The issue again for me is that I have read Hawkings railings against the religious and I am quite sure if he met me he would include me in what he calls idiots and the worst of society because I believe deeply in God. Yet I have spent almost 30 years trying to help people who have asked for help to resolve difficult problems so they can fulfill their personal goals. Things like a strong healthy lifelong marriage, overcoming addictions, problems with their children; just trying to help them be successful, taking my days away from work to help disadvantaged people who just need someone in their corner giving practical and often financial assistance. I attempt to help people out of love God has placed in my heart. Jesus love motivates me toward helping when I can with all I can. That would be my term for religion. I have read enough of his stuff to see it as a crusade against all religion with the arrogance of intelligence for justification. Personally I think is time and energy would have been better spent building habitat homes for humanity than writing some of the books he wrote. That's just my opinion. I run into alot of people who have been divorced several times still giving advice as to how to have one lifelong healthy marriage. It's just me, OK, but that isn't who I listen to. I never said that someone who is divorced can't have a successful future marriage or that they don't know a thing about a good marriage; I see alot of successful marriages come about after wise changes are implemented. But alot of what I have seen work would be termed religious by Hawkings, I am quite sure of that since it comes out of the Bible. I have nothing against divorce actually, it happens, my parents divorced when I was 15. I do place alot of importance upon building a successful and healthy lifelong marriage. I personally feel it is very important and worth any help I could be to others. I honestly don't think the things that are very important to me are probably important to Hawkings. I admit I am assuming that from what I read from him assuming those things are very important to him. I have never talked to him personally. But just because people almost glorify him as the master of evolutionary argument doesn't mean much at all to me. I find his life sad. I've read about his childhood, who influenced him in college, his rejection of the Anglican faith and his crusade against religion. Divorce is sad to me. Not that it happens, but that there is a loss of opportunity for a lifelong healthy marriage. When someone is divorced several times it is sad to me. That's just me. I have seen the pain. Hawkings is on his third marriage. Nothing uncommon about that, alot of Christians are divorcing more than atheists probably. But issues like marriage, family, children, loving, lasting relationships are very high in my heart, I'm a pastor I live alot in the hardships people face. Because Hawkings is almost militant against people like me I take his type of intellectual assault unwise. Like I said, he might have something about evolution I would read, but I would never recommend anyone going to him to learn to love, commit and walk in humility. I wouldn't preclude him from knowing something about science, but yes his understanding of how to have a lifelong marriage does not interest me in the least. That has been my experience for over 30 years and I'm not inclined to change that assumption until there is evidence for it. I base my opinion on person experience. Theology has little to do with that. I find nothing wrong with a failed marriage at all. I have many in our church. To me it is all about helping others. But when I get a call from someone asking me for marriage counseling (and I get alot of calls like that) I don't refer them to the person who is on the third marriage just because I'm hopeful maybe they've learned from their mistakes. Sorry, that's just me. Again Hawkings may be a great atheist but he doesn't interest me problably in the areas of life I feel are most vital and important.What I know of him and my opinions of him come from what he has written. Mostly his crusade against religion and belief in God. He is one of a few atheists I know of who feel compelled to fight against what they are convinced does not exist.
This does not compute at all with the other parts of your post. For example: "The issue again for me is that I have read Hawkings railings against the religious and I am quite sure if he met me he would include me in what he calls idiots and the worst of society because I believe deeply in God." And obviously you do find something wrong with failed marriages... "I wouldn't go to a pastor who is on his third marriage and ask him for marriage advice." otherwise you wouldn't hold it against someone in terms of their ability to have a healthy, loving marriage, or their ability being able to help others in that regard. Also.. "My point is simple. His crusade against religion is very different than my efforts to help others. And my efforts are motivated by the very thing he despises." Actually, it isn't at all. Dawkins, in his mind, is trying to help society just the same way you imagine you are.
