These two exchanges occurred underneath existing blog articles of mine. Therabidly anti-Catholic traxxion(words in blue below) was replying under an article of mine about how many anti-Catholic Protestant polemicists are young earth creationists.Linguagroover(words in green) replied underneath my purely theological / biblical piece,Soul Sleep: A Thorough Biblical Refutation.

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The hypocrisy of this article is absolutely mind numbing.

Catholic criticises Protestant YECs . are you serious?Are you promoting the same Catholic church that placed Galileo under house arrest for supporting the Copernican model? and banned both of their books?

The same church that taught (inerrantly uh huh) and held to deeply flawed Aristotelian philosophy and integrated it into its religious worldview, including a static geo-centric universe? as believed and taught by Catholic apologist Robert Sungenis?

Since your premise is education of Catholics vs Protestants more than slightly disingenuous assertion that your condition in matters now considered science is supportive of your ability to interpret historical theology.

If youd like to have a serious, intelligent, informed discussion about the Galileo incident, Ive written several times about it (pick one of these and come back and dialogue):

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Nor was Galileo some irrefutable font of wisdom. He and the other scientists of the time made plenty of errors, too:

Lastly, the Galileo trial(s) had nothing directly to do with Catholic claims of infallibility, as St. John Henry Cardinal Newman explains:

So again Galileo, supposing he began (I have no reason for implying or thinking he did, but supposing he began) with doubting the received doctrine about the centrality of the earth, I think he would have been defective in religiousness; but not defective in faith, (unless indeed by chance he erroneously thoughtthat the centrality had been defined). On the other hand, when he saw good reasons for doubting it, it was very fair to ask, and implied no irreligiousness,After all, is it defined? and then, on inquiry, he would have found liberty of thought in possession, and would both by right and with piety doubt of the earths centrality.(Letter to Edward B. Pusey, 23 March 1867; cited in Wilfred Ward, The Life of John Henry Cardinal Newman [two volumes: London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1912], vol. 2, 221; my italics and bolding)

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Consciousness after death is clearly taught in Scripture. Indeed it is which is why any religion asserting this (by faith it has no other methodology) is utterly incompatible with evidence-based science.

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Whatever brings you comfort: circular arguments; appeals to evidence-free assertion; . . . and trying to make out that atheism is a religion. I was a Christian. I know what a religion is. Atheism aint.

As you must know, many if not most of the important philosophers throughout history have been dualists and theists, rather than materialists. So its not simply blind faith. The existence of a soul, the afterlife, and God can be argued for strictly on a philosophical / non-religious basis, and has been defended by many brilliant, dazzling minds.

Secondly, I would contend that when you say utterly incompatible you overstep your own epistemological boundaries: the limits of your own chosen worldview. You can say that consciousness after death has nothing to do with science, and I would enthusiastically agree. Itcannot, by definition, because science (essentially applied empirical philosophy) deals with matter. Therefore, it has nothing to tell us about things like souls and spirit, which are irrelevant or nonexistent categories within its purview.

By the same token, however, because it cannot speak to those things, it also follows logically that it cannotrule them outfrom its own perspective. You can no more say, science has disproven the existence of souls than we can say, religion has disproven the theory of evolution. Both are impermissible, because they are serious category mistakes at the presuppositional level.

You also go way too far in insinuating that any religion that believes in consciousness after death (i.e., immortality of souls), must do so only by faith (false: we can also enlist dualist philosophy), and must be utterly incompatible with evidence-based science. The latter is also a false statement, based on what I have already stated: its like comparing apples and oranges or a fish to a bicycle.

Christianity is not only not intrinsically opposed to science; it was crucial and virtually necessary to thebeginningof modern science. See also: Christians or Theists Founded 115 Scientific Fields.

And we can bring much reason to the defense of our views, not just faith. Thats what the theistic proofs are about. You may disagree with them, but theyarespecimens of philosophical reasoning; not just faith.

Lastly, you flatly deny that atheism is a religion. Typically, as an atheist, you seem to think that science is the be-all and end-all of all knowledge (clearly and unarguably false), that it is based only on evidence (false: it necessarily entails mathematics and logic: both of which include unprovable and non-empirical starting axioms), and that atheism entails no acceptance of unprovable axioms. The latter is also spectacularly false, as I think I demonstrated rather conclusively in my paper:Atheism: the Faith of Atomism.

Id be happy to discuss any of these things at length. As it is, I will now make a new blog paper of this exchange. Ill post it here when Im done.

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Read the original:

Replies to Atheists on Souls and the Galileo Fiasco - Patheos