Is ‘Freethinker’ Synonymous with Nontheist? Well, no. It isn ‘t. Atheists need to drop the sham; I am a freethinker by definition, and am positive that there have been numerous deists, theists, supernaturalists, pantheists and polytheists that have come to their conclusions on metaphysics as freethinkers. There were long expanses of time when pre-scientific answers were reasonable (case in point, animism at the ‘Dawn of Humanity’) or when the existence of a philosophical First Cause/Unmoved Mover God as ‘essence’ (think deism at the turn of the 18th century) just worked. Of course, being an atheist, I think those arguments have been undeniably refuted as science has continued to explain much of the mysteries of the universe. But still, if you embrace theism as a freethinker and can demonstrate how you came to your conclusion, I salute you. Isn’t that a good part of what this site is about? Discussions on matters of truth, critiques of argument, debates on important questions, tentative vindications of worldviews? Yet, I think the disparity of belief between scientists and the public (.pdf) says a great deal about free thought and science.

I’m no theologian, so I only understand (and read) a bit of theology. What I see is that many theologians take as a premise the existence of not just a god, but the god of their birth or culture: prima facie belief.

Those theologians that have attempted to demonstrate the existence of the supernatural — of a god — of the god — have provided far more interesting questions than (and I hate to be so harsh about it), those that pontificate not just on how many angels may dance on the head of a pin, but those who try to discover if angels engage in bowel movementsAn aside: Of course, if ethics that stem from belief in the supernatural work for you, that’s wonderful. Perhaps, if you believed otherwise, you would maim, steal, rape and murder others; thus your belief is a necessary thing, albeit unjustified in my eyes.
But I don’t think that’s true. I hope you can be just as ethical without a system of ethics that relies on, what seems to many nonbelievers, as magic beans.. (Of course, I’m speaking of Aquinas’ Summa Theologica.)

If you’d like to work through, as one would with a scientific hypothesis, several of the classic ‘proofs’ of the existence of (1) the supernatural, (2) a deistic god, (3) a theistic god, let’s talk it outAnother aside: Of course, if any of these proofs should fail, that does not mean that the god you believe in does not exist. And if your proof should succeed some serious scrutiny from doubters, then it is a powerful argument. Either way, believers in this situation will not be put on the spot. If an argument doesn’t work, it doesn’t work; nothing more.
But if an argument works….

Ellen and Oprah, out of their shear magnanimity, have uncovered and shared with the humble masses “The Secret” (http://www.thesecret.tv) which has given untold wealth and success to all its bearers from ancient times untold. This 90-minute movie, made by down-and-out TV-producer Rhonda Byrne, reveals the amazing “Law of Attraction” upon which all the universe apparently rests, unbeknownst to most. This law alone, through the power of positive emotion, can attract to you love, health, bicycles, cars, houses, success, money, and more – all that you desire and the universe longs to give.

Continue reading Selling “The Secret”

You can find few people quoted and mis-quoted as often as Einstein on the internet. He was the catalyst who divided an age for us. His brillance began a galactic morph from a fixed, clock-work universe to one dynamic and shifting, and in so doing forever changed science and life on planet earth. No wonder people are quick to stand up Einstein and put words in his mouth — a ventrilaquist’s dummy for their rhetoric. And because of this, it is increasingly important to talk about what Einstein really said and meant, reviving the real person and letting him speak for himself.

Continue reading Einstein and the Mind of God

Up to this point on this blog, I have been cautious to be honest but not say too much about my experience as a follower of Jesus. The order of first importance was establishing a base we might call “trust,” as far as that is possible in the cyber world. To those outside of any religion, the theology and practice of the faith seems foolish. Even a great deal of what a Buddhist thinks escapes me, and more about how their practice has any real benefit to them or the world. Therefore, to speak too soon in any mixed crowd is to come off foolish. Now that we have engaged in several “conversations”, I hope that, even though not all would agree with me, most would not think me stupid in what I have to say. With that said, I am going to begin introducing more of my thoughts and experiences of faith open to the general friendly critique and questions of all.

There is a key way that I think I experience God. It might be termed “emergence,” but really I have no good terminology for it save the theological term “revelation”. Over the course of a day or several days or a week or more time, a pattern of experiences and thoughts will emerge that are interrelated. They seem to be saying something to me. Usually it is something of immediate relevance to my life and development. Often it will be needed in the next conversation or in engagement with an issue in coming hours or days. It is seldom anything I am thinking about before hand - before the first occurrence warms me to it. And then, while I am still pondering the first, more will occur in astounding frequency and clarity.

