So in a nutshell, your argument was: E. O. Wilson repudiated his own theory, therefore science cares only about “preserving the reigning orthodoxy”? You disproved your own conclusion.

I didn’t understand your question. What is a “Nul-A”?

The hosannahs that are being sung and the dogmas that are being proclaimed by the likes of Robin and his like

I stopped singing hosannahs and proclaiming dogmas when I gave up Christianity.

that the “case is closed,” and “nobody in their right mind questions Darwinism anymore,” etc. So who looks foolish now?

Your foolish straw men saying such things.

Remember when Taylor took Dr Zaius hostage and took him to the Forbidden Zone and showed Zaius the truth about human superiority? What did Zaius do? Did it matter? No, because he already knew the truth. All he was concerned about was preserving the reigning orthodoxy, so he callously blew up the evidence. My point is this: the New Atheists don’t care about the truth.

Wow, did you miss the point. Pro-orthodoxy, anti-science Dr. Zaius, Chief Defender of the Faith, keeper of the ancient scrolls, who arrests Cornelius and Zira for heresy, represented not atheism but religion.

So, I am closing this thread. Hope your stay here was worthwhile.

Only 10 feet per second?

Were did you get this speed from? Thoughts are merely electrical impulses; they are just as fast as the speed of light.
Obviously you never read the lives of the saints. The saints existed here on earth; they co-existed with other people. Some saints -that is human beings- did posses some miraculous gifts: they could levitate (ex. St Seraphim of Sarov) or bi-locate or read people’s thoughts or miraculously heal people. Don’t be too quick to dismiss all things that you do not understand.
Anyway, I am glad that you stick around. Did you find some other interesting posts on this site? Or you just stick around to make sure that you’ll have the last word? 🙂

Poor Lust must be constantly on the run…

That is not a problem at all: demons travel with the speed of thought.

Only 10 feet per second? That’s only about 7 mph. Lust wouldn’t even be able to catch up to someone driving a car at that rate.

Let’s give demons superspeed, like The Flash. No, wait, even The Flash still can only be in one place at a time, while people may be thinking about sex in Nashville, Cairo, Hong Kong, Juneau, and Fiji, all in the same microsecond. We need a better superpower.

I’ve got it! Let’s say demons have the magic power to be in many places at once! Polylocation! That’ll solve it!

Let’s give it to Santa too, so his reindeer don’t burn up trying to visit every child’s house in the world in a single night.

Poor Lust must be constantly on the run…

That is not a problem at all: demons travel with the speed of thought. Our thought process is affected by their suggestions and hence we follow/do what comes to our mind. “We can be following tampered thoughts and acting upon them or we can follow the teachings of the Church and obey the commandments. Unrestrained passions (pride, anger, greed, lust, jealousy, egoism, etc.) lead to wars, violence, crimes, addictions, abortion and all the evils that we can abundantly observe in our fallen world.”
Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you …

Something is “holding back” the demons and keeping them from doing all of the things that iniquity wants to do. The POWERS are so called because they have power over the devil. The power of God is keeping evil from doing more evil deeds. After the first fratricide war (WWI) much of the grace of God has been lifted. Imagine how demons gloated when God’s Holy Law was broken. They rejoice when they hear people like yourself declaring that there is no God. The day will come when the restraining force of God will be all taken away. That will be a very dark day for mankind. That day is called the Great Tribulation: a time of death and destruction and sorrow such as the world has never seen.

Eliot:

Atheists and ‘agnostics’ have grown ‘grace proof’ and they practice self-worship.

Ha, so I’m graceproof! Even your Almighty cannot grace me, no matter how hard he tries!~ Thus answering that aged conundrum, “Can God make a human so graceproof, even he cannot bless it?”

Never practiced self-worship, how would one’s prayers go? “O me, I am so awesome. Thank me for choosing to be so wonderful. I rock. Amen.”

There exist beings who thrive in deadly sins, demons, named after the sin they take on. Various demons inspire various sins: gambling, deceit, lust, revenge, etc.

How many people do you suppose are thinking about sex right this very second? Poor Lust must be constantly on the run.~ Must be exhausting to be a personification.

Guess who is the one who inspires mankind to turn away from God!

“Heresy”? Another busy demon, keeping those 4 billion non-Christians occupied.~

It’s pretty funny to me that you seem to believe all those thousands of gods humanity has come up with are existent supernatural beings, just that most of them are demons in disguise.

