Furball1 said:
Well, being a believer in the God of the Universe, and in creationism, I see the evidence of God in creation all the time, and feel blessed by it, and feel assurance and hope. , I think this forum should be a place where anyone with a particular belief can come without being belittled for their belief. I respect your right to believe in something contrary to my belief, however please do not make it sound like I'm intellectually short-changed when my belief does not agree with yours. Thanks everyone--with that said, I'm out of here!
Rest assured,Furball, that I, too, see God (of which God I am, by the bye, in consummate and sublime awe and take as a source of assurance, hope, and inspiration) throughout all metaphoric Creation, just likely not the God you see, and certainly not the anthropomorphic God of Judeo-Christian scripture. I'm active in my church, edit the church newsletter, and consciously take time - or times - daily to think on God and ponder God's works. I do not belittle belief nor those who believe in that which I do not. I do, however, strongly object to attempted substitution of tenets of faith or irrational fantasy for rational thought, objectively discernible evidence, and testing of any hypothesis by the scientific method using rigorous inductive and/or deductive reasoning. And I will belittle, denegrate, and inveigh against such attempts to the very best of my ability.
To deny reason is, in my opinion, the ultimate blasphemy; it denegrates the awesome significance of the basic processes and laws of the Cosmos that have resulted ( in our little corner of the Cosmos, at least, and in our own presently attained stage of evolution) in God's greatest gift to any sentient species - the development of the capacity for rational and abstract thought and the communication of same. The very idea that a God who would imbue mankind with a reasoning mind and would then "divinely inspire" the writing of scripture of such obfuscatory and internally conflicted nature that uncritical "belief" and "faith" are required for its acceptance as truth is, in my opinion, clear evidence that that construct of God is invalid. I've no quarrel with those who believe in that God "religiously" until they attempt to impose those beliefs upon, and require acceptance of those belief by non co-religionists.
It's one thing for a religion to require that its consenting adherants hang their reason on a hook at the temple or church door; it's quite another when said religion attempts to impose its tenets upon secular education and further, to insinuate its beliefs into the processes of rationality and science and to attempt to use the political process to those same ends.
If I've been unclear or wishy-washy in stating my opinions, I apologize and stand more than willing to pursue the matter further with you.
Best regards,
Dave