Bertrand Russel, Darwin, And Sartre--not Atheists? (disciples, myth, Holy Spirit, faith)

[kaykay]

Originally Posted by MontanaGuy

kaykay wrote:

That's pretty sneaky kaykay. Maybe I'm not following logic if you want to be technical about it but I'm so overwhelmingly convinced that there is no God that the atheist label is the most accurate one for me.

Well,....ok,< she says begrudgingly> I guess I'll accept that.

[mams1559]

I will only speak on Darwin. From my understanding he was a believer who turned his back and renounced the Bible, Jesus Christ, God and Christianity. He threw himself into his work and printed the infamous book "Origins of the Species". It was his rejection of Genesis that started the ball rolling for him. You can read articles about this here: Charles Darwin Q&A

[MontanaGuy]

mams1559 wrote:

I will only speak on Darwin.

Darwin was a product of his age and that is probably the reason he had those religious convictions. He did happen to discover one of the most important things in human history and that is the fact of evolution. I realize that many people wish it would go away but the evidence has just been piling up since Darwin's time and it's become a mainstream part of science. If something has been proven to be true I can't understand why people can't just accept the reality of it and incorporate it into their beliefs. The anti-evolution people make about as much sense as the flat earth people. I'm sorry but it's true.

[mams1559]

I'll say it again - flat earthers were not a representative whole of the church community. The bible describes the earch as a sphere and suspended by nothing, just as it is today.

And I think those who subscribe to evolutionary theory are happy to discover they are nothing more than a "higher form" of apes/monkeys, while I myself do not subscribe to that train of thought To each their own, I suppose.

[Jazzedforhim]

The only thing I wanted to say is that I'm utterly shocked that you (Jeff) would stir up the pot! I find that incredibly out of character!!!

http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t103/jazzedforhim/winking0047.gif (broken link)

That's all I have to say really.

[jeffncandace]

Originally Posted by MontanaGuy

I realize that many people wish it would go away but the evidence has just been piling up since Darwin's time and it's become a mainstream part of science. If something has been proven to be true I can't understand why people can't just accept the reality of it and incorporate it into their beliefs. The anti-evolution people make about as much sense as the flat earth people. I'm sorry but it's true.

I for one find that science proves God. I don't see evolution as a problem at all. The wording used to describe creation in the Bible is obviously metaphorical in my humble little opinion.

To me, the ultimate point isn't HOW we got here, but the fact that we ARE here is enough proof of God's existance for me.

[Simmy171]

1. Living things never from non-living things
To produce a living thing you must start with a living thing.

Evolution requires non-living matter to turn into a living thing and this has never been observed.

A textbook on Biology puts it like this:

"As we have seen, the life of every organism comes from its parents or parent. Does life ever spring from nonliving matter? We can find no evidence of this happening. So far as we can tell, life comes only from life. Biologists call this the principal of biogenesis."

So when it comes to science (i.e. things we can establish by observation and experiment) life always comes from life. Evolutionists say life came from nonliving matter. But just saying something doesn't make it true!

2. The missing links are still missing
If evolution was true, there should be large numbers of intermediate fossil organisms present in the fossil record. These 'links' are conspicuous by their absence.

After well over a hundred years of intensely studying the fossil record the 'missing links' are still well and truly 'missing'.

Evolutionists such as Stephen Jay Gould concede this when they say, "The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not based the evidence of fossils."

3. Complex systems never evolve 'bit by bit'
No mechanism has been put forward that even begins to explain how something like the human eye could have been produced by time, chance, natural selection and mutation.

Let's consider what Darwin himself said: "To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree."

A baby needs a number of very complex, interdependent systems to live and survive. These systems include the nervous, digestive, excretory, circulatory, skeletal, muscular and an immune system. For the baby to survive and live each system requires all the other systems to be functioning. Therefore all these systems must be in operation at the same time and could not have evolved slowly over millions of years.

There is no evidence (in the fossil record etc.) of the evolution of such systems. More than that, not even an imaginary process can be thought of to explain how something like the brain and the digestive system could have evolved bit by bit over time!

4. Mutation never produces evolution
Natural selection (better adapted organisms surviving to pass on genetic material) cannot produce evolution because it produces no NEW genetic material.

Mutations are random changes in the genetic makeup of organisms. Evolutionists say that mutations supply the new genes needed for evolution to proceed.

