Can evidence based Doctors believe in God?
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Can evidence based Doctors believe in God?
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As a confirmed atheist in the finest traditions of Prof Dan Dennett, Dr Sam Harris, Prof Richard Dawkins and the late and much lamented Christopher Hitchens (The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse) I ne
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Can evidence based Doctors believe in God?
posted at 24/12/2011 1:26 PM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 959
First: 15/7/2011 Last: 21/5/2013 |
As a confirmed atheist in the finest traditions of Prof Dan Dennett, Dr Sam Harris, Prof Richard Dawkins and the late and much lamented Christopher Hitchens (The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse) I never cease to be amazed at the number of highly intelligent, analytical, evidence based inquisitive minds that seem to shed their every faculty (particularly at this time of year) to the dogma and fantasy of religious books. I find it unfathomable. If you examine a patient and discard all your knowledge, experience, volumes of medical/scientific information and abandon it all to come up with a working diagnosis I suggest your waiting room would be empty year in year out. So can someone please explain it to me. With real evidence - not biblical or koranic texts or other alleged analogies from other 'sacred texts' and lay it on the line for me. It might not sound like it but I do respect every persons right to hold any view they wish (as long as it is kept within) and I am not obliged to 'respect' it. It is in my view a moral imperative. As Dr Sam Harris eloquently puts it: "The problem with faith is that it is really a conversation stopper. Faith is a declaration of immunity to the powers of conversation. It is a reason why you do not have to give reasons for what you believe". |
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Re: Can evidence based Doctors believe in God?
posted at 24/12/2011 2:51 PM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 2054
First: 12/3/2010 Last: 23/5/2013 |
Got to say, "The God Delusion" was instant Mogadon for me, when Dawkins' other books on evolution, however intellectually tough-going, were a fascinating read. Only his recent death has brought to my attention Christopher Hitchens' "God is not Great" which will be waiting for me, with enormous irony, beneath the tree. Incidentally, Hitchens' death got vast media attention. Pages in the broadsheets, ten minutes on the TV evening news - he was clearly a much respected journalist. Or else it was a slow news day. But you are hard on people in rational professions who have faith. There are plenty of serious scientists who believe in a god, and to do so, in one that is all powerful and a creator, need not mean that you must deny evolution or big bang. They could all have been that god's will. Equally, not every religious is a fundamentalist; there are many clerics who are sceptical, who love to poke fun at the less tolerant and more credulous of their brethren. If you have a moment over Christmas, visit the Ship of Fools website http://www.ship-of-fools.com/ if you don't have faith in me. John PS, What is it with names that end in"ns"? Is this the Mark of the Beast? Or should all atheists change theirs to incoporate it? |
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Re: Can evidence based Doctors believe in God?
posted at 24/12/2011 9:03 PM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 2948
First: 10/3/2009 Last: 23/5/2013 |
Faith for many underpins ethical behaviour, bring us a more tolerant approach to our neighbours. There was a time when Islam was very tolerant of other faiths and was a seat of intellectual endeavour. Many Christians are tolerant of others' positions. Unless a belief system produces a more tolerant and enlightened individual, I wonder if it is worth having (personal belief). Physicists and mathematicians have theorised such things asparallel universes indicating that man who only recently split the atom is in his intellectual infancy with regards understanding this universe. The above question is a non sequitur. It may as well say can a theist drive a train or fly a plane or be a top astrophysicist or mathematician. It is Christmas morning in Brisbane and I am glad of it for without belief I would be the poorer and less optimistic about life. That is not to say the opposite. We are not so good in the West at managing anything other than concrete concepts (a+b=c ) where there has to be a diametrically opposition position. IN hte MIddle East, the car bomb or suicide vest seems to be the resort of reason. A "religious" view of the world is clearly madness to many, and thus giving them some sort of superiority but so is the square root of a negative number? I don't agree that discussing why you have a religious belief is any different from discussing why you have none. P.S. I note on the US currency In God We Trust, a masonic symbol, the seeing eye and a pryramid etc. Very interesting, as few nations demonstrate their national belief system on their currency. It seems somewhat psychotic but I am not expert on why they got there in the first place. Masons belief in God but at no fixed address. Australians have an emu and kangaroo on the coat of arms, both of which were food staples for 80,000 years and now road kill, indicating a more primitive alimentary belief system that Americans with pyramids and seeing eyes. (We no longer have one dollar notes but nevertheless our dollar is worth more than the greenback now). |
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Re: Can evidence based Doctors believe in God?
