“Location, Location, Location” was not an acceptable title!
For my sci-fi book that I’m writing, I’m reviewing some spiritual arguments, the types that aren’t rooted in a particular tradition but use similar techniques. I just pulled up an old book, by Frank Schaeffer, Why I am an atheist that believes in God. And yes, it’s as strange as it sounds. But there are a few pages that offer some food for thought. He starts with a contemplation of the stars, then recalls going to a museum that opens a display on the cosmos with a narrative on how insignificant we are in the universe.
His reasoning; that our location, timeline, and numbers are not what makes us significant. He agrees the popes were wrong, that we aren’t the center of the universe, but there are new authorities, telling us we don’t amount to much because of our size and location.
My first reaction is, no one is telling me anything. I am not being burned at the stake if I think I’m significant. He sort of counters himself when he asks; if we don’t matter, then why it is so important that we go looking for ways to expand, to find another livable planet? This is a typical strategy of picking a poetic look at ourselves like the one by Carl Sagan to argue against, then extend his thinking as if all science thinks that way and question any effort that isn’t in line with it. So, it’s a bit confused, as Frank often is, but it’s interesting anyway.
How about " The location of all unknown isometrics " Very catchy name and no one has done that but you are lost thinking you will find what your looking for. The only one that can help you Mr. Lausten is yourself look for the inteligence you have all the ahrd work even though it is ahrd God gave you that if you want to find the help already you have it but you need to do only one thing good Sir ! Pray and you will find your answers .
It’s more like just an interesting perspective to me. Frank is the one who is searching. I looked around and ended up where I started, which was where I was the whole time
Except for the indisputable fact that prayer has never yielded any answers except those imagined by the same brain that is doing the prayers.
God is a hallucination of the mind without any confirmation, except as imagined by the brain doing the praying. God is a self-generated circular experience.
There is not One God. There are as many gods as there are believers and each god a subjective construct of the mind.
How can you even propose to know God when you do not believe in 7999 out of 8000 gods that came before.
You are an atheist just like me, except I deny just one more god than you do.
Because we have evolved as part of our quest to survive, to seek ways to understand what is going on around us and how to take advantage of it. It is part of our evolutionary make up, to avoid our own death and our offspring as far as possible.
Nothing mysterious or specially significant in that.