All events in nature can be traced back eventually, I guess, to the Big-Bang, and all of our thougts are side-effects from nonrational, nonpurposive, unintentional laws of physics and chemistry. That thought to me is amazing. How long would it take in nature for a car to randomly assemble itself? What about a city filled with skyscrapers? Cars and skyscrapers, in the veiw of naturalism, are not actually human inventions but inevitable results from the laws of natrue. Think about that the next time you look at a sports car or a metropolitan area.
But I beleive this veiw is irrational, and as a result, that theism is the only sound alternative . I can not bring myself to beleive that rationalism arose from nonrational actions. I can't beleive purpose, or its illusion, arose from nonpurposive systems. I am not one of those people who don't beleive in evolution, I do, but what I do not beleive is that things in the universe tend to spontaneously generate and form into complex life forms and progress without the intention to become better. How could a stick-bug become like a stick by blind random processes? Could we not say that their is somthing implanted into the insects nature that allows it to adapt to its environment. It seems impossible, to me, that things adapt by blind processes. Your reaction to this post, from a naturalistic perspective, will not be from your own free-will but from random, nonintentional, nonrational chemical and physical reactions.
Someone here attacked others who have religous beleifs because they have been "brainwashed or exploitated because of their weakness." No doubt this is true for some but to imply it is true for all is just wrong. Does the fact that many people have been forced to beleive in atheism(e.g. Russia) make atheism unreasonable to you? I think not. I have seen some people say here that people who beleive in religion are irrational, and no doubt many are, but there are just as many irrational folks on the atheistic side as the theistic side. However, because some are irrational does not provide grounds for claiming all people of religion or atheism are irrational. But a good question to ask is this, how can anyone be called irrational, in a worldview that does not really allow the existance of rationalism in the first place.
That's my two cents on this facinating subject. And if you want to attack my beleifs, then by all means do so, but please do not make generalizations and presumtions about whole groups of people. Overall I was quite impressed with your discussion about the Bible. Most other forums would have had about 12 nuts popping insults about their opponets mothers.
