God enables, allows and gives the increase.

Without God there is only tyranny tending to non-existence, i.e. we are forced to be ‘more loving’, ‘more giving’. We are prevented from hurting each other or even offending each other by the power of the state (a power that is always backed by deadly force). Oxymoronic don’t you think.

Being enraptured by one’s own existence is the classic definition of narcicism.

Michael:

When we find reliable ways to make human beings more loving, less fearful, and genuinely enraptured by the fact of our appearance in the cosmos, we will have no need for divisive religious myths.

I am confused … To find reliable ways without God?
When someone has more than a couple of drinks he can suddenly feel more loving and less fearful, but not “genuinely enraptured by the fact of our appearance in the cosmos”.

“He that loves Me keeps my commandments.” There is none other commandment greater than these: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” The second is this: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Those who believe in the “eternal life” of God are “born again” and they are called children of God. The natural love by the “born again” for their physical families is superseded by their love for God, and for the spiritual family of God. In God we all are one family.

God’s love should permeate our relationships with all people not only the natural, physical family.
“At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.”

I think the basic problem here is that God doesn’t make us more loveable, etc. He calls us to be, he gives us everything we need to become for like Him but allows us to grow. Also that we should “be enraptured” at our own existence.

Taken together they denote a mindset that is narcissistic and does not value freedom.

Science says that it deals with real, tangible, material things and events that can be shown, repeated and then communicated to the scientific community. Science grossly stepped out of its defined boundaries. Scientists claim today that 90% of the universe is made out of some sort of matter which does not emit any detectable (visible or invisible) form of radiation. This as of yet unknown form of matter has one peculiar characteristic: it does obey the law of gravity accepted by the scientific community. We are unable to detect most of the matter that generates the gravitational field that keeps in balance the entire universe! Have faith, we don’t see it, but it is there!

Only one definition, once found, has survived. All attempts to warp what ‘science’ means away from that generate both loss, delay and eventually fail.

Indeed one can detect someone trying to impose their will immediately if they appeal to ‘psuedo science’ — that about which repeatable experiment is silent.

The one definition of science which remains is centered around the results of experiments which can be duplicated when repeated, and the business of creating what Fr. Hans calls ‘narrative’ and science calls ‘theory’ which are understood at the outset to be approximate efforts to link experimental results and to predict results of further experiments.

Narratives which make no predictions that can be tested by repeatable experiment cannot be called ‘scientific theories’.

As we all know of many aspects of our own lives that are not within the perimeters of what experiments can demonstrate in a repeated way, science must be silent about them. It might be future science will have a way to do such repeatable experiements none now can craft, it does not seem so likely. Those ideas a person likes. Whether there is truth in beauty. Whether there must be beauty in truth. Whether God knows the number of hairs on the head of someone to be born in the future.

Here it is: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/science-must-destroy-reli_b_13153.html

The supposed antagonism between reason and faith is out of date. The real scientific spirit was exemplified by Laplace . He is remembered as one of the greatest scientists of all time. Laplace died exclaiming: “What we know is nothing, what we do not know is immense.”

The supposed antagonism between reason and faith is a lie, it was a lie from the beginning.
St. Luke Archbishop of Simferopol the Surgeon (1877-1961) endured unthinkable tortures at the hands of the atheistic state due to his outspoken confession of Christ.
The book The Blessed Surgeon: The Life of Saint Luke of Simferopol is the first presentation of his life in English. It documents “his personal struggles, self-sacrifice and love for patients, miracles, and bold spiritual guidance during the Church’s most difficult period in Russia.”

World-famous pioneering surgeon, tortured confessor, archbishop and miracle-worker–St. Luke is one of the most intriguing saints who suffered under the Soviets. Outspoken regarding his faith, he was exiled and tortured multiple times. Yet the authorities could not deny his exceptional medical skills: he was appointed as a chief surgeon overseeing the treatment of injured soldiers during WWII and received the Stalin award for his pioneering surgical work.

St. Luke’s last words:

My children, very much do I entreat you,
Arm yourselves with the armor that God gives, That you may withstand the devil’s tricks.
You can’t imagine how evil he is.
We don’t have to fight with people but with rulers and powers, in effect the evil spirits.
Take care!
It’s no use to the devil for anyone to think and feel that he is close to him.
A hidden and unknown enemy is more dangerous than a visible enemy.
O how large and terrible is the army of the demons.
How numberless is their black horde!
Unchanged, untiring, day and night, seeking to push all of us who believe in the name of Christ, to lure us on the road of unbelief, of evil and of impiety.
These unseen enemies of God have made their sole purpose, day and night to seek our destruction.
But do not be afraid, take power from the name of Jesus.