There is a condition that atheists are especially prone to - scientism. It is like a religion, based on the worship of human intellect.
If you ask me, science - as impressive as it is from a human perspective - will only ever be able to scratch the surface of reality, which means it is actually quite puny in the grand scheme of things.
Pray tell, what are the āclaims of the Catholic Church regarding evolutionā?
And how I have I rejected them?
Pope Francis said in 2014 that evolution and the big bang are real.
Belief without faith is unbeliefā¦not sure why this is so confusing. You cannot say, āI believe in God.ā and āI donāt really know if God exists.ā and have them both be correct statements. You either have faith in Jesus and know He is your savior with 100% conviction, or you donātā¦there is no 65% belief (or any portion less than 100%) that will save you.
If you say, āI donāt know, but I hope I will be saved.ā you do not have faith, and therefore (according to the bible, not meā¦Rom 10:1-13, John 3:10-21, Rev 3:14-22, James 2:14-26) you will not be saved. If your beliefs are purely conditioned on empirical evidence, fine, you are welcome to that stanceā¦but donāt be tricked into thinking you will be saved by believing only in the evidence (John 20-24-31).
James 1:5-8 - 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
This is not me making a judgmentā¦this is me pointing out the truth in the scriptures. If you half-heartedly kind of want salvation because it sounds better than damnation, but you donāt really believe any of it to be trueā¦you are choosing death. Jesus will not know you well enough to write you into the book of life (Matt 7:21), and you will therefore not receive eternal life.
Again, this is what the bible says, donāt hate me for pointing it out.
There is a condition that theists are prone to: psychological projection. When you try to discredit atheists by trying to make them look like you, what are you saying about yourself?
Opinion noted.
Iāll just let St Augustine reply to you on this.
Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he hold to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion. [1 Timothy 1.7]
-Saint Augustine (A.D. 354-430) in his work The Literal Meaning of Genesis (De Genesi ad litteram libri duodecim)
Evidently, you are ignorant of Catholic teaching re evolution. Please allow me to enlighten you: Catholics free to accept evolution or to totally reject it. Catholics are free to believe in a literal interpretation of Genesis and are free to believe that the earth was created only a few thousand years ago.
So please explain your accusation that I have denied āthe claims of the Catholic Church regarding evolutionā.
I would say that science is a human enterprise which, through a set of methods of its own, seeks to describe reality as closely as possible. IOW, the purpose of science is to come up with statements about the natural world that are as close as possible to reality.
Iām not so sure about this. In everyday life you can definitely have less than 100% certainty and still move forward. In fact, you very much should move forward. Iām not 100% sure I wonāt get in an accident and die the next time I drive my car, but I still drive almost every day. What about Mark 9:24?
Jesus said to him, āIf you are able!āAll things can be done for the one who believes.ā Immediately the father of the child cried out, I believe; help my unbelief!
Was the fatherās faith real or not? Jesus heals the manās son ā¦ so Iām guessing he thought his belief was real.
But none of those verses actually say what you said, do they? They all either say to believe or to act, none of them talk about absolute certitude. Faith is hope, trust. For the Christian itās not supposed to be ābelief despite all evidence to the contraryā, but itās also not ā100% confidence or nothingā. What I see in those verses is a level of belief/certainty that motivates one to act, to change, to reorient. None of that requires absence of doubt or uncertainty.
As a (physical) scientist in the church this issue of certainty is one that Iām am very sensitive to. In science we spend a great time on measuring our certainty (or rather, uncertainty) and this idea that knowledge must be absolutely, precisely, unequivocally either known or unknown is just so unrealistic and foreign.
I believe in Jesus Christ, son of God, Messiah. I believe in a creator God who not only created the entire universe, he also created me and knows me personally. I believe the Bible is the inspired word of God, I believe the Holy Spirit guides and infuses my life. None of those beliefs are without uncertainty, and at times doubt, but they absolutely have changed my life, and for the better. I am not trying to celebrate doubt and uncertainty, as some do, but I have to acknowledge itās very real existence. I worry about people who refuse to acknowledge uncertainty in their beliefs, it doesnāt usually end well ā¦
I almost agree with that. I would replace āas closely as possibleā with āas well as possibleā. Thatās because we donāt have any agreed measure of closeness. We judge science pragmatically (how well it works).
This is very well saidā¦I too struggle with doubt, as does everyone, but if the chosen direction is to embrace the doubt instead of embracing the faith, I think this is where the bible is fairly clear to me that we must repent, seek God and the spiritual knowledge of the kingdom of heaven, and not our own empirical knowledge if we want eternal life. Of course, if eternal life is not the goal, nothing really matters in the long run.
Youāre eliding across āfaithā and ācertaintyā here. I think @jordan did a fantastic job of clarifying the distinction.
I agree that the distinction is necessary, but also feel that a person using certainty and empirical evidence to choose a spiritual path will never find the path that leads to life (Matt 7:13-14). The bible is a guide, but scripture alone cannot save anyone, you have to embrace God and seek him with all you have:
Mark 12:29-31 - 29 Jesus answered him, āThe [a]first of all the commandments is: āHear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.ā [b]This is the first commandment. 31 And the second, like it, is this: āYou shall love your neighbor as yourself.ā There is no other commandment greater than these.ā
The other scriptures I cited earlier are similar, that Jesus will vomit the lukewarm out of his mouth (rev 3:14-22) seems pretty direct to me that He will reject the believers that doubt. But I agree that complete certainty is not attainable on earth. The bible makes clear that those that half-heartedly want to know God will really never know Him. It takes repentance and prayer and seeking Him believing that He is real and that He loves you. I am certain of that for myself (to the best that my weakness allows me to be), so then all I have to do is follow His commandmentsā¦love Him and love others more than myself. That is easier said than done, I am constantly failing and repenting and praying for renewed faith to do better. The process of faith is what saves (in my opinion), not the absolute certainty.
So, I suppose I retract this statement:
and will say instead that I feel that scripture tells me I must commit myself to God and to Jesus as Lord with 100% of my heart and soul and mind and strength (all as commanded) in order to receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit and eternal life. I can commit 100% of myself without being 100% certain, which I think more accurately describes my position and connects deeply with Mark 9:24.
Thank you for the correction.
In more than twenty places in the New Testament, eternal life in heaven is described as a āhopeā ā¦ which contradicts what many misinformed Christians believe - that they are eternally saved as soon as they believe, which is not what the NT actually teaches.
No oneās eternal salvation is certain until they die and are judged āsavedā by Christ. In fact, Matt 7:21-23 demonstrates that some believers will not make it to heaven.