Re: Random Acts of Kindness, or God?
Bringing this back to the original topic (coming from me - the Queen of digression) and because I literally have no idea what you and Joe are on about in the above posts!
Anyhoo, in my time, I've dipped my toe in the atheism pool. I've read Dawkins et al but my unwillingness to accept 'God' was born out of the struggle to comprehend that this 'all loving' creator could allow terrible things to happen to good people. I had a proper wobble after 9/11. But atheism never sat right with me because there are so many questions that it cannot successfully answer - the fine-tuning, and sheer complexity of this universe and everything in it for a start.
It's also interesting how many atheists are not really atheists. My father and father-in-law for starters. Both 'atheists' but when it came to them knowing they were dying - my dad had my mother go out and buy a bible and my FIL had a conversation with a hospice nurse where he said to her. 'I'm worried that I've made a big mistake with God'.
In my FIL's case, atheism was understandable because he served in Northern Ireland in the 70s and what he witnessed there was enough to shake anybody's belief in a 'loving' creator. I don't know about my dad and how he came to the conclusion that God doesn't exist but he definitely didn't die an atheist. This suggests that both of them, deep down, believed in 'God'. So how many people are like this and how many genuinely do not believe in God?
When it comes to the scientific method and people not believing in God because science cannot prove 'his' existence - there are other things which we accept, but which cannot be scientifically measured.
Also, when people say that science is the only way in knowing the truth - how can that statement be proved by science?
Just because some things are beyond the realm of science and it's limitations, it doesn't, by any means, disprove their existence - nor does it make them any less important.
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A thought is harmless unless we believe it.