Children are born believers in God, academic claims

[Hollie]

The Telegraph
By Martin Beckford, Religious Affairs Correspondent
2:54PM GMT 24 Nov 2008


Children are "born believers" in God and do not simply acquire religious beliefs through indoctrination, according to an academic. Dr Justin Barrett, a senior researcher at the University of Oxford's Centre for Anthropology and Mind, claims that young people have a predisposition to believe in a supreme being because they assume that everything in the world was created with a purpose.


Children are born believers in God, academic claims - Telegraph

_______________________

Naturally, the default position has always been theism given the atheist's logically indefensible ontology and pathological intellectual dishonesty. Atheism truly is the gravest depravity.

Sorry, but this is nonsense, through and through. There's no reason to accept such unsupported claims which are noting more fhan the "because I say", command.

Support this with proof that we are implanted with polytheism / monotheism / belief in magical gods.

Babies seem to be blank slates, devoid of anything but instinct (eat, defecate, sleep, that sort of thing). They also display curiosity and experiment with their environment, so they seem far more in tune with the processes of science as opposed to those of faith. If you raise a baby in a Hindu culture, it will almost certainly embrace Hinduism; if in a Christian home, Christianity. All theistic beliefs are brought externally to human beings, none of them display inherent hardwiring. If you raise a child devoid of god concepts in the middle of a remote jungle, the child will not arbitrarily and spontaneously generate theism. I am not a theist, I am an atheist and your statement that presumes we are implanted with a god spirit requires it to be supported or discarded as mere speculation (and you're entitled to speculation).

 

[koshergrl]

So hollie asserts she is better informed than the Oxford scholar.

Lol.

BTW..all theories and laws start out with speculation.

Sometimes, speculation is absolutely correct. The speculation that little men weren't causing illness was correct, after all. Germs existed before they were scientifically proven to exist.

And it is the same with God, and the Holy Spirit. It doesn't matter if you believe or not, or if you accept "speculation" as valid. They still exist.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Children believe easily. And it makes perfect sense.

They have no knowledge. They are ignorant.

Which is yet another thing I've never understood. And I like most of what the Jesus of the bible said.

But admonishing people to be like children? Really? So you should be gullible? You should be accepting?

Answer me this, oh ye of great faith. Would your advise to the average adult in India or Pakistan be, "be like the little children"? Be accepting of the faith you are presented with? Because that is what a child would do.

A child is accepting of the easter bunny, Santa, imaginary friends and the tooth fairy.

But if you want to be like the little children, I have some land in upper Siberia I'd like to sell you.

Obviously, Christ is talking about the moral and intellectual simplicity and sincerity of innocence, humility without guile.

Why be obtuse? You’re not discussing. You’re not debating. You think to mock, but you end up looking stupid. Yeah. Right. The most influential man in all of history whose brilliance is self-evident to anyone with an IQ above that of gnat is talking the banalities you attribute to him? *crickets chirping* One wonders if you have any literary experience above the level of “See Spot run.” Stop it. No one’s that stupid.

Why pretend? Why hide?

Don't do that. Your eternal soul is on the line. It's not a game.

 

[koshergrl]

Interesting:

"Dr Justin Barrett, a senior researcher at the University of Oxford's Centre for Anthropology and Mind, claims that young people have a predisposition to believe in a supreme being because they assume that everything in the world was created with a purpose."

"Dr Barrett claimed anthropologists have found that in some cultures children believe in God even when religious teachings are withheld from them.
"Children's normally and naturally developing minds make them prone to believe in divine creation and intelligent design. In contrast, evolution is unnatural for human minds; relatively difficult to believe."

Children are born believers in God, academic claims - Telegraph

 

[koshergrl]

Here's more:

"
“This suggests that attempts to suppress religion are likely to be short-lived as human thought seems to be rooted to religious concepts, such as the existence of supernatural agents or gods, and the possibility of an afterlife or pre-life.”
Dr Justin Barrett, from the University of Oxford’s Centre for Anthropology and Mind, who directed the project, said faith may persist in diverse cultures across the world because people who share the bonds of religion “might be more likely to cooperate as societies”.
“Interestingly, we found that religion is less likely to thrive in populations living in cities in developed nations where there is already a strong social support network.”

