The Second Oldest Question

Jeff: God is Imaginary - 50 simple proofs

Link: God is Imaginary - 50 simple proofs.

Well, after reading this page, I think my work is done here.

Brad: Before we continue, Jeff, do you agree...

Jeff, before I respond to your last post, would you clarify some things for me?

Is Scientific Naturalism the view that the "spatio-temporal universe of physical objects, properties, events, and processes that are well established by scientific forms of  investigation is all there is, was, or ever will be." Yes?

Everything is managed by the laws of nature. The laws establish the unfolding of the now. Agree?

You are your brain and body. Your movements are the result of your hardware and the inputs from your environment. Agree?

Atheist J. L. Mackie  wrote: "Moral properties constitute so odd a cluster of properties and relations that they are most unlikely to have arisen in the ordinary course of events without an all-powerful god to create them." Agree/Disagree?

 

Brad: And Jeff thinks Christians are delusional?

Alvin Plantinga has been called "one of the most important philosopher's of religion now writing." I listened to this lecture he gave at Cal Poly yesterday. In it he uses the presuppositions of naturalism to answer the question--who is really delusional? Jeff, sorry. It's not us.

Brad: What would make me an atheist? Hmmm...

I was going to put all this in a comment on Jeff's post below, but I thought I'd post it. Jeff, I enjoyed the exchange between you and your friend. I think I would enjoy getting to know him. I am 5 days away from the end of my semester at the seminary, and then I'm done until next summer. So, I'm a bit intellectually booked right now. Next week I hope to address a misunderstanding I believe you and your friend have about faith.  I would  disagree that Christian faith is blind.

drzaius (see comments from jeff's previous post), you asked what it would take for me to become an atheist. I guess I would need the resurrection of Jesus definitively refuted to become an atheist. BTW: we have yet to explore any of this. For those interested, you might find this article by Alister McGrath interesting. Jeff, I also found this debate between McGrath and Daniel Dennett. I haven't read it yet, but the promo says they "debate the existence of God, the origin of religion and the validity of the meme idea."

drzaius, I can't imagine becoming an atheist. No one has disproved the resurrection to my liking. Even if they did,  I'd just go be a Buddhist or something. The Buddhists have nicer gardens. I would put Thich Nhat Hahn's gardens against Dawkins' gardens any day. And I'll bet Thich drinks better tea.

Jeff, this gets back to my "day in the life" proposal for you. Help me understand why anyone would want to be an atheist.  And please don't say it's more intellectually honest. There are too many very smart theists who would disagree with that argument.

Brad: My life as an accidental, chemical reaction...

Jeff has asked me to describe what I think life would be without God, Jesus, Satan, heaven, hell, etc. What would life be like if I wasn’t a Christian? I am assuming here that Jeff is hoping I would answer from the standpoint of Brad the imagine-atheist. If I wasn’t a Christian, I of course could hold any number of worldviews, but for the sake of this blog, it seems to make sense for me to imagine my life as an atheist. So here goes…a day in the life of the accidental, chemical reactions called Brad.