Salyavin, According to a rabbi, Mordechai Kraft, the devil was created to tempt human beings in the Garden to allow for free will to be exercised. Similarly, the devil is doing the same thing today to test humans and to exercise their free will. So, in essence, the devil is merely doing what the Creator to do, which is to do the best he could to tempt humans. See his lecture below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AHco824RDI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AHco824RDI But Christians have a different take on this matter. The devil is considered a fallen angel and wants human beings to worship him and not the Creator. The Muslims have a different interpretation too. They consider the devil or Satan to be a jinn--I'd imagine an evil entity--and was not an angel in heaven. Regarding Dr. Berlinski lecture, he's actually saying that many of the atheists' positions, including Darwin's Evolution Theory and the current developments in physics and cosmology, are not supported by incontrovertible facts. For example, many of the popular atheists today are not really confident nor sure that their position is scientifically true. I myself saw a video clip in which Richard Dawkins said he does not have any proof that God does not exist. As such, he said he could be properly be called an agnostic. But many so called atheists today consider Dawkins to be one of the leading apologists for atheism. By doing so, it would appear that many atheists today don't know what atheism is, or that they should be called agnostics, just like Dawkins himself. ---In [email protected], <[email protected]> wrote : I watched as far as the bit where he's introduced as being part of the "intelligent design" faith's founding members. But it's for sure a challenging title, the idea that the devil is behind the idea that god doesn't exist is a curious one that any philosopher ought to be able to make short work of. Except this guy obviously... The thing about ID is that, like any other religion, they didn't tackle their critics head on and refute the rather obvious shortcoming of their idea that life was created - or guided by - by some sort of supernatural being. Instead they just plod on with the same old god-of-the-gaps jibberish thinly disguised as cutting edge thinking. How many times do we have to point out that evolution isn't random but occurs among populations or that there really are no irreducible structures in nature? But funniest of all, they had a planning meeting and someone left a copy of the agenda in a copier in a public library and it got published. They tried to deny it, but the inescapable truth is that the ID crowd are a bunch of creationist true believers who try to use the language of science to get their beliefs taught in schools. That is their plan and they do quite well because they can afford to send out info packs and DVD's that underfunded public schools love because it sounds technically convincing and they can save a bit of money. In the illogical spirit of the title, I hope there is a god and he damns them to hell for corrupting young minds. ---In [email protected], <jr_esq@...> wrote : This is a lecture about atheism and its scientific pretensions. Dr. Berlinsky presents an interesting lecture about the current state of scientific progress. He also does not believe in Darwin's Theory. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XIDykeZplU&spfreload=1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XIDykeZplU&spfreload=1