posted at 24/12/2011 10:23 PM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 2054
First: 12/3/2010 Last: 23/5/2013 |
Duane, As I said, it's your priviledge to believe what you like, but in return, you imply that my lack of any belief in a god implies that I am irrational and have a disordered mind. It's Christmas, and whatever we believe we should be kind to each other. I fear that when god or politics are invoked the converstaion gets most dagerous. I don't know if the moderators are on duty, but may I suggest that we voluntarily call a halt ot this debate? Anyway, and in case they are, I'm going to report this, my own post, so that they may decide if thyey will lock this thread. JOhn |
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Re: Can evidence based Doctors believe in God?
posted at 24/12/2011 11:10 PM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 2948
First: 10/3/2009 Last: 23/5/2013 |
It is interesting that on a site of intelligent people, discussion of our basic view of the cosmos can lead to hostility and intransigence. No wonder we have car bombs and drones. I agree with John. Let us leave this topic as it does us no good to dig trenches and start preparing the artillery for the defence of one's position. I admire those who are tolerant. I was once the host of a doctor in Paris. He was kindness personified to me and even paid my hotel bill when I stayed near his hospital. He had in his library the writings of Avicenna, Laennec and Osler each in their own respective languages which he knew. He was Moslem. I remember the Alhambra when I think of him and also Saladin and his relationship and respect of Richard Coeur de Lion. Odysseus.
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Re: Can evidence based Doctors believe in God?
posted at 25/12/2011 9:51 AM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 959
First: 15/7/2011 Last: 21/5/2013 |
In Response to Re: Can evidence based Doctors believe in God?: Got to say, "The God Delusion" was instant Mogadon for me, when Dawkins' other books on evolution, however intellectually tough-going, were a fascinating read. Only his recent death has brought to my attention Christopher Hitchens' "God is not Great" which will be waiting for me, with enormous irony, beneath the tree. Incidentally, Hitchens' death got vast media attention. Pages in the broadsheets, ten minutes on the TV evening news - he was clearly a much respected journalist. Or else it was a slow news day. But you are hard on people in rational professions who have faith. There are plenty of serious scientists who believe in a god, and to do so, in one that is all powerful and a creator, need not mean that you must deny evolution or big bang. They could all have been that god's will. Equally, not every religious is a fundamentalist; there are many clerics who are sceptical, who love to poke fun at the less tolerant and more credulous of their brethren. If you have a moment over Christmas, visit the Ship of Fools website http://www.ship-of-fools.com/ if you don't have faith in me. John PS, What is it with names that end in"ns"? Is this the Mark of the Beast? Or should all atheists change theirs to incoporate it? John D If you found the God Delusion soporific I feel very confident that Christopher Hitchens 'God is Not Great' to be 'unputdownable'. His writing is much more profound than Dawkins (although Dawkins The God Delusion has been a massive worldwide success, and his scientific knowledge and thinking is quite brilliant). Good luck with the book. Posted by John D |
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Re: Can evidence based Doctors believe in God?
posted at 25/12/2011 10:04 AM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 959
First: 15/7/2011 Last: 21/5/2013 |
In Response to Re: Can evidence based Doctors believe in God?: Duane, As I said, it's your priviledge to believe what you like, but in return, you imply that my lack of any belief in a god implies that I am irrational and have a disordered mind. It's Christmas, and whatever we believe we should be kind to each other. I fear that when god or politics are invoked the converstaion gets most dagerous. I don't know if the moderators are on duty, but may I suggest that we voluntarily call a halt ot this debate? Anyway, and in case they are, I'm going to report this, my own post, so that they may decide if thyey will lock this thread. JOhn Posted by John D John D I disagree with locking this thread, we are all adults and this is exactly how religious debate always goes (hence my quote at the outset). You have your views, I have mine, and others have theirs. Let the argument speak out for itself. Religious people can be incredibly unkind (especially at a time of good will). In my experience this is quite normal. I have frequent formal debates with people of all religions and they always use ads hominem attacks - in other words, they have no serious point to put. |
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Re: Can evidence based Doctors believe in God?
