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My final post in review of God In The Conversation.
In Chapter 6: Confused by No Gods, The writings of Richard Dawkins are discussed. John Smed writes: 'Dawkins argues that mankind's only hope is to face the truths of science and get rid of delusion.' (40). The author replies to Dr. Dawkins: 'Dawkins assumes most scientists agree with him. In fact a great many scientists believe in God. In a 2014 Religion in Science (Italics my add). International study, only 38% of scientists believe there is a conflict between science and religion. BBC research in 2004 revealed that only 39% do not believe in God, 21% say they don't know.' (41).
Based on those statistics, 40% would have some kind of belief in God. This is a decent and reasonable percentage of scientists, although not a majority.
As I noted, in two archived posts on Satire Und Theology, I do not find Dr. Dawkins views in regard to religious studies and philosophy convincing.
Goodreads
'“It is often said, mainly by the 'no-contests', that although there is no positive evidence for the existence of God, nor is there evidence against his existence. So it is best to keep an open mind and be agnostic. At first sight that seems an unassailable position, at least in the weak sense of Pascal's wager. But on second thoughts it seems a cop-out, because the same could be said of Father Christmas and tooth fairies. There may be fairies at the bottom of the garden. There is no evidence for it, but you can't prove that there aren't any, so shouldn't we be agnostic with respect to fairies?” ― Richard Dawkins'
There is not historical documentation from many sources over many years from different geographical areas for fairies at the bottom of a garden.
There is Biblical historical documentation of approximately 3500 years of actual persons, from various regions who experienced God. There are scribes, prophets, apostles and of course the resurrected Jesus Christ who are actual documented persons. This is connected to the Church Fathers and their writings. There is considerable historical and modern scholarship in regard to the historicity of both the Hebrew Bible and New Testament.
I conclude: The Biblical documentation would still be actual even if the Scripture contained some falsehoods, meaning a false comparison and false analogy is presented.
I view the original autographs as inspired by God through writers and inerrant.
Definition of False Analogy:
False Analogy
In an analogy, two objects (or events), A and B are shown to be similar. Then it is argued that since A has property P, so also B must have property P. An analogy fails when the two objects, A and B, are different in a way which affects whether they both have property P.
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The Appendix of the God In the Conversation discusses Bringing God Into the Conversation.
Love people. (111), Expect to make a friend. (112), Put the person first, not their argument (112), Discern where God is speaking. (113), are examples. These are theological and evangelical approaches I personally use and find very helpful in a gospel context. Honest and open worldview dialogue is encouraged, while praying at the same time.
SMED, JOHN F. (2016) God In the Conversation, Prayer Current, Vancouver.