Belief in God is part of human nature - Oxford study - Telegraph

 

[Hollie]

The Telegraph
By Martin Beckford, Religious Affairs Correspondent
2:54PM GMT 24 Nov 2008


Children are "born believers" in God and do not simply acquire religious beliefs through indoctrination, according to an academic. Dr Justin Barrett, a senior researcher at the University of Oxford's Centre for Anthropology and Mind, claims that young people have a predisposition to believe in a supreme being because they assume that everything in the world was created with a purpose.


Children are born believers in God, academic claims - Telegraph

Well gee, one of the conclusions we can reach with this article is that the OP is easily impressed… by christian apologetics.

Justin Barrett, is described by the NYT as:

a "prominent member of the byproduct camp" and "an observant Christian who believes in “an all-knowing, all-powerful, perfectly good God who brought the universe into being,” [and] “that the purpose for people is to love God and love each other.”

Justin L. Barrett - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So is anyone surprised that a fundie christian would find a way to bring the christian gods to the fore? No, not at all.

Give his resume’ a look. He seems to focus on a very narrow and specific course of “research”.

Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology: Dr Justin Barrett Publications

Naturally, the default position has always been theism given the atheist's logically indefensible ontology and pathological intellectual dishonesty. Atheism truly is the gravest depravity.

Lovely, lovely people those fundie christians.

 

[The Irish Ram]

Then we teach them evolution, and turn them into idiots:

The geneticist, Gerald Crabtree, has published two journal articles on this hypothesis. According to the publication PopSci, Crabtree argues that “human intelligence may have actually peaked before our ancient predecessors ever left Africa…Genetic mutations during the past several millennia are causing a decline in overall human intellectual and emotional fitness…Evolutionary pressure no longer favors intellect, so the problem is getting exponentially worse.”

Proof of this claim can be seen on NBC's Jay Leno Show/jaywalking.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

The Telegraph
By Martin Beckford, Religious Affairs Correspondent
2:54PM GMT 24 Nov 2008


Children are "born believers" in God and do not simply acquire religious beliefs through indoctrination, according to an academic. Dr Justin Barrett, a senior researcher at the University of Oxford's Centre for Anthropology and Mind, claims that young people have a predisposition to believe in a supreme being because they assume that everything in the world was created with a purpose.


Children are born believers in God, academic claims - Telegraph

_______________________

Naturally, the default position has always been theism given the atheist's logically indefensible ontology and pathological intellectual dishonesty. Atheism truly is the gravest depravity.

Sorry, but this is nonsense, through and through. There's no reason to accept such unsupported claims which are noting more fhan the "because I say", command.

Support this with proof that we are implanted with polytheism / monotheism / belief in magical gods.

Babies seem to be blank slates, devoid of anything but instinct (eat, defecate, sleep, that sort of thing). They also display curiosity and experiment with their environment, so they seem far more in tune with the processes of science as opposed to those of faith. If you raise a baby in a Hindu culture, it will almost certainly embrace Hinduism; if in a Christian home, Christianity. All theistic beliefs are brought externally to human beings, none of them display inherent hardwiring. If you raise a child devoid of god concepts in the middle of a remote jungle, the child will not arbitrarily and spontaneously generate theism. I am not a theist, I am an atheist and your statement that presumes we are implanted with a god spirit requires it to be supported or discarded as mere speculation (and you're entitled to speculation).

At this point he is merely publishing his initial findings and conclusions based on a number of studies. The work is sociological in nature, and is hardly complete. It's an interesting hypothesis that does in fact have logical and experimental support. Your empiricist philosophizing is that which is arbitrary and unscientific.

Get real! Atheists have always been and shall always be vastly outnumbered by theists precisely because of the stupidity that imagines that via some staggeringly complex convergence of fortuitous coincidences dumb rocks came to contemplate themselves!

Once again, from my blog:

This impression comes to us immediately and all at once: either (1) the universe has always existed in some form or another, in some dimensional estate or another, or (2) it was caused to exist by a being who has always existed, a necessarily transcendent being of unlimited genius and power. In other words, the First Cause is either inanimate or sentient, immanent or transcendent.

