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90a4871
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"There seem to be only two kinds of people: Those who think that metaphors are facts, and those who know that they are not facts. Those who know they are not facts are what we call "atheists," and those who think they are facts are "religious." Which group really gets the message?"
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religion
metaphors
theism
mythology
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Joseph Campbell |
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427b969
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"Scientists are slowly waking up to an inconvenient truth - the universe looks suspiciously like a fix. The issue concerns the very laws of nature themselves. For 40 years, physicists and cosmologists have been quietly collecting examples of all too convenient "coincidences" and special features in the underlying laws of the universe that seem to be necessary in order for life, and hence conscious beings, to exist. Change any one of them and the consequences would be lethal. , the distinguished cosmologist, once said it was as if "a super-intellect has monkeyed with physics".
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science
fred-hoyle
serendipity
coincidence
fine-tuning
id
intelligent-design
theism
chance
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Paul Davies |
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1bdc5e5
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I think I have a very good idea why it is that anti-Semitism is so tenacious and so protean and so enduring. Christianity and Islam, theistic though they may claim to be, are both based on the fetishizing of human primates: Jesus in one case and Mohammed in the other. Neither of these figures can be called exactly historical but both have one thing in common even in their quasi-mythical dimension. Both of them were first encountered by the Jews. And the Jews, ravenous as they were for any sign of the long-sought Messiah, were not taken in by either of these two pretenders, or not in large numbers or not for long. If you meet a devout Christian or a believing Muslim, you are meeting someone who would give everything he owned for a personal, face-to-face meeting with the blessed founder or prophet. But in the visage of the Jew, such ardent believers encounter the very figure who have such a precious moment, and who spurned the opportunity and turned shrugging aside. Do you imagine for a microsecond that such a vile, churlish transgression will ever be ? I myself certainly hope that it will not. The Jews have seen through Jesus and Mohammed. In retrospect, many of them have also seen through the mythical, primitive, and cruel figures of Abraham and Moses. Nearer to our own time, in the bitter combats over the work of Marx and Freud and Einstein, Jewish participants and protagonists have not been the least noticeable. May this always be the case, whenever any human primate sets up, or is set up by others, as a Messiah.
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myth
christianity
jesus
religion
marx
moses
einstein
prophets
freud
christians
muslims
muhammad
messiah
theism
atheism
islam
humans
antisemitism
jews
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Christopher Hitchens |
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cac6115
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"There is no indisputable proof for the big bang," said Hollus. "And there is none for evolution. And yet you accept those. Why hold the question of whether there is a creator to a higher standard?"
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science
big-bang
double-standards
materialism
id
macro-evolution
macroevolution
intelligent-design
religious-science-fiction
darwinism
theism
theistic-science-fiction
naturalism
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Robert J. Sawyer |
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3cfa16e
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"It is either coincidence piled on top of coincidence," said Hollus, "or it is deliberate design."
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science
coincidenc-e
fine-tuning
id
intelligent-design
religious-science-fiction
theism
theistic-science-fiction
chance
naturalism
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Robert J. Sawyer |
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8a4826a
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No one disputes that seeming order can come out of the application of simple rules. But who wrote the rules?
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science
intelligent-design
religious-science-fiction
theism
theistic-science-fiction
naturalism
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Robert J. Sawyer |
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8c218bd
|
Most theists are deists most of the time, in practice if not in theory. They practice the absence of God instead of the presence of God.
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christianity
god
philosophy
deist
presence-of-god
jesus-shock
theist
deism
catholicism
theology
theism
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Peter Kreeft |
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1f993c8
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"It comes as no surprise to find [Norman] Mailer embracing [in the book ] a form of Manicheanism, pitting the forces of light and darkness against each other in a permanent stand-off, with humanity as the battlefield. (When asked if Jesus is part of this battle, he responds rather loftily that he thinks it is a distinct possibility.) But it is at points like this that he talks as if all the late-night undergraduate talk sessions on the question of theism had become rolled into one. 'How can we not face up to the fact that if God is All-Powerful, He cannot be All-Good. Or She cannot be All-Good.' Mailer says that questions such as this have bedevilled 'theologians', whereas it would be more accurate to say that such questions, posed by philosophers, have attempted to put theologians out of business. A long exchange on the probability of reincarnation (known to Mailer sometimes as "karmic reassignment") manages to fall slightly below the level of those undergraduate talk sessions. The Manichean stand-off leads Mailer, in closing, to speculate on what God might desire politically and to say: 'In different times, the heavens may have been partial to monarchy, to communism, and certainly the Lord was interested in democracy, in capitalism. (As was the Devil!)' I think it was at this point that I decided I would rather remember Mailer as the author of
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good-and-evil
jesus
politics
religion
god
philosophy
omnibenevolence
omnipotence
norman-mailer
theology
theism
monarchy
reincarnation
capitalism
democracy
communism
devil
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Christopher Hitchens |
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215fef6
|
"The problem with ID, of course, is that it leaves open the possibility that the intelligence behind nature may have a moral interest in us, having communicated already with humanity in the past, and might try to boss you around in your private affairs.
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responsibility
science
aliens
extraterrestrials
moral-responsibility
multiple-universe
multiple-universes
new-scientist
dawkins
multiverse
richard-dawkins
judgement
id
intelligent-design
theism
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David Klinghoffer |
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3c0787b
|
Pantheism is sexed-up atheism. Deism is watered-down theism.
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humorous
deism
pantheism
theism
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Richard Dawkins |
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2860dc7
|
Over many centuries science has weakened the hold of religion, not by disproving the existence of God, but by invalidating arguments for God based on what we observe in the natural world. The multiverse idea offers an explanation of why we find ourselves in a universe favorable to life that does not rely on the benevolence of a creator, and so if correct will leave still less support for religion.
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god
multiverse
theism
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Alan Lightman |
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738c9fa
|
Prior to Flew, major apologies for atheism were those of Enlightenment thinkers (David Hume, Arthur Schopenhauer, Ludwig Feuerbach, and Friedrich Nietzsche). Major philosophers of Flew's generation who were atheists: W. V. O. Quine and Gilbert Ryle. But none took the step of developing book-length arguments to support their personal beliefs. In later years, atheist philosophers who critically examined and rejected the traditional arguments for God's existence: Paul Edwards, Wallace Matson, Kai Nielsen, Paul Kurtz, J. L. Mackie, Richard Gale, Michael Martin. But their works did not change the agenda and framework of discussion the way Flew's innovative publications did.
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there-is-a-god
theism
atheism
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Antony Flew |