Greek Politician and Scientist Responds to Criticism After Posting on Social Media About a Miracle He Witnessed

Giannis Kallianos is a 43 year old Greek presenter of meteorological bulletins, mathematician and politician, a member of the New Democracy in the Southern Sector of Athens II. Today, he works at Mega Channel.

On October 16, 2021, the MP became the target of an arson attack on his political office in Argyroupoli. The explosion of the incendiary device caused material damage to the entrance of the apartment building. In a post on Facebook, the MP described the perpetrators as enemies of democracy.

On October 29, 2021, he posted the following on his Facebook and Twitter accounts, responding to comments made from his post on October 26th, the feast of Saint Demetrios, where he mentioned that he attended the Divine Liturgy for the feast of the Great Martyr at the Church of Saint Demetrios in Vyrona, where an icon of the Panagia has been weeping for a year:

Saint Iakovos Tsalikes and the Unbelieving Physicist

 

By Metropolitan Athanasios of Limassol

There was a woman from Canada, and another nun with her, from Cyprus, actually, and they went to see Fr. Iakovos.

The young woman who was from Canada was a physicist, but she didn’t believe and was probably an atheist. When they got there, Fr. Iakovos told them he was leaving to go to a village. He added: "But I hope that Saint David, who’s here in our monastery, will show you that there really are saints and the grace of the Holy Spirit. God exists and He overcomes the laws of nature."

An Electrifying Miracle

 

Elder Nikolai (Guryanov)

A Russian professor of mathematics came to visit Elder Nikolai (Guryanov) with his English friend, also a professor of mathematics, who was an unbeliever. The Russian friend prayed very much that he would believe. The Englishman said: "If this old man shows me a miracle, then I will believe."

They arrived and met with the elder who led them into his cell and immediately said: "My son, what a miracle for you, to be here." He went to the switch and started clicking: "Here is light, but there is no light. Here is light, but there is no light. Ha-ha-ha!" They laughed, and Father Nikolai sent them home: "Go, my sons, with God, go in peace." The Englishman also laughed saying, "What miracles can there be?" After all, he was a man of science. 

They arrived back to the mainland from the island, and there was a crowd of people gathered, the police, and workers who were dragging some wires. "What happened?" they asked. "For three days now there has been no electricity on the islands." Amazed the scientists immediately turned the boat back to see Elder Nikolai. 

 

When St. Luke the Surgeon Was Asked in Court About Believing in a God He Couldn't See

St. Luke the Surgeon performing surgery.

In the summer of 1921, wounded and burned Red Army men were brought from Bukhara to Tashkent. Within a few days of travel, in hot weather, many of them had colonies of fly larvae under their uniforms. They were delivered to the hospital at the end of the working day, when only the doctor on duty remained in the hospital. He examined only a few patients whose condition was causing concern. The rest were left to be.

By morning among the patients of the clinic, there was a rumor that doctors allowed wounded soldiers to be infected with worms. The Emergency Investigation Commission arrested all the doctors. A quick revolutionary court began, to which experts from other medical institutions in Tashkent were invited, including Professor Voyno-Yasenetsky (St. Luke).

Atheism Is Inconsistent with the Scientific Method, Prizewinning Physicist Says

In a conversation with Scientific American, theoretical physicist Marcelo Gleiserthe, who is the 2019 Templeton Prize winner, does not pull punches on the limits of science, the value of humility in science, and the irrationality of atheism. Concerning the latter, the agnostic physicist says:

Gallup Poll Shows Belief in Creationist View of Humans at New Low in U.S.

A new Gallup poll released Monday shows some exciting developments in the faith and science conversation. In a question used since 1982, Gallup asks U.S. adults to choose between the following views of human origins:

1. Human beings developed over millions of years, but God guided this process.

2. Human beings developed over millions of years, but God had no part in this process.

3. God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years.

What’s Behind It All? God, Science and the Universe (A Dialogue with Krauss, Meyer, Lamoureux)

On March 19, 2016 from Wycliffe College at the University of Toronto, three top minds from three different perspectives gathered for this 2-hour dialogue to discuss "What's Behind It All? God, Science and the Universe."