That does not mean, however, that this objectively apparent impression constitutes a proof for either alternative. It demonstrates that it's at the base of knowledge, that it's derived from reason, not faith.

I have no interest in proving God's existence to anyone, just in demonstrating the absurdities that arise from the denial of the possibility, which, incidentally, do not plague the bald assertion that God must be whatsoever. The reason for this is self-evident: the idea of God pertains to the origin of the universe, not to its nonexistence, while the unqualified denial of God's existence detours around an inescapable imperative: the undeniable possibility. The former stems from larger considerations that do not interrupt the natural course of logic; the latter is akin to the blind devotion of religious fanaticism.

Hollie, snap out of it! The fundamental rational forms and logical categories of the human mind relative to the imperatives of identity (the laws of classical logic) and the operations of its comprehensive expression (the univocal, the analogical and the equivocal/metaphoric), are universal! So too are certain rational and mathematical imperatives, which include the constructs of causation/origin, quantity, quality, the fundamentals of language formation and so on. . . .

You talk like an Objectivist. Rand was a dingbat.

Behaviorism is dead! Hard empiricism is dead! No serious thinker has taken the extremes of Aristotelian or Lockean blank-slate theory seriously since Kant, who forged the rationalist-empiricist synthesis. (By the way, the Bible holds to a rationalist-empiricist construct of epistemology.) Berkeley and Hume were by far Locke’s superiors, and Descartes is the unrivaled genius of rationalism. Had we remained stuck on the stupid of hard empiricism, we would not have ventured beyond Newtonian physics. Berkelean cosmology, the philosophical precursor of general relativity, by the way, and Kantian cosmology, the philosophical precursor of quantum physics, were asserted in defiance of the Newtonian paradigm before there was proof precisely because of the rational and empirical implications of certain imperatives, as these men saw it, relative to the necessity of divinity. General relativity and quantum physics do not point away from God. They point toward God.

Intellectual barbarians like Dawkins and Krauss and Hawking who scorn the logic-driven disciplines of philosophy and theology are utterly unaware of the philosophical-theological ramifications of the cosmological models they embrace, let alone aware of the fact that these models were anticipated by theists decades before the Twentieth Century!

As for ultimate origin, there are but two alternatives in terms of being: inanimateness or consciousness. Period. The problem of origin is not a figment of culture! The assertion of the new atheism to the contrary is beyond stupid! The problem of origin/ultimate causation is inescapable! The construct of divinity relative to ultimate causation/origin imposes itself on human consciousness without the latter willing that it do so! The construct objectively exists in and of itself, and the atheist necessarily acknowledges that fact every time he opens his yap to deny that there be any substance behind the idea.

Repent! For the day of salvation is now!

 

[koshergrl]

The Telegraph
By Martin Beckford, Religious Affairs Correspondent
2:54PM GMT 24 Nov 2008


Children are "born believers" in God and do not simply acquire religious beliefs through indoctrination, according to an academic. Dr Justin Barrett, a senior researcher at the University of Oxford's Centre for Anthropology and Mind, claims that young people have a predisposition to believe in a supreme being because they assume that everything in the world was created with a purpose.


Children are born believers in God, academic claims - Telegraph

Well gee, one of the conclusions we can reach with this article is that the OP is easily impressed… by christian apologetics.

Justin Barrett, is described by the NYT as:

a "prominent member of the byproduct camp" and "an observant Christian who believes in “an all-knowing, all-powerful, perfectly good God who brought the universe into being,” [and] “that the purpose for people is to love God and love each other.”

Justin L. Barrett - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So is anyone surprised that a fundie christian would find a way to bring the christian gods to the fore? No, not at all.

Give his resume’ a look. He seems to focus on a very narrow and specific course of “research”.

Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology: Dr Justin Barrett Publications

Naturally, the default position has always been theism given the atheist's logically indefensible ontology and pathological intellectual dishonesty. Atheism truly is the gravest depravity.

Lovely, lovely people those fundie christians.

Oxford's anthropology dept. head researcher, moron. You'd do well to listen to him. Atheism is the gravest depravity.

