Tag Archives: God
My dad and my dad’s dad were Lutheran ministers, and my dad’s brother taught theology at a Lutheran seminary. Lotta preachers on the paternal side of the tree. (Lotta teachers on the maternal side; mom and sis among them. I grew up with preachers and teachers.)
All of which gave me something of an insider view of religion and the organizational church. It also provided a cornerstone I’ve built on through much of my life: a reconciliation between the Yin of my science side and the Yang of my spiritual side.
One interesting place the two meet is Pascal’s Wager.
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41 Comments | tags: atheism, belief, deism, faith, God, Pascal's Wager, theism | posted in Sunday Sermons
When I started this blog back in 2011, it was always my intention to write about the Yin and Yang of our physical reality and a putative metaphysical one. Call it programming if you wish, but I have a life-long commitment to the perceived reality of the latter. I have a faith, deliberately irrational though it be.
I also have a life-long commitment to science and the physical world, and I’ve never had much trouble reconciling the two. That’s the thing I’ve been wanting to write about; how a spiritual life is not contrary or exclusive to a scientific one.
In fact, I believe they are the Yin-Yang of a complete person.
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9 Comments | tags: God, science and spirituality, science fiction, spirituality | posted in Religion, Sunday Sermons
“Space is big. Really big.”
When I started blogging here, one of the first bloggers I followed was Robin, of Witless Dating After Fifty. Over the years, she’s several times mentioned a great question her dad often posed when discussing religion with someone: “How big is your god?”
Last week my buddy and I were having our weekly beer- and gab-fest and our (typically very meandering) conversation came to touch on the problems with young Earth creationism — the Christian fundamentalist idea that the universe is only thousands of years old.
In fact, there’s a pair of real whopper problems involved!
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46 Comments | tags: atheism, creationism, deism, galaxy, God, science and spirituality, solar system, spirituality, stars, Sun, theism, universe, young Earth creationism | posted in Religion, Sunday Sermons
Sometimes, when discussing the possible existence of God (or Gods), there is the question: “Where is the evidence God exists?” One problem with that question is that different groups (believers and non-believers) are seeking different kinds of evidence. It’s a bit like how different groups — often the same two groups — get stuck on meanings of the word “theory.”
Evidence can be probative, circumstantial or even merely suggestive. When it comes to the question of God, some require probative evidence to prove God’s existence. Others, believing faith is central to belief, require only circumstantial or suggestive evidence.
Here are some thoughts about evidence I find suggestive.
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28 Comments | tags: awe, beauty, belief, Cape Canaveral, circumstantial evidence, Death Valley, evolution, God, Mallory Square, Mt. Everest, music, North Pole, probative evidence, South Pole, starry sky, suggestive evidence | posted in Religion
Despite the title, this post isn’t as strongly related to the previous three as the naming convention suggests. I don’t really have much to say about religious predestination. If anything, my views on spirituality are key to a belief in free will and choice. The religion I was raised in seems (at least to my eye) quite clear that we are allowed to choose our actions.
The connection to those other posts lies in picking up the thread of physical determinism — normally a necessarily atheist point of view — and doing a riff on religion, spirituality and atheism. This is the post I started to write last Sunday when my mind took off in a completely different direction.
This time I’m going to try sticking to the subject!
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66 Comments | tags: atheism, atheists, beliefs, Dawkins Scale, deism, Dogma (movie), God, Grand Canyon (movie), ideas and beliefs, materialism, physicalism, science and spirituality, Spinoza, spirituality, theism | posted in Religion, Sunday Sermons
Not too long ago my buddy and I happened to talk about how film maker David Lynch turned the book, Dune, into a movie. We’ve discussed it a number of times over the years; we both give it a low score (for reasons), but we also agree the book is a really tough film assignment. What makes me wonder is how, channel surfing that very evening, I stumble on the Lynch film just starting.
More recently, a chain of thought led to thinking about overly pragmatic people (of the sort many would consider ruthless). That sparked a memory of a Justice League of America story about how Batman completely alienates his teammates on the JLA when they find out he has files analyzing their weaknesses and describing ways to take them down. But what makes me wonder is how, channel surfing that very evening, I stumble on an animated movie based on that storyline.
And the thing is: coincidences like this happen to me a lot!
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5 Comments | tags: 11:11, agnostic, agnosticism, Albert Einstein, atheism, coincidence, coincidences, David Lynch, deism, Dune, Frank Herbert, gnosticism, God, miracles, theism, water stain | posted in Life, Religion
Saw something worth sharing on the most excellent Bad Astronomy blog today. It’s a series of images by reddit user, jerfoo. Click the picture below to open a window on the whole thing (it’s very tall and skinny, so restore it to 100% magnification and scroll down as you read the “story’).
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41 Comments | tags: creation, creationism, dogma, God, universe | posted in Religion, Science
When it comes to a spiritual position, there are at least three major positions you can take. There are three metaphysical questions you can ask yourself. Each question, if you answer “no,” halts the process and defines your position.
The questioning continues so long as your answer is “yes.” As the questioning continues, you approach a more and more specific concept of “God(s).”
Basically, it’s a flow-chart that calculates your metaphysical point of view.
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11 Comments | tags: agnostic, atheism, belief, deism, faith, God, metaphysics, prayer, spirituality, theism, three | posted in Basics, Philosophy, Religion
One of the things that strikes me about the idea of God is how universal that idea is. To the best of my knowledge, every society in every age has had some sort of spiritual core belief.
I used to state this as the assertion that every society believed in some sort of god or gods, but it was pointed out to me that Buddhists don’t actually have a god. They do have some metaphysical entities, and more importantly, Buddhism is certainly a belief in a metaphysical reality that transcends this one.
So the question is: if humans universally find themselves finding God(s), what does this mean?
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10 Comments | tags: atheism, belief, creation, evolution, faith, God, psychology, spirituality, theism | posted in Basics, Philosophy, Religion, Science
Logos con carne 