Posted by
Rob on Friday, October 12, 2007 8:49:25 PM
I wrote the following response to an atheist who was saying religion contradicts reason. She contacted me and said she was offended that I called atheists willfully ignorant.
"I said that atheism is a form of willful ignorance and I did not discuss evolution. I think you may have me confused with some of the other users. Christians come in all stripes as do atheists. I doubt you would like to be grouped with some of the radical atheists like Christopher Hitchens. His positions are incredibly simplistic and hopefully embarrassing to you just as ignorant Christians who want to impose a religious state on everyone are embarrassing to me. What is not embarrassing to me is my belief in God. I understand the frustration that atheists feel when arguing with people who choose to accept a method of observation not subject to third party evaluation. It would certainly make arguments easier if evidence of god were more observable. That does not change the fact of his existence. If we simply ignored everything that we cannot prove through controlled experiments with objective data subject to third party review, science would be a much less substantial subject. There is an incomprehensible amount of data and much of the relevant data to understanding the functional causes of natural phenomena are unobservable. That leaves speculation or lowered standards for evidence gathering which creates a great deal of uncertainty about the causal relationships. Yet scientist rely on the lower standards. The only element missing for the test for the existence of God is third party observation. I have performed the experiment and I cannot deny his existence."
I had to be sparing in my words since the method I used to respond had a word limit.