But I'm sure you're more knowledgeable than he is.

And do you know what "fundamentalist" means? I don't think you do.

Do you have any historical understanding of Oxford? Have you heard of it before?

Meanwhile..."
The project involved 57 academics in 20 countries around the world, and spanned disciplines including anthropology, psychology, and philosophy. "

Do you maintain, stupidly, that all of those 57 academics are *fundies*?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/pol...God-is-part-of-human-nature-Oxford-study.html

Oxford:

"For the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise, Oxford submitted the largest number of researchers in a total of 48 fields. We were judged to have the largest volume of world-leading research (4* rated) of any UK university. Oxford subsequently received the highest amount of quality research funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) – nearly £119 million – of any UK university."

http://www.ox.ac.uk/research/about_research_at_oxford/index.html

 

[Hollie]

The Telegraph
By Martin Beckford, Religious Affairs Correspondent
2:54PM GMT 24 Nov 2008


Children are "born believers" in God and do not simply acquire religious beliefs through indoctrination, according to an academic. Dr Justin Barrett, a senior researcher at the University of Oxford's Centre for Anthropology and Mind, claims that young people have a predisposition to believe in a supreme being because they assume that everything in the world was created with a purpose.


Children are born believers in God, academic claims - Telegraph

Well gee, one of the conclusions we can reach with this article is that the OP is easily impressed… by christian apologetics.

Justin Barrett, is described by the NYT as:

a "prominent member of the byproduct camp" and "an observant Christian who believes in “an all-knowing, all-powerful, perfectly good God who brought the universe into being,” [and] “that the purpose for people is to love God and love each other.”

Justin L. Barrett - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So is anyone surprised that a fundie christian would find a way to bring the christian gods to the fore? No, not at all.

Give his resume’ a look. He seems to focus on a very narrow and specific course of “research”.

Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology: Dr Justin Barrett Publications

Naturally, the default position has always been theism given the atheist's logically indefensible ontology and pathological intellectual dishonesty. Atheism truly is the gravest depravity.

Lovely, lovely people those fundie christians.

Oxford's anthropology dept. head researcher, moron. You'd do well to listen to him. Atheism is the gravest depravity.

But I'm sure you're more knowledgeable than he is.

And do you know what "fundamentalist" means? I don't think you do.

Do you have any historical understanding of Oxford? Have you heard of it before?

Meanwhile..."
The project involved 57 academics in 20 countries around the world, and spanned disciplines including anthropology, psychology, and philosophy. "

Do you maintain, stupidly, that all of those 57 academics are *fundies*?

Belief in God is part of human nature - Oxford study - Telegraph

Oxford:

"For the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise, Oxford submitted the largest number of researchers in a total of 48 fields. We were judged to have the largest volume of world-leading research (4* rated) of any UK university. Oxford subsequently received the highest amount of quality research funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) – nearly £119 million – of any UK university."

About Research at Oxford - University of Oxford

My goodness. Self-hating fundies are so angry.

 

[koshergrl]

The Telegraph
By Martin Beckford, Religious Affairs Correspondent
2:54PM GMT 24 Nov 2008


Children are "born believers" in God and do not simply acquire religious beliefs through indoctrination, according to an academic. Dr Justin Barrett, a senior researcher at the University of Oxford's Centre for Anthropology and Mind, claims that young people have a predisposition to believe in a supreme being because they assume that everything in the world was created with a purpose.


Children are born believers in God, academic claims - Telegraph

Well gee, one of the conclusions we can reach with this article is that the OP is easily impressed… by christian apologetics.

Justin Barrett, is described by the NYT as:

a "prominent member of the byproduct camp" and "an observant Christian who believes in “an all-knowing, all-powerful, perfectly good God who brought the universe into being,” [and] “that the purpose for people is to love God and love each other.”

Justin L. Barrett - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So is anyone surprised that a fundie christian would find a way to bring the christian gods to the fore? No, not at all.

Give his resume’ a look. He seems to focus on a very narrow and specific course of “research”.

Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology: Dr Justin Barrett Publications

Naturally, the default position has always been theism given the atheist's logically indefensible ontology and pathological intellectual dishonesty. Atheism truly is the gravest depravity.

