If you don’t want to hear the opinions you have hands with which to cover your ears, or eyes.

I love my country.

religion has nothing to do with loving your country. if that was the case then what am i to make of the church in Chicago that was harboring an illegal alien? that was bad and the Minister should be arrested for aiding and abetting.

I love my country but I don’t believe in God. I am also a conservative. If you do, thats great! but please do not foist your beliefs on me relative to the dibursement of government funds, ie, ablution stations @ state funded universities (U of Minn) – what’s next holy water fonts? why not?

freedom of religion should be protected at all costs. but like speech – you have the right to say but not to force me to hear.

This is not an equivalency argument – I recognize (in a non-pc way) that Christianity is safer than islam.

angryoldfatman on September 12, 2007 at 1:09 PM

see-dubya on September 12, 2007 at 1:19 PM

An appeal to authority is probably one of the most juvenile fallacies to use in a discussion such as this one. Socrates was a fascist, he believed in the Grecian gods, he was also intelligent, yet at the same time he was ignorant. As are billions of others on this planet.

Genesis is a contradiction. You offer the evidence to even the most learned Christian and you will see how quickly they abandon logic, intelligence, education, and reason. I don’t completely agree with JayHaw considering that there are many religious people (Christian, Muslim, et cetera) who are intelligent and educated, but these intelligent and educated people abandon their intelligence in favor of bias when discussing their God.

And to all the people clinging onto the hope that they’re using reason in believing in their God I have three words for you: leap of faith. To believe in a God you must make three gigantic assumptions: 1) God exists 2) God has a Plan 3) Because humans do not possess the knowledge of God they must accept this plan as good. Reason is not involved anywhere in these three assumptions.

Esthier on September 12, 2007 at 6:52 PMEsthier on September 12, 2007 at 6:52 PM

I have a great sense of humor.

However, you claimed I made multiple grammar errors. You have documented none.

You may believe that I fall into that category, but I assure you that nothing could be further from the truth.

I laugh when people call others stupid on the Internet with grammar mistakes in the very same post, but that’s not because I’m better than anyone but just because it’s funny, like a T-shirt I’ve found online that says “YOUR RETARDED.”

Maybe you disagree with my taste in humor, but I’ve got a T-shirt company that agrees with me.

Of course, who am I to judge…

JayHaw Phrenzie on September 12, 2007 at 5:35 PM

Except that you are judging, everyone who believes something different than what you do.

It’s true, I didn’t point out your other errors. That doesn’t mean there aren’t any.

But no, I don’t feel superior to you. I just make it a point to proof my posts before calling someone else stupid or refrain from calling others stupid. The latter really is preferable.

Honestly, you seem to be offended here because of some typos I caught (yes, more than one), when all the while, you’re insulting at least half of the earth’s population.

I don’t grammar troll everyone who posts here, but I can’t help but note the humor when someone posts mistakes in their post about the lack of intelligence of others.

If you don’t find humor in that, then I’ll have to conclude that you’re humorless.

Esthier on September 12, 2007 at 5:07 PM

You did not point out any grammatical error from my post. Just the one typo.

One thing that is even more amusing than a typo in the word intelligence is a self righteous, self appointed arbiter of the English language that feels superior when other people have defective “l” keys on their keyboards.

Of course, who am I to judge…

The most revealing symptom that these unfortunate people exhibited was their total inability to make even the simplest decisions. It seems that the emotional component of the brain was absolutely essential in order to function as a normal human being. Reason and logic are not enough.

That’s certainly an interesting revelation.

Yes, my typo proves you are correct. I now believe in god.

Not.

JayHaw Phrenzie on September 12, 2007 at 3:55 PM

I see you watched Borat and/or lived through the 80s.

Surely you don’t believe that was the point of my post. Just in case, I sincerely just think it’s funny and do always chuckle a tad when anyone attempts to insult anyone’s intelligence with a post full of grammatical train wrecks.

