Beating a dead horse
Unfortunately, the site won’t let me embed this clip from the Colbert Report. To reduce Colbert’s work here to a mockery of O’Reilly’s speciousness is, I feel, to discount it entirely. For example, what he’s getting at with the “All hail Luna!” cries seems to be the religious crowd’s insistence on the existence of God and never accepting any other truth. And it’s just as well, too, because they have a lot to lose there. But it’s a losing battle whenever we try to fit one point-of-view into the framework of another–to build the intricacies of one worldview on the skeleton of an opposing one. Never mind the senseless babble of Jim in the comments above, but to try to prove God in scientific terms, or science in religious ones just won’t work: science will forever be heretical, and belief in God irrational.
I don’t mean to beat the proverbial dead horse by returning to the evolution vs. creationism debate, but I’m very much confused as to how people from these polarized points-of-view can ever try to reconcile them. Look only to this article from Hatchet reporter Juliana Tamayo to illustrate the apparent futility of any such discussion. Griffin seems to relinquish the dignity of the spiritual, faith-based foundations of Christianity by searching out the “rational” reasons for God’s existence, in a manner equally as impudent as Johnny from the comments on Colbert’s video.
Someone earlier mentioned being able to reconcile the two beliefs, and I’d like to know how that’s done.
A class blog on science and science journalism 
Some of the greatest scientists have been devoutly religious. Albert Einstein said, “science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.” Sir Isaac Newton said, “The most beautiful system of the Sun, planets and comets could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent being. All variety of created objects which represent order and Life in the Universe could happen only by the willful reasoning of its original Creator, whom I call the Lord God.” It is very possible to reconcile religion and science, though religion must evolve to match the changing scientific beliefs of society.
What’s your point?
I know that atheism is all-too-often close-minded in that atheists have a tendency to shut out any any all arguments if they even come close believing in a higher power (Heaven forbid someone have THAT opinion). What I find even more common among atheists is the tendency to throw the baby out with the bathwater–atheists will dismiss the notion of God, a remarkably complicated one, entirely simply because a there are some poorly constructed arguments for it. There are PLENTY of logical arguments for the existence of God–take an intro to philosophy course and learn some of them (the teleological argument for the existence of god, the unmoved mover argument, etc.)
So, to sum up, accept that the world might just be a little more complicated and many people just a little more intelligent than what they feed you on ultra liberal comedy shows like The Colbert Report.
You missed the point too. NEXT!
What a great rebuttal! An all around solid-argument. Good work!
Get over yourself, Germiller.
oh, the irony. the utter irony….
Certainly it must take a great deal of arrogance to reduce my post to a defense of some sort of spiteful and vindictive atheism whose rejection is at its very core. And only the most self-righteous of people would read simplicity into an argument that criticizes the same. I’ve not posited that there have been no attempts to reconcile the two beliefs or even individuals that have not done so, but that rather that these are two distinct fields of thought which both deserve respectful treatment, and that an attempt to combine the two seem to violate the very essence of the respective fields; to wit, that the two are so fundamentally opposed to each other that it’s no wonder any satisfactory reconciliation of the two has eluded us all this time. So to treat my post as a rejection of God is to conduct both an erroneous and disrespectful treatment, and to turn this into a critique of liberal media is offensive at best.
On the other hand, your mention of logical arguments that support the existence of God is well-taken, and the post as intended calls for an explanation, and, indeed, an exploration of such views, just as much as it seeks out those religious arguments that might support the validity of science and certain scientific explanations. I am excited when I see you or HK commenting on my posts, because I know you will engage in thoughtful and even intellectual discussion, and it’s fun to do so. Your dissent is most welcome and even desired, but not at the expense of respect and intellectual dignity.
You two are funny…
How to reconcile the two beliefs? One that will actually be accepted? Ha, that will never happen, because most people are egotistical and/or non-rational. However, if that were not the case, I do see a possible way for this argument to end.
Religion is based on faith, that is what it is suppose to be based on anyways. So speaking about proof and making claims to ‘why God exists’ is counterintuitive to the fundamentals of religion. Therefore, everyone of a religious persuasion needs to STOP talking about proving God…even if it can be done, it shouldn’t.
And those who are trying to disprove God, how do they disprove something that is not seen, but is believed? If I chose to believe in an invisible flying spaghetti monster, I will, and nothing anyone says to the contrary will change my opinion…because I have decided to believe in it, and have come to turns with never seeing it…so…I see no way anything that is said by a non-believer of my invisible flying spaghetti monster will change my opinion.
If those who follow religion would come to terms with the fact that trying to prove God goes against those said religions and those trying to prove God does not exist would realize once people have convinced themselves to believe in an invisible higher power nothing will change their opinion, then this argument would cease/ be reconciled. .
Thank you! You’ve gotten the point, and you’ve probably articulated it better than I’ve been able to.