For over 1500 generations, fruit flies have been subjected to radiation and chemicals. This caused mutations in the flies. If you take a human generation to be 25 years, this is equal to around 37 500 years (1500 x 25) in human terms.

Mutations are an example of the Second Law of Thermodynanics (things become more disordered over time) in action. It is amazing that evolutionists would put forward mutations as the mechanism by which evolution could somehow take place!

What happened to these mutated flies over this time? Firstly, they were still flies and had not evolved into anything else! Secondly the flies as a population were worse off with many dying, having curly wings or stubby wings.

Evolution (things becoming more ordered) and mutations (things becoming more disordered) are processes going in opposite directions!

Mutations are not a friend of evolution but an enemy that cut the theory down and destroy it!

Mutations make things worst!

Mutation does not supply a mechanism for organisms to evolve.

5. Second Law of Thermodynamics says "no"
The second law of thermodynamics tells us that a system will always go from ordered to disordered unless there is a plan or outside intelligence to organize it.

World-renowned evolutionist Isaac Asimov when discussing the second law of thermodynamics said:
"Another way of stating the second law then is: 'The universe is constantly getting more disorderly!'" Viewed that way we can see the second law all about us. We have to work hard to straighten a room, but left to itself it becomes a mess again very quickly and very easily. Even if we never enter it, it becomes dusty and musty. How difficult to maintain houses, and machinery, and our own bodies in perfect working order: how easy to let them deteriorate. In fact, all we have to do is nothing, and everything deteriorates, collapses, breaks down, wears out, all by itself - and that is what the second law is all about."

As Isaac Asimov says, everything becomes more disordered when left to itself. The theory of Evolution puts forward the idea that the atoms produced after the 'Big Bang' organized themselves without a plan and finally produced the human body after billions of years.

Some people argue that the earth is an open system therefore the Second Law of Thermodynanics does not apply. Simply pouring in energy (sunlight) into the earth does not override the Second Law of Thermodynanics. As shown in Isaac Asimov's quote above, the Second Law still applies on earth. Simply pouring energy into a system makes things more disordered!

As Dr John Ross of Harvard University rightly states:

"… there are no known violations of the second law of thermodynamics. Ordinarily the second law is stated for isolated systems, but the second law applies equally well to open systems. …"

Evolution has no plan or outside intelligence and according to the second law of thermodynamics can never take place.

6. Probability shows "no" to evolution
Evolutionists such as Sir Fred Hoyle concede this when they say "The chance that higher life forms might have emerged in this way (time and chance) is comparable with the chance that 'a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein.'"

Great scientists from the past speak out

"I am a Christian ... I believe only and alone ... in the service of Jesus Christ ... In Him is all refuge, all solace." (Johannes Kepler)

"The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator. Science brings men nearer to God." (Louis Pasteur). Pasteur strongly opposed Darwin's theory of evolution because he felt it did not conform to the scientific evidence.

"Atheism is so senseless. When I look at the solar system, I see the earth at the right distance from the sun to receive the proper amounts of heat and light. This did not happen by chance." "The true God is a living, intelligent and powerful being." (Sir Isaac Newton)

This is taken from Scientific Evidence against Evolution (concise and short)
Worth looking @!

[JakeDog]

Originally Posted by jeffncandace

Thought I would stir the pot a bit. To preface, I am a Christian, albiet not a conventional one.

This one goes out to all the athiests out there. I found some of these comments to be shocking...and wonder what you think. And please don't get all bent out of shape, just wanting to see what you think about this!

*Atheists would like to believe that Bertrand Russell was a "totally" convicted atheist. What follows below is evidence, straight from the source, that the man clearly entertained "some doubt." Just consider: The High Priest of Atheism admits to not really being a totally convinced atheist. This ought to make his atheist followers think, but do they?

"I never know whether I should say "Agnostic" or whether I should say "Atheist". It is a very difficult question and I daresay that some of you have been troubled by it. As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one can prove that there is not a God."--Bertrand Russell

*Charles Darwin, by his own admission, was never an atheist. In fact his own words indicate that, at least on some occasions, he gravitated toward a belief in God. No atheist will ever mention this rejection of their cherished philosophy by the very scientist they idolize.