I’m not even asserting that these mistakes are proof of lower intelligence as you like to claim with those who believe in God. I just think it’s funny.

This is pure fantasy…

clark smith on September 12, 2007 at 11:02 AM

Welcome Mr. Smith. I see that you ARE a scientist. (I presume that you could not have known to post this if you had not experienced it first hand.) I don’t remember that last time a commenter blew the needle off of my truth gage, but this comment of yours was a regular tsunami of truth. I’ve been reluctant to tell the other participants here about this for quite some time now, mostly because I wasn’t sure whether or not they’d believe me.

After more than 30 years of studying and working as an engineer/scientist, I am more than ready to corroborate Mr. Smith’s testimony here. He is telling the truth. Science is fraught with politics, petty squabbles, deception, falsifications, plagiarism, snake-oil salesmanship and all manners of human failings/frailties imaginable. A synopsis of my observations over the past 30 years is as follows:

1) New ideas that are accepted as scientific fact are frequently discredited within a single human being’s lifetime. Sometimes it takes longer,(for example, when Newton’s ideas about gravity and the laws of motion were radically revised by Maxwell, Einstein, and by the development of quantum mechanics in the 1920s). Today’s astronomy is the most laughable of all. The nature of the universe has changed multiple times within my own lifetime. Oddly, most people never do learn that equating science with truth is dubious at best. Scientific theories can only be disproved, never proved. The longer they last the test of time (without being disproved) the more comfortable we are with assigning them a “higher probability” of truth. But that is all. Just a probability.

2) What passes for science these days is laughable. The situation is SO bad that I have privately likened modern day science to the NEW religious orthodoxy of the 21st century. Funny thing, the worshippers (mostly atheists) that bow at the alter of 21st century science (as their God) don’t seem to be all that different from the religious zealots of centuries past who were all too eager to burn anyone at the stake that they found threatening. The fact is, most of what passes for science these days IS religion. I say this because the adherents to these “beliefs” or “faiths” have absolutely no hope of constructing a control experiment that is capable of disproving their pet theories. When the pontificators postulate theories that are impossible to disprove and insist that others accept their ideas as fact, that is not science — it’s the worst kind of religion.

3) I don’t know what to say to those people that still champion reason (or rationalism) as the panacea for all our ills. People who believe this are SO many centuries behind the rest of us, they remind me of Muslims. Those that championed the idea that reason alone is sufficient (Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz et. al.) were discredited long ago. The glaring lack of completeness of this approach for accounting for what we experience as physical reality in our everyday lives or for giving us any hope or meaning are enough to put most people off at the outset. But if you need a case study as evidence that points to the failure of this approach, look no further than communism – the most colossal failure of the 20th century.

4) Some of the more interesting stuff going on today is happening in the field of neuroscience or the study of the brain. Findings that were recently published in medical journals show that brain damaged people whose capacity for reason and logic are intact, but who are incapable of emotion are virtually paralyzed (like deer in the headlights) by their disorder. The most revealing symptom that these unfortunate people exhibited was their total inability to make even the simplest decisions. It seems that the emotional component of the brain was absolutely essential in order to function as a normal human being. Reason and logic are not enough.

I droned on here far too long. I apologize for my verboseness. See ya’ in another thread.

Esthier on September 12, 2007 at 2:38 PM

Yes, my typo proves you are correct. I now believe in god.

Not.

Because the very definition of “faith” is to believe in something that you can not prove or have no evidence t

o

You fail to see the irony of this sentence. Faith is to believe. If you can prove something, then there is no need for belief. I don’t believe it is Wednesday. I know it is Wednesday. If I believe in anything, I naturally can’t prove it. But is that to argue that believing in things that are not possible to be proven, unreasonable?

There are many scientists, most of whom are atheists, who strongly believe in extraterrestial life. Is that belief also unreasonable? They certainly can’t prove it. I can’t prove that conservatism is better than liberalism. But I believe it to be. And so do you. By your logic, it is also unreasonable to believe such a thing. I believe that islam is a threat to our future. But I certainly can not prove it is. Is it therefore unreasonable to believe such? In otherwords, you are saying that all beliefs are unreasonable.

