Your thoughts on prayer 2

Confirmation bias is a well-understood, well-researched, well-documented fact, Sue. It happens all the time, and it certainly isn't my theory. 

I don't see myself as part of a team - the atheists on one side, the believers on the other. I'm just interested in trying to discover what is true. 

I hope I'm not trampling over anyone's feelings, hopes or comforts. I don't think Ruth feels that I am - she's far too secure in her faith to be trampled by anything I might have to say. All were doing here is asking each other questions and trying to give honest answers. 

John, now don't tell porkies! You are not trying to discover what is true at all. Your mind is set 100%.  I cannot speak for Ruth, she is more than capable of speaking for herself. You don't trample over my faith either. But that does not detract from the fact that hopelessness and despair are the only gifts that evolutionism could offer in the place of God, to a the vast majority of the world's population, who believe in something greater than themselves. 

Ingersoll's father was a Presbyterian preacher, Alan - so not so strange really. He sat through many a sermon, and heard them at home, too.

He was a fascinating guy. In 1884, he wrote:

This century will be called Darwin's century. He was one of the greatest men who ever touched this globe. He has explained more of the phenomena of life than all of the religious teachers. Write the name of Charles Darwin on the one hand and the name of every theologian who ever lived on the other, and from that name has come more light to the world than from all of those. His doctrine of evolution, his doctrine of the survival of the fittest, his doctrine of the origin of species, has removed in every thinking mind the last vestige of orthodox Christianity. He has not only stated, but he has demonstrated, that the inspired writer knew nothing of this world, nothing of the origin of man, nothing of geology, nothing of astronomy, nothing of nature; that the Bible is a book written by ignorance -- at the instigation of fear. Think of the men who replied to him. Only a few years ago there was no person too ignorant to successfully answer Charles Darwin; and the more ignorant he was the more cheerfully he undertook the task. He was held up to the ridicule, the scorn and contempt of the Christian world, and yet when he died, England was proud to put his dust with that of her noblest and her grandest. Charles Darwin conquered the intellectual world, and his doctrines are now accepted facts. 

 The reason a scientist is a scientist is because they DO question everything and anything, without that relentless urge to question “why” they wouldn’t be what they are. It’s known that a lot of scientist have a belief and it’s also accepted that one needn’t interfere with the other. The whole point of these discussions as I have understood it has been based on “why faith/religion/God”. Scientist continue to push back the understanding of the cosmos and the way it works, they will never find God in a test tube, the reason…. They know God’s not in one. God is in your faith, your belief, your being, not a test tube sample.

Many people think God does not exist and never has. As I have said before, most of the people I have known that do not have a belief DO have an open mind as well as an open ear. Most of the people I have met who do have a belief DO NOT have an open mind or open ear, they only ever try to bolster or promote there own beliefs when confronted in an open discussion.

I don't know where to start tonight, John!

Firstly, the answers in genesis website that I recommended was to demonstrate that there is another side to this debate. Scientist who do believe in God. Some of the information on there is staggering and can easily stand up to evolutionary evidence. I don't imagine for one minute you took the site seriously and you must have scoured the pages looking for evidence of religious dogmatism.  Personally, I don't see how their stance has the slightest bearing on the actual scientific arguments put forward to show that life via evolution is untrue.

As to my having a closed mind, believers have always stood their ground, and indeed died for their beliefs. If you can show me how a spark of life can come from absolutely nothing, and then show me where  chaos, left unattended, produces order and a clockwork universe, I might reconsider my fairy tale  (though the greater part of this last sentence sounds rather like a fairy tale) faith.