SHJIHM :: Christian Pub :: Atheism of the gaps? ~ Runboard
"There are not over a hundred people in the United States who hate the Catholic Church. There are millions, however, who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church, which is, of course, quite a different thing." -Bishop Fulton J. Sheen
Placating terrorists, meeting with dictators, compassion for murderers... but no humanity for the unborn... incredible.
OOT
Re: Atheism of the gaps? What about the stuff we can not conceive?
I understand the need to understand. I do not understand the belief that everything has a rational explanation. Science has yet to discover planets, stars, insect species, etc. Does it mean they do not exit?
--- "My Sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.
Re: Atheism of the gaps? If we have not conceived of them yet, how can we know what is conceivable and what is not?
As well, aren't stars, planets, insect species, and the like things that we have conceived of before, and discovered, so isn't it reasonable to think that we will find others, and if we continue to look, over time we could discover them all?
You just made clear what has been a very confusing point for me. You, and many others, apparently believe that those who profess no belief in God, do not seek truth/proof!
It would indeed be ignorant to think we had discovered everything, but it would be doing ourselves a very large disservice to think in terms of things being inconceivable. Again: if we haven't figured something out yet, how would we know if it was inconceivable.
If something was inconceivable, then there would be no evidence that we could collect.
You say that science has discovered much that was CONSIDERED inconceivable. If God is 'discovered' in similar fashion, it will turn out that He, like these other things, turned out not to be inconceivable. Do you see what I mean? Once actual evidence is found, the definition of evidence being that which is accepted as evidence by scientific inquiry, God would become conceivable, and there would be few, if any, atheists or agnostics.
Wouldn't it be impossible to know if there are? We do know that there are things that are not possible to understand with human comprehension. These are called mysteries.
Re: Atheism of the gaps? But do we really know this, Michael? I think that we have yet to understand mysteries, hence why they are called mysteries. Does this mean that it is not possible to understand?
Depends on what you believe, but I believe that the moment you say something is impossible, it becomes impossible, not by the nature of the thing you are trying to understand, but because you closed the door.
Re: Atheism of the gaps? I think my only point was how can we know that we don't know something? If we have a partial answer we can identify the gaps in our knowledge but for other things which we have never considered....how can we know our knowledge is lacking?
Re: Atheism of the gaps? That is kind of my point too, Michael. I kind of also assume, though, that my knowledge IS lacking, and that there is also more that I can figure out, learn, and that type of thing.
