Mailbag: Feelings vs. Science
Subject: Purpose in Life
Feelings tell you more than science. It's not proven either that there was no Christ. I think that feelings are more factual than science. When you have those feelings, you know. When you believe science, you're believing what someone else thinks. Sometimes there just aren't reasons for somethings!!
These are truly tragic comments. I honestly can't quite fathom what sort of mind a person has to have in order to employ modern technology while asserting that personal feelings are far superior to the science that produced that technology. Feelings are more factual than science? We have science to think for innumerable advances in medicine, computers, exploration, and so forth - yet none of that is apparently "factual" enough for Jenny. And what is "factual" for Jenny? I don't know; sometimes there just aren't any reasons for some nonsense.
So, what do you think is our purpose in life? To eat, drink and be merry. To live for fun? When we die, we're gone forever? Isn't that weird to think? Just stop and think for a second......... our brain stops, and our heart stops, and we become nothing?
Yes, that's exactly it. No, it isn't weird to think that when our brain stops, so do we - after all, what memories do we have of existence before our brains were working? None. Our memories and personality are functions of the physical brain; when it dies, they die. Since there is no "us" aside from our memories and personalities, that means that we die when they die with the brain.
I 'm pretty sure there is record that a man named Jesus Christ roamed the earth at that time.
If we are talking about the Bible, yes - but just how reliable of a record is that? Jenny may be assuming that there exists evidence outside of the Bible for Jesus, but that is a dubious notion. Sadly, Christian apologists act as though it were an obvious truth, failing to explain just how uncertain it all really is. The best case for evidence of Jesus outside the Bible is one of the two passages in Josephus - the one not obviously redacted later by other Christian apologists. That second passage, however, is not much to work from.
There's a story about a man, he was going to hike this mountain that no one has ever hiked before!! Never, no one!! It was big, in the news, and everything, everyone knew he was going to hike this mountain. So, he hiked and finally made it to the top!! While he was at the top, he found this golden pocket watch!! He thought, how could this be up here? It was working just fine and everything!! Perfect!! So, he climbed down the mountain and showed it to some sciencetists. They concluded that the wind blew the gold around, and it just happened to form the circling for the watch. Then little screws and bit s of metal came floating in the air, and the dirt transformed into glass, and with the help of the rocks knocking those things into place, the perfect pocket watch was created. How realisitc is that?
Ah, the Watchmaker Argument - so much misunderstanding and mischaracterization bundled up in such a short passage. This simplistic Argument to Design assumes that, in the absence of any gods, random chance must be responsible for the development of the universe and of life. The idea that natural laws can constrain events, allowing order to arise out of disorder, never seems to occur to the people making such an argument.
All science is is a guess. A hypothetical guess. You'll never get anywhere believing science. Think about a pocket watch. How much more complex is a human body? The way it works is just astounding. How could dirt turn into a human?
I don't know whether to pity Jenny's teachers from school or be annoyed with them. How can anyone complete even a rudimentary education and come away with such ridiculous notions about science? Science is not a guess, it is a method for transforming guesses and speculation into knowledge. Science isn't a dead-end street, taking us nowhere; on the contrary, it is the one path that consistently takes us farther and farther into regions we never knew existed. The computer Jenny used to create her message is proof enough of that, but I'm not sure that she was ever able to make that connection.
More selections from the Agnosticism / Atheism Mailbag...
Comments
What is it with creationists saying, “How could dirt turn into a human?” The Bible says that humans were made of dirt. Even if evolution were as simple as saying “humans came from dirt,” it would at least have a detailed mechanism for how that happens. Their explanation for it is, “magic!”
It is a sad fact that religion is the handmaiden of ignorance. I suppose that if I had a feeling that I was going to win the lottery then,according to Jenny, I could book a luxury holiday on the strength of my feelings. This is utter nonsense and it typical of those individuals who have read nothing other than the bible. What else should we expect from these individuals when the people they follow, Hagee and Robertson, believe that they have daily conversations with God.
I laugh when atheists post letters like these because it’s like a young boy beating a scarecrow with a stick thinking himself a champion. The idea that atheists are objective & intellectual, and the religious are subjective & ignorant is a false dichotomy and a straw man argument atheists love to beat. There are no intelligent comments from atheists about other articles on this site, but the comments above reveal where the flies like to gather.
Its a true irony that an atheists would suggest that one method (their own) is better than another(the religious method) for discovering the truth(what that means to an atheists is unclear, but for those on this site it involves a brazen bigotry for religious individuals.)
“Its a true irony that an atheists would suggest that one method (their own) is better than another(the religious method) for discovering the truth…”
Sorry stevedoetsch, but you just made yourself a “false dichotomy” right there. There is no such thing as “the” religious method, but rather a multitude of methods starting with the various religions and denominations thereof. And atheism is merely the absence of belief in gods, so by itself it is not a “method for discovering the truth” any more than an absence of belief in UFOs is. You do however, have a multitude of methods and philosophies (objectivism, existentialism, etc.) that do not involve gods. And some are agnostic–skepticism merely asks for extraordinary proof for extraordinary claims. If the resurrsection of Jesus had been videotaped, skepticism would happily take that into consideration regarding Christianity, for example.
Mr Doetsch argument is false because the premise of his argument is false. As an academic historian any essay or thesis I develop has to be evidence based. Christian fanatics such as Mr Doetsch believe they can put forward an argument about the existence of an all-powerful being successfully without providing any evidence whatsoever for the existence of such a supernatural being. Sorry, Mr Doetsch, the world of ideas does not work that way. The only thing that he can say in support of his false proposition is that he “has a feeling that God exists”. The idea about The existence of God is just that, an idea. Since humans are the only animals which can logically debate and understand the world of ideas I would like to ask Mr Doetsch “where was God before humanbeings existed”? As hunanity was not around to think about the idea of God,then the idea of an all-powerful being did not exist. As a materialist I am tired of fundamentalist Christians, Moslems and all religious weirdos putting forward arguments for which no evidence exists. Take Creationism, for instance, we are asked to accept the idea that God created the entire universe and humanity in seven days. We are further asked to accept that our planet is only six thousand years old, There is no evidence whatsoever for either proposition, in fact all the accepted evidence points to the fact our planet and the universe are many billions of years old, even the Catholic Church and the Anglican Church accept that proposition. It is only the evangelical, literalist fascists who put forward the crazy creationist ideas.