Lovely, lovely people those fundie christians.

The most scary thing about anti-Christian zealots is..not only are they ignorant, themselves, but they tend to view information and knowledge as suspect.

Here is Oxford....that Hollie is dismissing as "fundie". The first English speaking university in the World:

"Today, Oxford is a modern, research-driven university. Our prowess in the sciences is particularly noteworthy: we have been ranked number one in the world for medicine for two years running by the Times Higher Education Supplement (2011-12 and 2012-13). Oxford is also ranked in the top ten globally in life sciences, physical sciences, social sciences and the arts and humanities. These pages share some of the highlights of that story."

Oxford: An International University - University of Oxford

 

[koshergrl]

Oxford is where Rhodes scholars go.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

So a child raised by orangutangs would eventually contemplate the existence of a supreme being?

So the atheist imagines that mindlessness came to contemplate itself? How's that abiogenesis, the latest version of that old yarn of spontaneous generation, workin' out for ya?

Prufrock's Lair: Abiogenesis: The Unholy Grail of Atheism

Listen, guys, get real, get out! Stop listening the father of lies. That house is burning down. The tribulation of the end times is near. Jesus loves you. He died for you. The day of salvation is now!

God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).

Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me (Rev. 3:20).

 

[koshergrl]

Well gee, one of the conclusions we can reach with this article is that the OP is easily impressed… by christian apologetics.

Justin Barrett, is described by the NYT as:

a "prominent member of the byproduct camp" and "an observant Christian who believes in “an all-knowing, all-powerful, perfectly good God who brought the universe into being,” [and] “that the purpose for people is to love God and love each other.”

Justin L. Barrett - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So is anyone surprised that a fundie christian would find a way to bring the christian gods to the fore? No, not at all.

Give his resume’ a look. He seems to focus on a very narrow and specific course of “research”.

Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology: Dr Justin Barrett Publications





Lovely, lovely people those fundie christians.

Oxford's anthropology dept. head researcher, moron. You'd do well to listen to him. Atheism is the gravest depravity.

But I'm sure you're more knowledgeable than he is.

And do you know what "fundamentalist" means? I don't think you do.

Do you have any historical understanding of Oxford? Have you heard of it before?

Meanwhile..."
The project involved 57 academics in 20 countries around the world, and spanned disciplines including anthropology, psychology, and philosophy. "

Do you maintain, stupidly, that all of those 57 academics are *fundies*?

Belief in God is part of human nature - Oxford study - Telegraph

Oxford:

"For the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise, Oxford submitted the largest number of researchers in a total of 48 fields. We were judged to have the largest volume of world-leading research (4* rated) of any UK university. Oxford subsequently received the highest amount of quality research funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) – nearly £119 million – of any UK university."

About Research at Oxford - University of Oxford

My goodness. Self-hating fundies are so angry.

You mistake disgust for hate. Not surprising, given your limited capabilities.

 

[koshergrl]

Hollie, do you know what a Rhodes scholar is?

"The Rhodes Scholarship, named after Cecil John Rhodes, is an international postgraduate award for selected foreign students to study at the University of Oxford.[1] It was the first large-scale programme of international scholarships,[2] and is widely considered the "world's most prestigious scholarship" by many public sources such as Time,[3] Yale University Press,[4] The McGill Reporter,[5] and Associated Press.[6]"


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhodes_Scholarship

Please, I want to hear you yammer about how backwards Oxford researchers are again. Please continue.

 

[Hollie]

The Telegraph
By Martin Beckford, Religious Affairs Correspondent
2:54PM GMT 24 Nov 2008


Children are "born believers" in God and do not simply acquire religious beliefs through indoctrination, according to an academic. Dr Justin Barrett, a senior researcher at the University of Oxford's Centre for Anthropology and Mind, claims that young people have a predisposition to believe in a supreme being because they assume that everything in the world was created with a purpose.


Children are born believers in God, academic claims - Telegraph

_______________________

Naturally, the default position has always been theism given the atheist's logically indefensible ontology and pathological intellectual dishonesty. Atheism truly is the gravest depravity.