posted at 25/12/2011 10:08 AM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 959
First: 15/7/2011 Last: 21/5/2013 |
In Response to Re: Can evidence based Doctors believe in God?: In any any rational or ordered mindset one must be willing to accept the existence of the divine. For St Augustines first premise that if one believes in physics, and the action-reaction logic one must believe in God through default. In any series of movements, there must a Mover, and a Movee,or something being moved, since there was a bing bang, and everything came into existence, and secondly there can be no infinite series of movers or movees, there must have been a God, to initiate a Big Bang. Posted by DuaneF With respect, your 'logic' is disordered. Facts speak for themselves. Your views are very typical of the religious. Non believers or those who just dont know what they think are exercising threir faculties = not following dogma. |
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Re: Can evidence based Doctors believe in God?
posted at 25/12/2011 9:55 PM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 2948
First: 10/3/2009 Last: 23/5/2013 |
The first casualty of having a rigid belief system is humour. This applies to communists, Christians, Moslems and Atheists (spelt with a capital A in deference to their god, A-theos). To laugh at one's belief system is an anathema to many. It is a crack which might just let the light get in. When one's position becomes rock hard, I believe one's persona becomes incorporated into that paradigm. Humour requires intellect, insight and an ability to use linguistics which brings me to a book I have ordered called Jokes and the linguistic mind, by an Australian linguistics expert I heard on the radio a few days ago. I look forward to receiving it in the mail in the New Year (not on ebook). Even the hardiest Christian believer I believe must have some doubts. Even the great saints expressed this. Even Jesus on the cross. To have none in my opinion does not jel. You risk being a fake or suffering a personality disorder. The same applies to the atheists (Buddhists are atheists) and astrophysicists. For them not to entertain some alternate view, nay even a parallel universe, I think indicates rigid thinking. Why not some blurred boundaries, some concession to alternative views. Perhaps more Christians should read the Koran and visa versa so at least one can see what the others are thinking. Protestants and Catholics who killed and tortured one another for centuries really have a lot more in common than they would like to admit and one side rarely reads the writings or traditions of the other. Catholics may still view Protestants as outside the fold. Most positions are genetic (being born into it) rather than reached by logic and reason. If one does convert to the other position in later life, one is never really admitted as a fully blown Bla Bla, as the camp one enters may regard you with distrust eg a converted apostate. What took so long and why now? What I am getting at is the saying of Goethe which in essence is " As knowledge increases, doubt increases". A belief system gives meaning to this brief stay on the planet and makes it less scary and more predictable. To many it is enriching. Let us keep our views of the cosmos in our own bottles and drink from them sparingly and soberly and with some humility and not smash their contents all over the party. As for the above question of the topic, it is a non sequitur. As for the Big Bang, I am not sure there even needs to be something before the Big Bang as this may also be a sort of non sequitur in physics (although non sequitur may be better said as a priori). We have progressed since mechanistic Newtonian physics and that is the wonder of it all.
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Re: Can evidence based Doctors believe in God?
posted at 26/12/2011 7:58 AM GMT
on bmj.com
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Posts: 10
First: 27/4/2009 Last: 10/6/2012 |
I have no time and abilities to convince you regarding the GREATEST FACT and TRUTH regarding the CREATER of the universe and ALL the creatures BUT I can refere you to a person with whom you can have a discussion and ask him any number of questions to satisfy your self and that person is Dr. Zakir Naik, he is a medical doctor and can be contacted at: www.facebook.com/pages/DrZakir-Naik/15651504506 and at
In Response to Can evidence based Doctors believe in God?: As a confirmed atheist in the finest traditions of Prof Dan Dennett, Dr Sam Harris, Prof Richard Dawkins and the late and much lamented Christopher Hitchens (The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse) I never cease to be amazed at the number of highly intelligent, analytical, evidence based inquisitive minds that seem to shed their every faculty (particularly at this time of year) to the dogma and fantasy of religious books. I find it unfathomable. If you examine a patient and discard all your knowledge, experience, volumes of medical/scientific information and abandon it all to come up with a working diagnosis I suggest your waiting room would be empty year in year out. So can someone please explain it to me. With real evidence - not biblical or koranic texts or other alleged analogies from other 'sacred texts' and lay it on the line for me. It might not sound like it but I do respect every persons right to hold any view they wish (as long as it is kept within) and I am not obliged to 'respect' it. It is in my view a moral imperative. As Dr Sam Harris eloquently puts it: "The problem with faith is that it is really a conversation stopper. Faith is a declaration of immunity to the powers of conversation. It is a reason why you do not have to give reasons for what you believe".
Posted by kirked |
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Forums » Open clinical » General clinical » Can evidence based Doctors believe in God?
