Sure, and in doing so, underscored your own religious agnosticism. However, all faith isn't equal, and you failed to provide this important detail.
In order: no, in what respect and says you.
A little selective are we?
No. Most of mankind has believed in God throughout its history. Still does. You had it backwards.
The "lions share" of these "best and brightest" that you allude to, died in the 16th and 17th century long before discoveries like the germ theory of disease or the theory of evolution.
Actually, no. Atheism and science have only been close cousins in fairly recent times. You missed a few centuries there and even that phenomena is more culturally than objectively driven. That is, Newton didn't believe in God because he needed that belief to explain the weather and science needn't drive anyone from religious faith.
Not to discredit them, as they certainly were brilliant, however, you appear to be making the vapid assumption that modern science or scientists aren't as brilliant as the giants of the 16th and 17th century.
There's not much in this that has any objective legs. Your periods are stlll wrong and narrowed for no discernible reason. Your characterization remains condescendingly consistent, if without a whit of sustainable reason to justify it...and even were you right in every particular, which you aren't, I wouldn't need to do anything of the sort to have made my assertion that the lion's share of mankind, including it's best and brightest shared a common understanding/faith in the existence of God.
If you looked at the statistics, including the hundreds of thousands of bright scientific minds to date, the majority, by landslide, are non-religious. So not only are you wrong on this point, you are embarrassingly so.
I would be had I suggested that the greater part of our current crop of scientists, etc. But I didn't. I recognize the more recent trend as you must the existence within that trend of noteworthy and celebrated intellectual exception.
No, you have not addressed it satisfactorily because you have yet to demonstrate that you understand how, exactly, things are objectively "known/discovered" by science.
You're pretension and ongoing condescension aside and to answer with equal objective weight: horsefeathers.
Examining any one given experiment or data set alone without consideration of all else may provide justification for incredulity, but, we don't examine evidence in box.
I haven't suggested other. I have suggested that bad data in the particular will never, collectively, give you more than a mass of that same thing on the whole.
If enough evidence existed, or could be mustered, which strongly corroborated your stories and beliefs, and those described in the bible, I still would agree that you don't have proof.
:chuckle: Thank you for agreeing that the matter has no objective means for settling.
But, you'd have strong objective foundation for your belief in God. Something you don't have right now.
In fact, you've already agreed with me that we rely first on our experience, on the validity of that experience and that this experience has at its heart, faith. My experience of God, the only means of approaching a problem that presents itself, is a strong foundation for my belief. You, not having that experience, naturally come to a differing foundation in belief.
Right now you have objectively nothing.
Right now, as to the existence of God and the foundation of being, neither of us have an objective anything, there not being an objective means to address the point, which was my opening criticism of Apologetics and the empty sleeve of a challenge the anti theist frequently makes. Else, supra.
Your credulity on ancient stories (and how they make you feel inside) written by those who had a lower level of education than a modern kindergarten class
I'm a lawyer. I was a rationalist athesit for nearly three decades. Don't presume to tell me I'm credulous. And I doubt Paul would feel confounded by that gathering of children.
But it's telling that, like Dawkins, you don't appear to know much about the thing you''re criticizing. The Bible has within it tales of men celebrated for their wisdom and discernment. And my faith, your declaration notwithstanding, isn't based on a feeling any more than your faith is apparently wanting an emotional core, one illustrated by your near pathalogical need to sneer at it and the faithful at every available opportunity.
Case in point:
...Contemplating heaven in comparison to the potential discoveries within a universe we can objectively say exists is far more interesting than hearing about rivers of gold/chocolate and 72 virgins nonsense from half literate sheep-herders.
Your cultural bias is noted, as is the insecurity that requires you to continue to repeat the tired insults of Dawkins and company at every possible turn. Truth is truth, no matter the modesty of its origin.
Only those who are unable to read or think rationally would believe that an expression of reason and concern is an attempt to justify malice as superior.
Rather, it was a taste of your own medicine and I'm happy that you didn't care for it in the last or, presumably, this... Let's leave that dish off the menu then altogether then, shall we?
