http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/03/col...ary/index.html

I don't follow the religious posts...but didn't David dare people to find someone who was like super smart who believed in God or something?

If I recall correctly, his challenge was directed at anyone who believed that faith in god is the only way to get into heaven.

That would make more sense. We have control over our actions. We have no control over our beliefs. If God gave man a brain and the man used that brain to logically conclude that there was no God, based on his own observations, etc, how can God blame him?

C.S. LEWIS Read his books and and tell me he is not a genius.

Heaven can only be the totality of the Universe,and since man is the universe becoming conscious of itself, all of mankind must be what people refer to as God.

Yup.

Best first post ever?

I take it you dont believe in aliens?

The average PhD has an IQ below 130, or so I've read.

Most PhDs wouldn't get Nobel prizes if they devoted themselves to pure science rather than God.

Mere christianity sucks.

You make a couple unfounded statements there.

It couldn't possibly be anything else? Why not?

Can you back that up in any way? I'll settle for proof that the universe is conscious, or even a logical indicator.

If I believed the first part of this statement, I'd be somewhat inclined to believe the second part too. But there's no reason to believe the first part. Can you offer any?

Faith, duh.

pretty good debate (and by debate I mean Sam Harris makes Prager look like a complete tool)

There are hundreds and thousands of top doctors and scientists who believe in god/allah/jhwh. Just because they don't hang out with David doesn't mean they don't exist.

Physics PhD's also believe that 94% of the universe is the currently unknowable 'dark matter.' So everyone believes wacky things, and god is a lot less wacky than superstring theory and 13 dimensions to make the math come out right.

[quote

Physics PhD's also believe that 94% of the universe is the currently unknowable 'dark matter.' So everyone believes wacky things, and god is a lot less wacky than superstring theory and 13 dimensions to make the math come out right.

[/quote]

Correct, and non-trivial.

I heard this guy interviewed by Terry Gross on NPR a day after she interviewed Richard Dawkins. He's a sweet intelligent guy who likes the celebrity of being Jesus's man in the genomics. Remember, somebody who can do the kind of science that sequences the genome isn't necessarily a heavy thinker. The heavy thinker is the guy who had the idea of sequencing in the first place. The work of most scientists is like that of programmers. They do a part of a larger project. The great minds like Newton, Einstein, Darwin, etc. are geniuses who happened to be scientists.

WHAT? I don't understand string-theory, but it easily makes way more sense than all-powerful-invisable-ghost-man-who-dreamed-up-everything-that-exists-and-ever-will-happen-and-you have to believe-it-or-he-will-send-you-to-molten-lava-world-theory.

Even Francis Collins (who is the subject of OP's post) doesn't quite believe in this sort of god. Most educated people realize that the god with a belly button and a beard, the god who has a bad temper, etc., isn't much of a god. The real question is, is there something beyond materialism? Even the idea of god the creator is a bit specious since there is no need for any creation, and at any rate we'd have to explain god's creation.

The only God worthy of the name is way beyond our comprehension. In the Vedas it is said, "Not this, not this." Any notion we may have of God is surely wrong. Can the ant contemplate nuclear fusion? We are the ant.

I've read it and I loved one sentence from Prager: " I believe that the more time one spends at a university the more foolish he or she becomes."

If I understand this sentence correct, we should close all the universities as they produce foolish people. Or whithout universities the society would be smarter.
Is there anybody who agrees with this sentence?

Isaac Newton was one of the most brilliant men who have ever lived and he was ardently Christian.

Of course it was in an entirely different era.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_n...eligious_views

He's smart enough to know this:

Cleary this is intelligent design. It is so obvious that I wonder how anyone could miss it.

Faith begins where reason ends. And as Emily Dickinson sarcastically wrote many years ago:

"Faith" is a fine invention
When Gentlemen can see--
But Microscopes are prudent
In an Emergency.

In the Bush administration we have a faith-based foreign policy and a faith-based science policy, but the problem with that is, "faith-based" is "ignorance-based."

Faith is fine in matters about which we can have no information. But when we have it, it is better to use that information rationally rather than to resort to a blind reliance on faith.

But you believe it? why?
Hardly. The 13-dimensions that curl up into strings that can't really be seen or measured but trust us they are there or we have to admit 94% of the universe is still missing makes extremely LITTLE sense, even to quantum mechanists working in the field.

Well, I'm not Catholic, but if you go down to GTown or StJoe's or Gonzaga or Marquette, and ask the Jesuits who teach theology, they will inform you of the many errors in your assertion, given their beliefs.

I've highlighted most of them for you, you seem to be pretty confused.

In addition, many different faiths believe in different God or gods or deities. Just because Religion XYZ's idea of God may not be correct, doesn't mean anyone else's idea of god/jwhw is necessarily wrong. The greatest philosophers and theologians of alltime have wrestled with this question, you certainly aren't going to come up with THE answer on this board anytime soon. Believe, or don't believe, or keep an open mind about it -- no one really cares what you think.

Regardless, absence of proof is not proof of absence. And I'm agnostic.

The meaning of the word "belief" in this case is completely different from what it means to a religious person. To a scientist, "dark matter" is a short hand proxy for something like: "there are irregularities in galactic rotation that are not accounted for by the visible matter they contain, assuming that our current conception of general relativity is correct (and I'm open to the possibility it isn't and will listen objectively to any evidence to the contrary), there must be something we aren't detecting that is warping space in the same way gravity does... lets call this currently unkown stuff 'dark matter' until we can figure out a way to investigate further"

I think it's one of the great tragedies of the english language that there is a word that can mean what I said above, and also mean "a 2000 year old book said so and I'm going to dogmatically view it as correct no matter what you say"