Sorry, but this is nonsense, through and through. There's no reason to accept such unsupported claims which are noting more fhan the "because I say", command.

Support this with proof that we are implanted with polytheism / monotheism / belief in magical gods.

Babies seem to be blank slates, devoid of anything but instinct (eat, defecate, sleep, that sort of thing). They also display curiosity and experiment with their environment, so they seem far more in tune with the processes of science as opposed to those of faith. If you raise a baby in a Hindu culture, it will almost certainly embrace Hinduism; if in a Christian home, Christianity. All theistic beliefs are brought externally to human beings, none of them display inherent hardwiring. If you raise a child devoid of god concepts in the middle of a remote jungle, the child will not arbitrarily and spontaneously generate theism. I am not a theist, I am an atheist and your statement that presumes we are implanted with a god spirit requires it to be supported or discarded as mere speculation (and you're entitled to speculation).

At this point he is merely publishing his initial findings and conclusions based on a number of studies. The work is sociological in nature, and is hardly complete. It's an interesting hypothesis that does in fact have logical and experimental support. Your empiricist philosophizing is that which is arbitrary and unscientific.

Get real! Atheists have always been and shall always be vastly outnumbered by theists precisely because of the stupidity that imagines that via some staggeringly complex convergence of fortuitous coincidences dumb rocks came to contemplate themselves!

Once again, from my blog:

This impression comes to us immediately and all at once: either (1) the universe has always existed in some form or another, in some dimensional estate or another, or (2) it was caused to exist by a being who has always existed, a necessarily transcendent being of unlimited genius and power. In other words, the First Cause is either inanimate or sentient, immanent or transcendent.

That does not mean, however, that this objectively apparent impression constitutes a proof for either alternative. It demonstrates that it's at the base of knowledge, that it's derived from reason, not faith.

I have no interest in proving God's existence to anyone, just in demonstrating the absurdities that arise from the denial of the possibility, which, incidentally, do not plague the bald assertion that God must be whatsoever. The reason for this is self-evident: the idea of God pertains to the origin of the universe, not to its nonexistence, while the unqualified denial of God's existence detours around an inescapable imperative: the undeniable possibility. The former stems from larger considerations that do not interrupt the natural course of logic; the latter is akin to the blind devotion of religious fanaticism.

Hollie, snap out of it! The fundamental rational forms and logical categories of the human mind relative to the imperatives of identity (the laws of classical logic) and the operations of its comprehensive expression (the univocal, the analogical and the equivocal/metaphoric), are universal! So too are certain rational and mathematical imperatives, which include the constructs of causation/origin, quantity, quality, the fundamentals of language formation and so on. . . .

You talk like an Objectivist. Rand was a dingbat.

Behaviorism is dead! Hard empiricism is dead! No serious thinker has taken the extremes of Aristotelian or Lockean blank-slate theory seriously since Kant, who forged the rationalist-empiricist synthesis. (By the way, the Bible holds to a rationalist-empiricist construct of epistemology.) Berkeley and Hume were by far Locke’s superiors, and Descartes is the unrivaled genius of rationalism. Had we remained stuck on the stupid of hard empiricism, we would not have ventured beyond Newtonian physics. Berkelean cosmology, the philosophical precursor of general relativity, by the way, and Kantian cosmology, the philosophical precursor of quantum physics, were asserted in defiance of the Newtonian paradigm before there was proof precisely because of the rational and empirical implications of certain imperatives, as these men saw it, relative to the necessity of divinity. General relativity and quantum physics do not point away from God. They point toward God.

Intellectual barbarians like Dawkins and Krauss and Hawking who scorn the logic-driven disciplines of philosophy and theology are utterly unaware of the philosophical-theological ramifications of the cosmological models they embrace, let alone aware of the fact that these models were anticipated by theists decades before the Twentieth Century!

As for ultimate origin, there are but two alternatives in terms of being: inanimateness or consciousness. Period. The problem of origin is not a figment of culture! The assertion of the new atheism to the contrary is beyond stupid! The problem of origin/ultimate causation is inescapable! The construct of divinity relative to ultimate causation/origin imposes itself on human consciousness without the latter willing that it do so! The construct objectively exists in and of itself, and the atheist necessarily acknowledges that fact every time he opens his yap to deny that there be any substance behind the idea.