The Three Hierarchs and Modern Atheism

By Metropolitan Euthymios (Stylios) of Achelous

(A sermon delivered to scientists in 1971)

"You boldly defeated heresies."

Introduction: The phenomenon of atheism appeared in the West and became a great and dangerous universal movement, which Western Civilization paid for dearly in the 20th century.

The phenomenon of atheism also appeared within the Western Church, as a reaction of scientists to the arbitrariness and cruelty of this Church (Holy Inquisition, etc.) In the East, however, there was never a problem in the relationship between scientists and the Church. And we owe our gratitude to the three great Hierarchs we celebrate today: Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian and John Chrysystom.

St. Basil the Great on the Intelligent Cause of Creation

By St. Basil the Great

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Genesis 1:1

I stop struck with admiration at this thought. What shall I first say? Where shall I begin my story? Shall I show forth the vanity of the Gentiles? Shall I exalt the truth of our faith?

The philosophers of Greece have made much ado to explain nature, and not one of their systems has remained firm and unshaken, each being overturned by its successor. It is vain to refute them; they are sufficient in themselves to destroy one another. Those who were too ignorant to rise to a knowledge of a God, could not allow that an intelligent cause presided at the birth of the Universe; a primary error that involved them in sad consequences. Some had recourse to material principles and attributed the origin of the Universe to the elements of the world. Others imagined that atoms, and indivisible bodies, molecules and ducts, form, by their union, the nature of the visible world. Atoms reuniting or separating, produce births and deaths and the most durable bodies only owe their consistency to the strength of their mutual adhesion: a true spider's web woven by these writers who give to heaven, to earth, and to sea so weak an origin and so little consistency! It is because they knew not how to say "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth". Deceived by their inherent atheism it appeared to them that nothing governed or ruled the universe, and that all was given up to chance.

Ivan Pavlov Remembered the Easter of His Youth

By John Sanidopoulos

It appears that even atheists today have a hard time giving up on their former religious traditions, as it was reported this past week where they continue to see some of the benefits of Great Lent even after they have lost faith. In reading this report, I was reminded of another famous atheist who could not altogether abandon the religious traditions of his Orthodox Christian upbringing, especially that of Great Lent and Easter - Ivan Pavlov.

Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849-1936), a brilliant Russian physiologist, is most famous for winning the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1904 for his research in conditioned reflex. Before his rise to scientific fame, however, he was a Seminary student in line to be a priest from a devout Orthodox family of eleven children. For six generations, since the time of Peter the Great, the Pavlov men served the Russian Orthodox Church as clergymen. His father, Petr Dmitrievich Pavlov, and his two brothers, both named Ivan, all graduated from seminaries and served parishes in Russia. His father was a respected clergyman who served the Nikolo-Vysokovskaia Church in Ryazan, about 200 miles from Moscow, and his mother also was the daughter of a Russian Orthodox priest.

Why We Need Earthquakes

Why We Need Earthquakes

Without them, the planet couldn't support creatures like us.

Christianity Today

Dinesh D'Souza

4/28/2009

The problem of theodicy—why bad things happen to good people—predates Christianity. Writing around 300 b.c., the Greek philosopher Epicurus framed the problem this way: God is believed by most people to be infinite in his power and also in his goodness and compassion. Now evil exists in the world and seems always to have existed. If God is unable to remove evil, he lacks omnipotence. If God is able to remove evil but doesn't, he lacks goodness and compassion. So clearly the all-powerful, compassionate God that most people pray to does not exist.

This old critique has been revived by Bart Ehrman in God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question—Why We Suffer. Theologians over the centuries have responded to questions about the existence of evil by pointing out that man, not God, is the author of moral evil. Evil in this view refers to the bad things that people do to each other. Moral evil is the necessary price that God pays for granting humans moral autonomy.

Yet while human freedom may account for moral evil, it cannot account for natural evil, or more accurately, natural suffering. Ehrman's book is full of examples, to which we can add recent tragedies such as the earthquake in China last spring and the 2004 tsunami that killed tens of thousands in Southeast Asia.

