That one dang genius who believes?

[sexdrugsmoney]

[ 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 ]

I know you made this point believing that if Newton was alive today, you'd wager that he wouldn't be a Christian, yet considering Newton believed the Bible to be the inspired word of God and read from it daily, I think if he saw the possibility that the Book of Revelation may be fulfilled by looking at certain things in the world like that TIME Magazine story I made you aware of, it's a good chance he would still be a believer.

50/50 IMHO - He would either lose his faith entirely or be more certain of it.

Pity he's not alive so we could watch.

Cheers,
SDM

[David Sklansky]

I vehemently disagree. If you are right, and Newton is sane, almost everything else I say collapses. Perhaps that shows even more clearly where I am coming from.

[sexdrugsmoney]

[ QUOTE ]
I vehemently disagree. If you are right, and Newton is sane, almost everything else I say collapses. Perhaps that shows even more clearly where I am coming from.

[/ 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

C) Offer a prop bet on the GRE for more money than he can afford.

[kitaristi0]

[ QUOTE ]
C) Offer a prop bet on the GRE for more money than he can afford.

[/ QUOTE ]

nh

[David Sklansky]

"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.

[VarlosZ]

[ 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.

[/ 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.

[David Sklansky]

"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.

[txag007]

[ QUOTE ]
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 ]

"Ummmm, yeahhhhh. I'm going to have to sort of...disagree with you there..."

Seriously, I disagree. Discovery of the things you mentioned doesn't necessarily suggest that God doesn't exist, but rather gives us a greater insight into God's creation.

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.

So, I wonder if Newton's faith would not be strengthened with the recent discoveries of science.

[KidPokerX]

and who would that be?