btw: i was being an asshole because armand isn't presenting an argument. i have nothing against christians and idc whether he wants to believe in jesus and shit. but if he isn't going to say anything beyond HEY LOOK THESE SCIENTISTS ARE THEISTS THAT MEANS EITHER I'M RIGHT OR YOU'RE A BETTER SCIENTIST is just the worst thing i've ever heard, worthy of me being a total dick.
if you're interested in an actual discussion, then please go beyond this appeal to authority nonsense. i'm sure you know how to critically think, or rather i hope you know. if you don't, then please learn armanduk, i have a few ebooks i can recommend to you.
"i'm not saying these scientists weren't great men. it's just you claiming that because they're theists your beliefs are automatically valid is just fucking absurd, which is why i got so annoyed"
Well let me tell you the same stuff: I'm also not saying the scientists you mentioned were NOT great men. But just because they are atheists and can come up with one or two mathematical equation or a theory (such as the evolution theory, which is merely a theory and not a fact) to prove god doesn't exist doesn't necessarily and immediately validate your claim that god doesn't exist, either
i never said god doesn't exist. i didn't even present a discussion on god.
your ignorance is epitomised by the fact that you said 'evolution is just a theory'. so is gravity. do you believe that gravity doesn't exist either, as it's 'just a theory'?
Secondly, I don't give a damn if you get annoyed or not. If you get annoyed, then that's your problem, not mine. You want me change my opinion because you get annoyed when i present before you my opinion? Don't you realize that your argument is as fucking absurd and annoying as well?
lol. i never asked you to change your opinion.
"i haven't run to the fact that a scientist was an atheist to validate my beliefs, or lack of rather. i'm asking whether you understand WHY these scientists were theists!"
well you were the one who brought up pascal and some other guy and their mathematical theory or whatever to disprove the claims of the scientists (I mentioned) that god exists.
jesus, learn to read. blaise pascal was actually a theist who presented an argument for the existence of God. however, this argument totally fails as it has a fundamental assumption and no christian philosopher or theologian would accept his argument as true today. i was trying to show that despite the fact that he was a great mathematician AND a christian, that doesn't mean they're necessarily right with regards to God.
way to miss the point.
I don't know why they were deists. But if they were deists, they believed in God.
so what? does that make you right?
"he wasn't religious. he believed in the God of Spinoza, who was a panentheist. he basically believed that the universe encompassed God and that God also transcended this universe. "
First of all what do you mean by "religious"? So I believe in God. Does that make me religious or non-religious? He believed in the god of spinoza. So he WAS a deist, not atheist. He believed in panentheism. okay. and panentheism's god was who? You just said it: Spinoza. He didn't believe men came out of Ape's ass.
uh, spinoza pre-dated evolution. whether einstein believed in evolution or not is immaterial and i don't know whether he did. you're presenting a false dichotomy between believing in evolution and believing in god. many theists believe in evolution too, because it's generally regarded as scientific knowledge today.
I'm not being highly critical of anything. This conversation started when I was responding to a comment by Kimnodesia where she said that she thought she would be more closer to god if she accepted a monotheistic religion. What I was doing was pointing out to her that Christianity is indeed a monotheistic religion and not what Muslims misrepresent it to be. But then someone came out of somewhere and said that I jumped from fire into a frying pan. Then I said something in reply to that. I wasn't criticisizing anyone but merely saying that if i jumped from one frying pan into another, then those scientists who were absolutely more smarter, intelligent and educated than the poster of that comment must have also jumped into frying pans, right?
uh, not necessarily. you see, i understand WHY these scientists were theists. you've probably never read the papers of rene descartes or isaac newton on God and his existence. you probably don't know whether isaac newton presented the teleological argument(i.e. an argument from complexity) or the ontological argument(an argument that comes from the definition of God as 'the greatest being ever conceived', generally speaking). i have my own problems with their arguments, and i'm happy to discuss them if you actually had knowledge of them.
and you know what? i respect the fact that they were theists and had rational(or rather, attempted to have) evidence that alluded to the existence of God. you probably don't.
Topic: Famous Muslim to infamous Murtad