That one dang genius who believes?

[malorum]

[ QUOTE ]
If Newton was alive now and was STILL a religious Christian, I would significantly alter my personal assessment about whether I thought Christianity is true.

[/ QUOTE ]

This reliance on arguments from academic authority, is perhaps characteristic of the American educational system.
Right through undergraduate level it appears to involve the regurgitation of facts and arguments based on "those more learned than I".

This IMHO leads to a mis-understanding of scientific models as actual insights into the way reality supposedly is, rather than as predictive models.

If I found a quote of Newton stating 2+2=3 (in 'normal', non-modulo base ten arithmetic) would you reconsider your pot odds calculations???

[sexdrugsmoney]

[ QUOTE ]
"Assuming Newton was alive today, and was more Christian than ever, and had passed various psychiatric examinations and was sitting accross the table from you, trying to convince you to become a Christian, wouldn't you have only two choices?

A) Accept his genius logic, and adopt his axioms.
B) Reject his genius logic, and maintain your axioms.

Cheers,
SDM"

First let me correct you about something. You mean to say accept his conclusions.

Anyway if he did do that I would ask for a six month leave of abscence to study up on specifics of both his religion and science. Then I would have a debate with him. Which means that there is a third, very possible alternative. Namely that he would change HIS mind.

[/ QUOTE ]

David, this last line is rather proud.

Remember, in our scenario if Newton is alive, he HAS been up to date with modern science etc yet still remains a Christian. (more Christian than ever now the Book of Revelation has a probable application)

Yet you alter your position from taking a genius as your guide to saying you may have a chance to convince the genius of his folly.

Remember Newton and Leibniz independantly discovered Calculus, that's a pretty big thing!

Therefore the only choices you seem to have are:

A) Accept his genius conclusions, and adopt his beliefs.
B) Reject his genius conclusions, and maintain your beliefs. (ie- "cling" to another genius than was an athiest)

Cheers,
SDM

[ QUOTE ]
Anyway if he did do that I would ask for a six month leave of abscence to study up on specifics of both his religion and science. Then I would have a debate with him. Which means that there is a third, very possible alternative. Namely that he would change HIS mind.

[/ QUOTE ]
This is a huge result sexdrugsmoney. It clearly shows that his atheism is the result of personal belief and opinion, and not a deference to those more intelligent as he's been alluding to. It seems that was mostly just talk.

[ QUOTE ]
Look at DNA, for example. The Bible says that we are "fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139:14). Going back to Hebrew, the word translated as "wonderfully" is "Pah'lah" which means "to distinguish or set apart". The word "fearfully" is "Ya're", from the root "to revere". In other words, we are all unique. The idea of our uniqueness fits right in with the discovery of DNA.

[/ QUOTE ]
This is just stunningly ignorant, of both scripture and DNA. People (like dogs, cows and cats) were obviously unique before they even discovered DNA. All you had to do was notice that no two people (apart from identical twins) looked identical or had the same personality. And yet somehow you think this indicates the bible was talking about DNA? This is precisely why religion will be around for eons to come, despite Sklansky's best efforts.

I just hope you were joking.

[RJT]

[ QUOTE ]
It clearly shows that his atheism is the result of personal belief and opinion...

[/ QUOTE ]

This is highly likely to be true.

[ QUOTE ]
... a deference to those more intelligent as he's been alluding to...

[/ QUOTE ]

This is what he is saying the rest of us less than (lesser for those of you to whom it applies) geniuses should do.

[txag007]

Reading comprehension.

[ QUOTE ]
Reading comprehension.

[/ QUOTE ]
I disagree. Here is what you said in response to David's contention that modern science makes it less likely to believe in God:

1. Recent discoveries give us a greater insight into God's creation
- If you have an a priori belief that God created the universe, this a tautology.

2. The bible says "we are all unique"(your words)
- I question your interpretation of that passage. But it doesn't matter in this case. Let's say it stands.

3. "We are all unique"
- Any child over the age of 5 would agree with this idea. A remote tribe in New Guinea would agree. It's freaking obvious, and has nothing to do with the bible.

4. When we discovered DNA, we discovered nature's mechanism for uniqueness.

Are you saying this discovery validates God or builds upon what the bible teaches? That's what I was referring to in my reply. If you weren't saying that, then the only content in your paragraph was the first sentence: "Seriously, I disagree". The rest was meaningless because of the tautology in (1). Forgive me for assuming it actually had some content, and replying to that.

[VarlosZ]

[ QUOTE ]
"No, I think 'accept his axioms' makes more sense. Being a genius, one would expect him to draw the correct conclusions from his axioms."

Axioms can be whatever you want them to be as long as they don't contradict each other. But I don't think Newton would have any different axioms than mine. He believed in Christianity because he didn't know about DNA, Fractal geomety, Chaos theory, Quantum Theory, Relativity Theory Nuclear Fusion and Siefried and Roy. He didn't even know about atoms. All things that suggest either no god or a God who washed his hands of us billions of years ago.

[/ QUOTE ]

Some of those things are stumbling blocks for a literal interpretation of the Bible, but I disagree that they necessarily suggest an atheist or deist outlook.

[David Sklansky]

"This is a huge result sexdrugsmoney. It clearly shows that his atheism is the result of personal belief and opinion, and not a deference to those more intelligent as he's been alluding to. It seems that was mostly just talk."

It's not a huge result. Deference to scientific genuises is merely one of many reasons I disbelieve. I use it a lot because it is clearcut. But I never implied it was my main reason.

[ QUOTE ]
This is a huge result sexdrugsmoney. It clearly shows that his atheism is the result of personal belief and opinion, and not a deference to those more intelligent as he's been alluding to. It seems that was mostly just talk.

[/ QUOTE ]

How can that show anything when the whole scenario was fiction (first, Newton needs to still be alive, and then his faith needs to be stronger than ever) and Newton is but one of many men. Why should the beliefs of everyone else be thrown overboard just because SDM hypothesizes that Newton *might* still believe in God if still alive?

Wow, you guys are grasping at some very short straws.


This debate is equivalent to:
SDM: What if Newton came back and firmly believed that the universe was not expanding?
DS: I might convince him that it was.
OOO: Aha! See SDM, DS is just biased and is full of just talk!
Kid: You're an idiot.