Anyone who is only willing to believe what can be proven, is someone with a very limited mind, as what can be proven increases every day and not all realities are measurable in a laboratory. God will never be proven, nor should He be while you are alive. How you conduct yourself without such proof will be the measuring stick by which you will be judged.

God is not an answer, believing in “God” is a decision to stop looking for the real answer.

Whether or not you find this surprising, believers agree with you on this one which is why some of us had been able to find work in areas like science and mathematics.

Work so easy even a believer can do it.

I do agree that it seems arrogant and I know that I will be flamed for stating this, but in my opinion the belief in “god” is considerable evidence of a lack of inteigence or education. At least one of the two must be missing. Either that or a powerful sef delusion must be in place.

JayHaw Phrenzie on September 12, 2007 at 12:52 PM

I always find it hilarious when people misspell intelligence while questioning someone else’s.

Honestly, the grammar troll in me wants to tear up your written attack on the lack of intelligence in believers.

I do agree that it seems arrogant and I know that I will be flamed for stating this, but in my opinion the belief in “god” is considerable evidence of a lack of inteigence or education. At least one of the two must be missing. Either that or a powerful sef delusion must be in place.

JayHaw Phrenzie on September 12, 2007 at 12:52 PM

Which one was it, lack of education or lack of intelligence, that Francis Bacon suffered from? Or Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.? Or any one of countless other examples of well-educated intelligent people believing in God?

I do agree that it seems arrogant and I know that I will be flamed for stating this, but in my opinion the belief in “god” is considerable evidence of a lack of intelligence or education. At least one of the two must be missing. Either that or a powerful self delusion must be in place.

I possess intelligence,
Learning I do not lack.
Delusions I have few.
I simply see the mountain
from a different side.
Hopefully you see the mountain too?

Not trying to flame you…at all.

…in my opinion the belief in “god” is considerable evidence of a lack of inteigence or education.

JayHaw Phrenzie on September 12, 2007 at 12:52 PM

I’m not religious, and I find this to be overly close-minded and condescending. It is also a gross generalization of HA posters who are religious.

I won’t argue that all of us have moments when the facts don’t sink in…it just happens to everyone. But I find your statement as a whole to be simply untrue.

jmarcure on September 12, 2007 at 12:41 PM

It may sem lame to you, but in thread after thread on Hot Air, it becomes apparant that Facts are irrelevent to most Christians.

There is no point in presenting evidence to people that have “faith” in that which there can be no evidence for.

I do agree that it seems arrogant and I know that I will be flamed for stating this, but in my opinion the belief in “god” is considerable evidence of a lack of inteigence or education. At least one of the two must be missing. Either that or a powerful sef delusion must be in place.

I offer no evidence of what I know to be true, because fanatics do not care about evidence.

JayHaw Phrenzie on September 12, 2007 at 12:13 PM

This has got to be one the lamest excuse I have ever read. It is even lamer than the “You have to agree that any intelligent person would agree with…blah, blah, blah”

christian, muslim, jew, hindu, wiccan….atheist. i am not interested in your opinions, but please enjoy your beliefs on your own time and in your own homes and churches. please follow one maxim: “mind your own business and keep your hands to yourself.”

thank you.

Antithetical to many of the systems which you described, but a nicely executed platitude nonetheless.

If you don’t want to hear the opinions you have hands with which to cover your ears, or eyes.

I love my country.

The information that led me from religion is the exact same information that led one of my college friends to religious “zealousness,” as she termed it. And we were equally intelligent and learned, or about as close as you could get.

Yes. Each person does have a unique path back to their creator. But, whether they get there or not depends on choices they make. I cannot say for certain that the fact the education leads you toward or away from God means you’re going the wrong direction.

Big doubts make room for big faith, I’d say.