The “logic-driven disciplines of philosophy and theology”?

That’s an utter absurdity.

I understand you must abdicate reason and rationality regarding the gods and delve into the philosophical (and metaphysical), because reason and rationality do not survive in the realm of the supernatural. Philosophical arguments are essentially useless for drawing conclusions because ultimately, there's no requirement for the conclusions to be valid or not. They produce nothing of any real utility for problem solving.

Repent! For the day of salvation is now!

Actually, no, it's not. Although, Marshall Applewhite called. He has your travel itinerary.

 

[koshergrl]

Well that's confusing. Your quote is messed up. Use that remarkable advanced intellect you allegedly have and figure it out.

 

[Intense]

Wow!!! Another Religion Thread littered with the great unwashed. Who Knew! Never saw that coming. For the rest of us, there is Faith, knowledge gained through the study of cause and effect, and the hope of Salvation. I'm confident that the Human Spirit Celebrates Justice, and seeks it with sincerity of Heart, by design. We are of greater value than the tangents we create. Realizing that, is more a matter of when, than if. The road to Salvation is full of stumbling blocks, for both believers and nonbelievers alike. Something we each need to face.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

A child is accepting of the easter bunny, Santa, imaginary friends and the tooth fairy.

Special treatment: stop with this atheist stupidity! The divinity of the inescapable problem of origin/ultimate causation is not comparable to fairy tales. Shut up! Stop being an idiot! Stop lying to yourself! It's not a game. If you were to die right now in your sins, you would go to hell for eternity.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVi1GAHrILI]Heaven & Hell. Atheist professor in Hell! Meets Jesus (Near Death Experience. NDE) - YouTube[/ame]

Please, Underhill, join me in heaven. Don't reject Christ. The time of salvation is now!

 

[MaryL]

Your premise completely contradicts what the Scriptures teach:

"So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." (Romans 10:17)

If people were born with faith, then why did Paul say it came from hearing the Word of God?

Be careful that you do not mishandle the word of God and become a stumbling block for those who would seek Him. That’s dangerous ground to tread on.

Now the Holy Spirit tells us clearly that in the last times some will turn away from the true faith; they will follow deceptive spirits and teachings that come from demons (I Tim. 4:1).

Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth (II Tim. 2:15).

In the context that you site, Paul is clearly talking about the faith of the gospel of Jesus Christ unto salvation. I’m talking about that simple understanding about divinity from childhood related to the first principles of reality/apprehension, unsullied by that old depravity of worldly arrogance and pride that foolishly pretends to be above it all, but in truth spouts nothing but irrational stupidities. I am talking about that which intellectual honesty necessarily acknowledges.


In unison with Paul, I am talking about the following:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools . . . (Rom. 1:18-22).

Clearly, it is you who would make Paul out to be contradicting himself, not I. Context matters!

As Paul shows and as I demonstrate in the above excerpt from my blog, faith has nothing whatsoever to do with the recognition that God is or must be, and that we all fall short of His righteousness: these are not matters of faith; they are the stuff of reason, inherently self-evident to all. In this instance, Paul is making a simple philosophical observation regarding that which is universally understood by all prior to the saving faith of the gospel unto life everlasting. He is talking about the foundation of the hierarchy of true knowledge, which entails the apprehension of certain propositions. These are both rational and empirical impressions: recognized, processed, assimilated and integrated in obedience to the innate logical imperatives of the comprehensive expression of identity (the classical laws of logic) and the operational aspects of cognition . . . or not.

God’s existence cannot be rationally denied outright. There is nothing reasonable, rational or enlightened about atheism whatsoever!

Suffer the little children to come unto Me, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven. (Mk.10:14).


Except ye become as a little child, ye shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of God (Mat.18:3).

Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven (Mat. 18:10).

I read the bible. Ironic all those priest that bugger little children didn't take that same HEED. Suffer the children, indeed. The fact the Catholic Church made such efforts to cover up child molestation makes that ring hollow.