No, that is my point, in my opinion he has included me by his own books as those who are a detriment to society and I don't see the wisdom in that at all. For someone who crusades against people like me and at times has labeled them idiots I think he should work on his own issues before he throws the stones. That is and has been my opinion. When people blast, which he does, those who believe in God and are working hard to help others I believe they should look in the mirror first. My initial comment was meant to say that he might be the most intelligent man on earth but that doesn't necessarily mean he knows how to have a lifelong blessed marriage which I think is of far more value than anything he ever wrote or said about evolution. I think failed marriages are a tragedy. I have spent 30 years watching families tear apart and children hurt deeply by divorce, but that is part of life and I don't go around looking to put failure labels on people I look for ways to help and redeem and restore those who want help. I don't think there is anything wrong with someone who is divorced, it happens. But I marry alot of couples and for years I cannot remember one couple who thought divorce would be a good outcome one day. I know several divorced pastors and have a very close friend who is a pastor going through one right now. I have people in my church who have been married over 5 times. I am involved in marriage and divorce issues alot. There is no profit it proclaiming how bad and evil divorce is. Try to bring healing into situations. That is my belief. Oh, you wanted me to say I believe there is something wrong with failed marriages. How about I say there is something wonderful about good marriages and it is tragic when people hurt each other and little children deeply. That is my actual viewpoint. Holding it against someone is different than my level of trust. I certainly wouldn't condemn someone because they divorced. What if my wife filed divorce against me and I was in their shoes? I wasn't throwing stones at Hawkings for being divorced just saying that brilliance and IQ don't always equal successful marriage and loving lifelong relationships. And those are the things that are important to me. You can be disappointed in my preference but I send people for advice to those who have demonstrated over time wise and successful decisions. Those who have credentials that matter to me. That's all. I never said that because someone was divorced they couldn't give marriage advice. A couple in our church who are a part of our counseling ministry are divorced and remarried (the wife is on her fifth marriage). They normally refer marriage counseling to me, and I never asked them to do that. I'm sure that is his intention, I still don't see it as the same.
It’s for you to decide how strong you feel the sauce is, but for me the fact that roughly ¾ of the world’s population, roughly 5 billion people, across all nationalities, races, generations and genders, believe in a God or God’s, catches my attention. And I’m sure that percentage has been that high or higher for a very long time. That’s not likely to be a coincidence. The events around 9/11 were a brief moment in history, and the government was actively misleading its people, and the media had rolled over and become puppets for the government. The government and the mainstream media were essentially all telling Joe Public that Saddam Hussein was involved with 9/11, so I can understand why so many people were fooled. It is proof, but whether or not you feel it proves the claim depends on what standard of proof you’re looking for. "Fact" and "proved" are words one needs to be careful with. Hard science has performed rigorous tests and “proved” many things that have later turned out to be untrue for various reasons. Also note that in this case one wouldn’t likely stop at that finding. What to these people believe about God? Are there similarities between the various beliefs? Differences? Etc. The question of the existence of a God or Gods is really just the most basic starting point. It may well be true that the current peer review system is the best way to go, but there are lots of problems with it. There is actually a tremendous amount of pressure on scientists to conform and to accept the current paradigms. See Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions for some essential readings on the topic. I agree completely. I didn’t say it was likely. I said it was a possibility, but it does fit the facts quite well. For example, the jumps in the fossil record don’t make much sense from an evolution standpoint, and it’s unclear what the purpose of the great length of time before humans showed up would have been from a creationist’s standpoint, but from an engineered earth standpoint they make a lot of sense. They would represent stages in the building process as ecosystems were built from the bottom up. I don’t think that would be hearsay, but it would be indirect evidence. However, further to the above discussion about facts and proof, this is a situation where indirect evidence probably gives you a higher degree of certainty than many hard science experiments. There is some chance that perhaps there was a hypnotist in that gym that hypnotised people into believing that they saw a basketball game, but a very high percentage of the time that kind of evidence in that situation will produce extremely reliable results. Otoh, many hard science experiments involve many complicated variables, and fairly often important new variables are identified after the fact that, unbeknownst to the experimenters at the time, had a significant impact on the experiment. The point I’m making is that uncertainty and error come from a lot of places, and therefore direct evidence is not necessarily better than indirect evidence. It’s more complicated than that. From whose standpoint? If you haven’t done the tests yourself then you’re trusting what someone else tells you. IOW, X number of people are saying it’s true and you have to decide whether you believe them.
Not to be an ass, but I wrote that more than a month ago. Right now, I couldn't tell you where it was that I read it. If I went looking for it, I would be starting from scratch. And since I've already read it, there's no real incentive.