Continue reading The IS/OUGHT Dichotomy

I’ve read a bit on Bayesian reasoning, and while searching for some topics people write on, I did the natural thing and Googled some key words, such as ‘Bayesian + hat‘, ‘Bayesian + supernatural‘, and finally, ‘Bayesian + god‘ hoping to find some interesting topics. Don’t ask me why I chose ‘hat’.

Stephen Unwin’s homepage came up as the first link under ‘Bayesian + god’. Looking at his webpage, I recalled that I had read a bit on his book a few months ago. He argues in his book The Probability of God: A Simple Calculation that Proves the Ultimate Truth, that we can compute the probability of God’s existence with the use of Bayesian reasoning. If we assume that with a ‘maximum ignorance’, the existence or nonexistence of God is that of 50/50, then we can attempt to assign probabilities to God’s existence. He throws some numbers in the mixing bowl (we’ll get to them later under the fold), and comes up with the probability of God’s existence. Unwin says, ‘The probability that God exists is…

Continue reading The Probability of God

In the post Do Atheists Have Faith?, I agrue that they do not according to my defintion of faith. (Readers, please note that I do define faith as relational trust using Abraham in that post, and as such many of your comments may be missing my point.) I freely admit that my arguement is dependent on my particular defintion, and does not hold if you define faith differently. According to the comments on that post and drunkentune’s RESPONSE: Do Athiests Have Faith, it is clear that I use ‘faith’ differently than many of the readers here, so I will explain my sources of my definition in hopes of clarifying what I think ‘faith’ should refer to. While people are free to disagree, of course, I hope that this will be informative and will limit the criticism of my post at least to my working definition.

Continue reading My Definition of Faith

The late U.S. Senator Daniel P. Moynihan once said that if you began using terminology created by your political adversary, the battle was over. I care how words are used, and their implicit messages that shape the debate. Thus, I begin a short story: Some time ago, a young man spoke privately with a philosopher. He asked the philosopher the first action he would take if he became the king. The man scratched his beard for a minute in thought, then spoke clearly: Rectify the names.

The young man was startled, but regained composure to scoff: This is your first action? Absurd!

The philosopher answered, correcting the young man: When the names are faulty, speech is not reasonable; when speech is not reasonable, actions are not conducted properly; when actions are not conducted properly, society begins to falter; when society begins to falter, the punishment does not fit the crime; when the punishment does not fit the crime, the people are at a loss. ‘The thing about the gentleman is that he is anything but casual when speech is concerned.’ (Confucious, Analects, Book XIII)

Continue reading RESPONSE: Do Atheists Have Faith?

UPDATE: My view here is conditional on my definition of faith. Due to comments on this and other posts, I have added My Definition of Faith as a separate post to clarify the definition given here.

I would like to give my opinion on this idea which has appeared on this blog, primarily in back-and-forth comments on Me Arguing with No One in Particular, especially between Dave Armstrong (who recently departed this blog) and beepbeepitsme (the charming lady from Down Under) (numbers 42-44). Drunkentune already responded to this assertion and several others in his post Red Dust, which is worth your reading.

Some people, believers especially, would like to think or to be able to say that all humans have faith, but differ in what they have faith in or upon. This is applied especially to atheists, and in particular in those conversations when atheists assert that they do not need or wish to resort to living by faith, as believers do (sometimes, blindly some atheists might also add). I disagree with this idea that atheists have faith and here’s why:

Continue reading Do Atheists Have Faith?

Drunkentune and I (soulster) thought we’d like to send each other some questions via email and share the answers with the readers of this blog. Here are three questions by drunkentune concerning my understanding of Christianity:

Drunkentune: Dominionism [wiki] is in part control of all parts of being: the control of the mind within congregation, the control of the dominionist’s body and the bodies of those that violate the dominionist’s rules of conduct, be them homosexual or abortionist, and ultimately, control over the environment. Calvinism [wiki] is the requisition of control to a higher power and absolving all responsibility. I see that all classes of Christianity have different interpretations of scripture that seem to pull from different worldviews existing independently of the Bible or their belief. A Christian may find any message he chooses in the Bible to fit his worldview, or a verse may reinforce such a worldview that had only begun to grow. Is it possible to learn what Jesus meant, or is it that, since Jesus’ words have been used historically for any purpose, is it worth it to even attempt such an endeavor?

Continue reading Drunkentune’s Christianty Questions