Christian apologists such as C. S. Lewis have attempted to account for natural disasters by showing how they draw people together, or how they provide moral instruction to the survivors, or how they turn our eyes to God. Ehrman asks, but couldn't God have found better ways to achieve these worthy objectives? Rejecting as implausible and offensive the usual responses to innocent suffering, Ehrman has stopped calling himself a Christian.

Why the World's Most Notorious Atheist Came to Believe in an Intelligent Creator

Anthony Flew (1923-2010), who was the world’s leading intellectual atheist for most of his adult life, said the following a few years shortly before his death:

“I now believe that the universe was brought into existence by an infinite intelligence. I believe that the universe’s intricate laws manifest what scientists have called the Mind of God. I believe that life and reproduction originate in a divine Source. Why do I believe this, given that I expounded and defended atheism for more than a half century? The short answer is this: this is the world picture, as I see it, that has emerged from modern science.”

A Critique of Scientific Materialism

The following is an excerpt from a 2012 lecture titled "A Professor’s Journey out of Nihilism: Why I am not an Atheist" by J. Budziszewski from the University of Texas.

I had been strongly influenced by the mythology of our age that confuses scientific rationality with materialism or physicalism -- with the view that matter is all there is. If that were true, then there couldn't be such things as minds, moral law, or God, could there? After all, none of those are matter.

Why It's So Hard For Scientists To Believe In God

Recorded September 13, 2010

Francis Collins Interviewed by David Hirschman

Question: Why is it so difficult for scientists to believe in a higher power?

Francis Collins: Science is about trying to get rigorous answers to questions about how nature works. And it’s a very important process that’s actually quite reliable if carried out correctly with generation of hypotheses and testing of those by accumulation of data and then drawing conclusions that are continually revisited to be sure they are right. So if you want to answer questions about how nature works, how biology works, for instance, science is the way to get there. Scientists believe in that they are very troubled by a suggestion that other kinds of approaches can be taken to derive truth about nature. And some I think have seen faith as therefore a threat to the scientific method and therefore it to be resisted.

New Book on an Atheist Who Found Belief Through Science

Douglas Ell recently gave a talk at MIT about his new book Counting To God: A Personal Journey Through Science to Belief.

Here is a description from his website:

Atheist Admits There Is No Evolutionary Explanation for Consciousness

Russel Wallace, a biologist of Darwin's era, argued that the human consciousness should be exempted from the iron rule of evolution, in which Darwin responded in a letter written to Wallace, "I hope you have not murdered too completely your own and my child". Darwin believed that human consciousness was very much a part of the evolution of the brain, thus dissolving any illusion of man's authorship, creativity or understanding, and yet no convincing evidence has ever been offered to support this notion. Thoughtful atheists admit that the materialist Darwinian process of natural selection cannot account for the human consciousness. Atheist philosopher and physician Raymond Tallis, who said: "You won't find consciousness in the brain", wrote the following in The Philosophers Magazine in 2009:

Orthodox Bishop Answers 4 Questions on Science and the Theory of Evolution

Metropolitan Nicholas of Mesogaia and Lavreotiki studied Physics at the University of Thessaloniki where he received his Bachelors in 1976, and after serving in the army he continued his studies at Harvard and M.I.T. where he received his Masters of Arts and Masters in Science, and then in a combined program of Harvard and M.I.T. (HST = Health-Sciences-Technology) he received his Ph.D in Biomedical Engineering. Upon completing his studies he worked simultaneously for New England Deaconess Hospital, NASA and Arthur D. Little. After teaching at Harvard and M.I.T., he went on to teach at the School of Medicine at the University of Crete as well as at the University of Athens. He then went back to Boston where he received both a Masters in Theological Studies and a Masters in Theology from Holy Cross School of Theology, and a doctorate from the University of Thessaloniki in Bioethics. In 2008 he received an Honorary Doctoral Degree from the University of Athens School of Theology in Science and Religion.

The following questions on science and the theory of evolution were presented to His Eminence Metropolitan Nicholas of Mesogaia and Lavreotiki: