Excerpt - Prelude between Anthony Flew, a leading ex-atheist from Cambridge University, versus Richard Dawkins, a leading anti-religious atheist and evolutionary apologist from Oxford University:
“Predictably, Dawkins maintains that Flew’s change in views to intellectually abandon atheism were misguided and unjustified. Flew maintains that Dawkin’s views as represented in the “God Delusion” were infantile and comical. Flew is correct in his views, but might ultimately be wrong. Dawkins is incorrect in his views, but might ultimately be right (honesty forces me to say this, though I do not believe it will be true). So is Flew’s change to intellectual self-evidence correct, or are Dawkin’s infinitesimal improbabilities the definition of reality?
The answer will never, ever be known in this life, but life inexorably leads to this fork in the road, to choose what you believe. We will be judged, or we won’t. Life matters, or it doesn’t. Either a conscious choice will be made, or an unconscious choice was made. One choice is wrong; one choice is right. We will never be certain which one is right. Still, the best choice ought to be made, for life moves on either way.”
Do you believe life is terribly unfair to require us to make a choice without knowing with certainty what is behind the door, before you choose? Is poker fair? Is disease fair? Is war fair? Does God really exist?
You are dealt a set of cards, and it is what it is. You must play your hand. You can fold, but, is that a good choice? Even a weak hand can be played spectacularly well. It is up to you. You may not like it, but, it is what it is. Plato provides this wise advice:
“I think a man’s duty is to find out where the truth is, or if he cannot, at least to take the best possible human doctrine and the hardest to disprove, and to ride on this like a raft over the waters of life.”
Plato
In other words, and from another time, this is the process of using a reasoning mind and self-evidence to make difficult and personal decisions. Tier 1 Institute provides tools, knowledge, ideas, and facts to help make decisions and choices. No force. No coercion. Just facts, knowledge, wisdom and your own decisions.
The Existence Questions and the Uncertainty Principle
The Existence Questions and America
Quotes to Ruminate About
“In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.”
Galileo Galilei
“Even when all the experts agree, they may well be mistaken.”
Bertrand Russell
Tier 1 Institute Resources
