanded them to make a great music based on a theme of his own design. The most powerful Morgoth or "Dark Enemy" disrupted the theme, and in response Ilúvatar introduced new themes that enhanced the music beyond the comprehension of the Ainur. The movements of their song laid the seeds of much of the history of the as yet unmade universe and the people who were to dwell therein.
Then Ilúvatar stopped the music and he revealed its meaning to the Ainur through a Vision. Moved by the Vision, many of the Ainur felt a compelling urge to experience its events directly. Ilúvatar therefore created Eä, the universe itself, and some of the Ainur went down into the universe to share in its experience. But upon arriving in Eä, the Ainur found it was shapeless because they had entered at the beginning of Time. The Ainur undertook great labours in these unnamed "ages of the stars", in which they shaped the universe and filled it with many things far beyond the reach of Men. In time, however, the Ainur formed Arda, the abiding place of the Children of Ilúvatar, Elves and Men. The fifteen most powerful Ainur are called the Valar, of whom Melkor was the most powerful, but Manwë was the leader. The Valar settled in Arda to watch over it and help prepare it for the awakening of the Children.
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Permalink Reply by archaeopteryx on -
Not a problem, Richard - around here, we often quote the Bible, especially the part in Isiah where your god admits he creates evil.
RE: "His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse." - translated, I read that to mean that Paul didn't know how nature worked, so he assumed that his god did it. We see that fallacy a lot among theists..
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Permalink Reply by Unseen on -
If the universe were orderly, it wouldn't be beautiful. Suppose the stars in the sky were arranged in a huge matrix. Row, columns, etc. What a bore. Instead, while there are certain structures like galaxies, within those galaxies you don't find a whole helluva lot of order. And outside the galaxies, it's even worse. Irregular clouds of dust and gas, rocks just wandering around. It's pretty helter-skelter. If there's some order to it, it's pretty difficult to find it.
At any rate, the notion that everything was created by some sort of immaterial super ghost is just hilarious. How can you take it seriously? I mean, even if you don't take The Big Bang seriously, what makes your ghost theory believable?
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Permalink Reply by James Cox on -
@Unseen
Hum, in the attempt to reduce the theist world view, it seems that you might have crossed the line into 'over simplification'. Not mentioning the effects of gravity, dark matter, and large scale structures that have been documented in the 'random' distribution of galaxies, seems to ring the bell, of 'did you forget something?'
On small scales, the distribution of matter might seem 'random', but the afformentioned details are in play. Sadly, without very good equipment to do observations, the most gross generalities can become accepted dogma.
While we might differ with theists on rather important details, honesty still demands something 'more' from us.
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Permalink Reply by Unseen on
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I'm not sure what you said changes anything. Dark matter isn't arranged in columns and rows, either. The cosmos is notoriously clumpy. Here's a recent map of dark matter, BTW:
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Permalink Reply by James Cox on
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Yes, if it were arranged in columns and rows, it would be more like a spread sheet! If gravity were of no importance, maybe 'columns and rows' could be possible, but what would keep such a structure stable?
Some 'intelligent', or atleast some 'obsessive-compulsive' intelligence could be suggested, with the funny desire for a rather obvious and uninteresting desire for order. I think what we have is definitly more interesting, but a little maddening. I think we have mostly mined the depths of 'cosmic intelligence', and found a rather limited indication. I tend to leave that concept on the shelf, with little hope to ever resurrect it, as more a novelty of the early days of supposition...
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Permalink Reply by kOrsan on -
, in the attempt to reduce the theist world view,
Could we just be honest and come out and say that the theist world view is "I'm scared of death!" ?
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Permalink Reply by James Cox on
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So your saying there was no peer review? Just statements pooping into existence from human minds with no known address?
"Gods invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen,"
How do you get from "invisible qualities" to "clearly seen"?
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Permalink Reply by kOrsan on
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as if Christians are adverse to inventing and utilizing technology
You're right, after all theists came up with a shit-ton of torture methods.
That's what you can pride yourselves with.
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Permalink Reply by Richard Bohn on -
A true Christian would never conceive of such things. Once again, people aren't Christians just because they claim the name. Its really maddening to have to explain this distinction. Yeah, you all had my lunch today, but come this is just too much.
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