This is typical of the strain in religious writing in which thinking is opposed to feeling, and discovering the truth is opposed to rational thought, so that the reader is prepositioned to pity anyone who produces a plausible counterargument.
Thinking scientifically about the world is not opposed to feelings of awe, as if the world were a tacky magic trick that ceases to entertain once its secrets are unveiled. A deeper understanding of science deepens one's amazement and sense of the preciousness of the natural world. If the world has been made at God's fiat, he could always make another one if we mess this one up; since it has taken billions of years to reach this level of exquisite complexity, it is rather less replaceable than that.
It shows a breathtaking lack of self-awareness that you castigate atheists for being "frogs in a well", whilst advocating that not only should those who agree with you assume that they are not "in a well" themselves, but forestall any possibility of finding out that they are by cutting off all dialogue with those with a different point of view.
I won't labour the point, as it has never been put more graphically than in in Matthew 7.
"For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."
On Aug 31, 2010 Jason wrote :
This is typical of the strain in religious writing in which thinking is opposed to feeling, and discovering the truth is opposed to rational thought, so that the reader is prepositioned to pity anyone who produces a plausible counterargument.
Thinking scientifically about the world is not opposed to feelings of awe, as if the world were a tacky magic trick that ceases to entertain once its secrets are unveiled. A deeper understanding of science deepens one's amazement and sense of the preciousness of the natural world. If the world has been made at God's fiat, he could always make another one if we mess this one up; since it has taken billions of years to reach this level of exquisite complexity, it is rather less replaceable than that.
It shows a breathtaking lack of self-awareness that you castigate atheists for being "frogs in a well", whilst advocating that not only should those who agree with you assume that they are not "in a well" themselves, but forestall any possibility of finding out that they are by cutting off all dialogue with those with a different point of view.
I won't labour the point, as it has never been put more graphically than in in Matthew 7.
"For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."