'In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of God."--Charles Darwin

*Jean Paul Sartre was a militant atheist most of his life. In fact, he and his lover, Simone De Bouvoir, became two of the 20th century's foremost atheists. Though De Bouvoir remained an atheist until the end, Sartre came to the realization that he had been wrong, to the shock and dismay of all his followers and admirers.

“…First of all, man exists, turns up, appears on the scene, and, only afterwards, defines himself. If man, as the existentialist conceives him, is indefinable, it is because at first he is nothing. Only afterward will he be something, and he himself will have made what he will be. Thus, there is no human nature, since there is no God to conceive it.”--Jean Paul Sartre

‘I do not feel that I am the product of chance, a speck of dust in the universe, but someone who was expected, prepared, prefigured. In short, a being whom only a Creator could put here; and this idea of a creating hand refers to God.’--Jean Paul Sartre

The point is that many atheists have converted to theism. What, if anything, does this mean to you?

It means nothing to me.

[Mooseketeer]

Originally Posted by june 7th

I am not so very sure that the Bertrand Russell quote above necessarily means that he disavows his atheism. Upon reading it, my more immediate thought was that perhaps he is qualifying how it is that philosophers think. Philosophical thought and reasoning has a process all it's own; however, I will have to go back and "brush up" on Russell. --As for SARTRE, HOWEVER!!!!!

While the first quote above by Sartre doesn't strike me as his "re-negging" on his die-hard atheism, I am genuinelly perplexed by the second quote. From everything I ever heard, read, or learned about Sartre, he was perhaps the must uncompromisingly atheistic:

"Man can count on no one but himself; he is alone, abandoned on earth in the midst of his infinite responsibilites, without help, with no other aim than the one he sets himself; with no other destiny than the one he forges for himself on this earth."

Sartre also said that the goal of man is the achievement of complete and perfect being; that to BE MAN is to try to BE GOD. His concept (which he ironically calls) "good faith" calls for man to live an authentic existence and to live a life of "engagement" with life. He rebelled against the very notion of god due to the fact that he felt it would undermind man's exerting his freedom. He also said that belief in god can deceive man into thinking there is meaning in the world; that it can make man depend on the power of "another" for solutions. To "buy into" the deception (that there is a god) would be, in Sartre's mind, "bad faith."

All I can say as to the (almost unthinkable!) possibility that he did, in fact, "re-neg" on his atheism is that I always, always found it extremely compelling that Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir had a lifelong affair. That's quite something, given the fact that one of Sartre's most quoted sayings is "Hell is other people!"

--But perhaps that's what love does to you, after all?????

I concur with your thoughts June7th, it seems to me Russell was "seeing" God as a philosopher would not as a believer might and I too am extremely surprised about Sartre. Everything I know about him and all his readings point to a man almost rabid in his atheism and his utter contempt for religion. I was wondering what the context of the quote was and where it is to be found ?

[Mooseketeer]

Originally Posted by jeffncandace

Thought I would stir the pot a bit. To preface, I am a Christian, albiet not a conventional one.


The point is that many atheists have converted to theism. What, if anything, does this mean to you?

I will be more than happy to convert to deism when I have proof of god's existence, preferably him/her in person standing next to me , telling me I have been a fool all these years to doubt his/her existence. Until I have physical evidence, proved beyond reasonable doubts by scientific means and well supervised independent experiments under controlled conditions, I will forever remain firmly atheist.

It would be utterly foolish of me to deny the existence of god if I had proof positive but it would seem even more foolish to believe in myths and superstition just because other people chose to. I believe there are more things in "heaven and earth" than we so far comprehend but I also believe that there are rational, scientific explanations for them waiting to be explored and understood. Science unlike religion is a constantly evolving, changing and adapting field and what we now understand to be true would have been considered magic or a miracle in times past.

Most of modern medicine would have been considered either sorcery or miracles from god not that long ago and yet our human brains have developed the capacity to fathom so many of our wonderful world's mysteries.

I will place my faith in science any day. It might no be fool-proof ( far from it) but we are slowly getting there. And its methods at least have a hint of rationality about them...

I don't expect science to ever have ALL the answers, in fact I cannot think of anything more depressing as it would stop us humans from developing and striving to understand more and more. The world is a beautiful and wonderful thing, full of mysteries yet to be unveiled, and I sincerely hope we never run out of questions to answer. Curiosity needs to be satisfied but it also needs the creative incentive to do so and science gives us the tools to push our limits .