St. Paul uses the words “demon” and “idol” almost interchangeably in his letter: “The things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons and not to God…” An idol is what we are willing to trust in, and give time and attention to, more than to God. The fallen “modern” man preaches the worship and glorification of man in his sin. Actors, singers and sportsmen have become idols. People currently give so much time to the things of the world which they receive through television. Atheists and ‘agnostics’ have grown ‘grace proof’ and they practice self-worship.
There exist beings who thrive in deadly sins, demons, named after the sin they take on. Various demons inspire various sins: gambling, deceit, lust, revenge, etc. Guess who is the one who inspires mankind to turn away from God!

Huh? Do you know what a god is?

Sure. A god is a deity. A supernatural being which worshippers think controls (ex. Poseidon: god of the sea) or personifies (ex. Chronos: god of time) some aspect of life.

There are gods of time (Chronos, Nortia, Zurvan, Kan-Leon…), though time is not actually a god. There are gods of love (Kamadeva, Venus, Astarte, Xochiquetzal…), but love is not actually a god. There are moon gods, sun gods, earth gods, sky gods, day gods, night gods, wisdom gods, war gods, fate gods, death gods, you name it. Polytheistic religions have many gods, duotheistic religions have two, and monotheistic religions just one for everything. Some human beings have even convinced others to worship them as gods (ex. Mao Zedong, Jim Jones).

Contrary to above posts, these things aren’t actually gods: Gravity. Evolution. Progress. Science. Human intelligence. Culture. Self-organizing matter. Actors, musicians, and athletes (though sometimes we metaphorically describe them as such).

It’s pretty funny to me that you seem to believe all those thousands of gods humanity has come up with are existent supernatural beings, just that most of them are demons in disguise.

Fr. Hans Jacobse:

The “Bottomless Hole” essay is an apologetic tract, not anything drawn from real experience…

If you had followed the link and read the whole post, you’d’ve found that not only was it drawn from experience, but also it’s a response to Leah recounting trying prayer at her boyfriend’s suggestion on her blog Unequally Yoked, an interesting blog about a Catholic/atheist interfaith relationship, and various commenters telling her, differently, how each thought she should have prayed instead.

Life just doesn’t work that way.

In my experience, the way life really works is that no one’s prayers seem to have any effect whatsoever.

It’s just more of the atheist mythology (superstition?)…

Atheism has no mythology. 😒

…that atheist reasoning is untainted by faith (it’s not)…

While I personally take nothing on faith, not all atheists are like me. Some atheists are very tainted by faith, such as Buddhists or Raelians who practice religions with no deity, and I know at least one atheist who believes in woo-woo like psychics. Being an atheist doesn’t make one rational or skeptical, though being rational and skeptical can make one an atheist.

If you want to know if God is real or not, ask Him to show Himself to you.

Hey, God, if you’re out there, please show yourself to me.

…

Nada.

This is different that asking Him for a reason to prove to you He is real. That latter doesn’t happen.

God showing himself to people doesn’t really happen either, I suspect.

The former takes some preparation on our part, chiefly the cultivation of humility…

Seems more like the cultivation of gullibility, to the point where you can believe that when you talk to your invisible friend, someone else is talking back to you.

Seems like Michael Bauman isn’t the only one who’s confused about what a god is.

Huh? Do you know what a god is? I would be honored to be as “confused” as Michael Bauman is.

Eliot:

Ok, than be grateful to your god called “time” who made possible your evolution, to your god, called “gravity” the one who made possible the formation of planets and stars , and so on.

Seems like Michael Bauman isn’t the only one who’s confused about what a god is.

The “Bottomless Hole” essay is an apologetic tract, not anything drawn from real experience, especially 20 years of prayer and 7305 prayers. Life just doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t really establish any real facts either, despite the claim that “…human beings in the realm of religion exercise their limitless creativity untrammeled by fact.” It’s just more of the atheist mythology (superstition?) that atheist reasoning is untainted by faith (it’s not), or that Christians divorce themselves from reason (they don’t).

It’s very simple Robin. If you want to know if God is real or not, ask Him to show Himself to you. This is different that asking Him for a reason to prove to you He is real. That latter doesn’t happen. God is not an errand boy. The former takes some preparation on our part, chiefly the cultivation of humility which is a word that means (among other things) that it is hard to find God when we believe that the gifts and powers we possess are sufficient to answer the deeper questions. Usually this awareness is not reached apart from some crisis that proves to us that are dependencies are indeed insufficient.

Ok, than be grateful to your god called “time” who made possible your evolution, to your god, called “gravity” the one who made possible the formation of planets and stars , and so on. Or if do not want to be grateful to any god, that is fine too. Just enjoy …the present.