NOGO

I can find some today who believe in other Gods than the Christian God.

Devilnaut

Amazing. I wonder why Radorth feels the need to assert the reasonableness of Xianity without actually providing the source for this reasonableness. Sure brilliant men have been Christians; that isn't really important. The important question is, why? If we don't know why, then it is just one big argumentum ad populum.

Radorth, if you really feel that excessively brilliant men have found acceptable, rational reasons to accept Christianity, then before you make this unfounded claim, why don't you go and find out what those reasons were and present them in the Existence of Gods forum?

Why should the mere fact that some smart people happened to believe something convince me that it's true, absent their actual reasoning? Brilliant men have believed all sorts of mistruths over the course of human history. For one thing, I think you'd find significant troubles finding many brilliant men who were raised without religion and later converted to christianity because of the evidence.

[ October 18, 2002: Message edited by: Devilnaut ]</p>

lpetrich

Radorth:
I don't suppose many skeptics qualify in your mind although they contradict themselves at every turn, believe the most extraordinary and unproven assertions, and basically coomit every intellectual sin that I supposedly do.

Matthew 7:1-5

Is it possible they were Christians strictly because of the same intellectual integrity and humility which led them to other discoveries?

People weren't routinely raised as non-Xians back then. In fact, what sect people believed in, then as now, was usually determined by where they were born and raised. Those in Catholic areas became Catholics, those in Anglican areas became Anglicans, those in Lutheran areas became Lutherans, those in Calvinist areas became Calvinist, etc.

You call it "passive acceptance" but there is no evidence they simply switched off their brains when it came to the Bible. ...

Except that switching off critical sense when it comes to religion is all too common in our society.

Can you name five brilliant and progressive-minded people in the "age of enlightenment" who believed in Hercules, or some other non-Christian mythical god?

The Deist God, perhaps. And I note Radorth's extreme willingness to dismiss other religions as having "mythical gods".

Do you see any difference at all in the evidence for Christ and Hercules? Do you ever wonder why brilliant men and women even today see much more evidence for the first and than the second?

Lots of people switch off all critical sense when it comes to religion, and the religion that most people believe in is the one that they were raised to believe. How many Xians are there in Saudi Arabia?

It is hardly uncommon for an atheist to convert and testify s/he was no being very intellectually honest as an atheist.

Except that such people usually brag about their supposed atheism after the fact; most such people seem to have been relatively indifferent to religion before their conversion, though there are occasional exceptions.

Has one ever said s/he had not given Hecules a fair chance?

Have you ever studied neopaganism, O Radorth?

How do you explain the writings of Durant and Wells? Is it possible they are more intellectually honest than you?

What's so great about these two gentlemen? Are we supposed to automatically endorse everything that is said by someone who is supposedly on "our" side? That would cause a serious dilemma if we decided to consider Karl Marx and Ayn Rand.

HelenM

Are you saying that I've caused people here to think less of you? I don't see how I did - but, if I have then I do apologize for that.

I understand that passage you're referring to, to be saying, don't make something more public than it already is, until you've tried to resolve it without doing so. Had I been responding to something you'd written to me in private, I would have done so in private. But you'd made your comments public already by posting them here. I wasn't making them any more public by responding to them in the same forum you made them in.

I don't think people here are laughing at me, but I may be wrong.

In Christ
Helen

Radorth

Re Ipetrich:

We weren't talking about the general population, but I can see why you wouldn't want to respond, since you have no evidence these "brilliant" men followed the leader other then a stretched analogy. The evidence is to the contrary, and I suspect in their case they were widely read.

Not many I imagine, since the Gospel isn't freely preached there. Many people do believe what they are raised to, but I'm certainly not one of them, and as I pointed out the men in question went far beyond passive acceptance. You have completely failed to explain their zeal.

Re Helen:

I see, so you can make comments in public, but I should make my defense in private. Is that what you are saying? Yeah I know, all you did was post Bible verses which I presume you do whenever a Christian gets out of line. Right?

Rad

Radorth

I must ask. How is it most free countries just happen to have lots of Christians, given that they can be anything they want? Is it possible the Gospel wins more hearts and minds? Will the Soviet Union become more atheist or more Christian with time? How about China, now that the NT is (supposedly) available. Will the Christian population increase more rapidly, or the Wiccan/neo-Pagan/Muslim population?

Rad

[ October 18, 2002: Message edited by: Radorth ]</p>

HelenM

You are free to do as you choose and so am I

It's not the first time I have done so and it probably won't be the last.

But - do I always? - I doubt it. Depends what mood I'm in and what posts I happen to see.

I don't intentionally go out looking for Christians to post verses to - I don't have a strategy. Some posters seem to catch my attention. Some things just jump out at me some days. Maybe it's the days I am less 'mellow'. Who knows...only God would know

take care
Helen

Radorth

These reasons have been stated a thousand times. You are just avoiding the issue by asking me to prove it to you. In fact if brilliant men accepted them as evidence enough to engender not just belief but zeal, then perhaps you aren't so brilliant. The proof required here is whether or not your assertions are true, that they simply applied different standards of reason. Maybe they reason the alternatives were more absurd than the story, or that like Durant, your objections are intellectual minutiae.

Rad

Radorth

And by the way, there were plenty of skeptics in France in Pasqual's time. Who are the great ones and what exactly did they contribute to science, or even social progress?

Rad

lpetrich

I'm sure that Radorth can give us a giant list of them. We're all waiting.