7 Arguments Atheists Can't Use by Eli Brayley

Good article. As Francis Shaefer used to say, the atheist is tragically irrational. He wants to erase God in hopes of declaring the supreme value of humanity. The problem is he has nothing to believe in, and so must borrow meaning, ethics, and sentiments from other belief systems that allow for purpose in order for his own humanity to have any value at all.

Mike

You have shamelessly distorted Atheist arguments from scientific rationalism and/or simply fail to understand.

Barring sufficient evidence, doubt is the proper default. This because for all that does exist, for each endless permutations are conceivable. The conceivable but nonexistent therefore vastly outnumbers the existent. Thus, all things being equal, the odds are against any particular conceivable phenomena existing are against. Indeed, that is the normal mode of thought about the color of the corner house on the next street over amongst all the possible colors of paint, likewise the amount of money in your bank account and the configuration of atomic particles, let alone the existence of Bigfoot, Santa Clause and God no less, barring special pleadings. It takes little effort of faith to believe that two and two is four or that London is in England. What is the effort of faith but willfully wishful thinking?

And Evolution does not rule out God, rather amongst competing hypotheses Evolution shows greater explanatory elegance. Appeal to God only removes all problems to another problem of even greater complexity and sheer supposition.

Whether the universe is of finite age is still in dispute. Indeed there are problems with Big Bang cosmology perhaps better explained by the Plasma Universe model. But more importantly, even if the universe has a beginning, that would still be a far cry from demonstrating God the Creator.

And religious crimes do not bring into doubt the existence of God, but far worse, the efficacy of religion in moral guidance and improvement of believers. It certainly doesn't seem much to be helping you to be honest or rational.

When I worked at NASA, I knew several highly respected scientists and engineers who had become Christians. One of them explained that the more she studied, the more she saw "creative oversight" to the laws of science and the patterns of the universe.

I appreciate the original articles here.

Aaron, I appreciate your honesty. However, as a former agnostic, it helps to realize that some individuals play armchair theologians (or anti-theocrats) about matters that they haven't considered thoroughly.

One thing that I would suggest: Even if you don't really believe in God (or if you are unsure of the existence of God), why not make an honest effort to pray anyway? I don't think that you would be so bold as to claim that you "know for sure" about the non-existence of God. Therefore, the possibility should exist in your mind. I wonder if you would be willing to speak to God?

Prayer, to Christians, is the highest level of communication that one could ever attain. It is the notion that a mere mortal can communicate with the Creator of all things...and actually have His attention.

Would you be willing, regardless of how ridiculous it might seem, to speak to God? You don't have to do it publicly. You don't even have to believe (fully) in what you are doing. I did this...and it led to a series of fortunate events where my views of this matter changed. I simply asked "God" that, if He were real, that He would reveal Himself or show Himself to me.

Regardless, you will be in my prayers. Feel free to PM me if you like.

Hi Aaron,
I think I have one thing in common with evolutionist Richard Dawkins that is that he believes christianity and evolution are totally incompatiable,as do I.
From my point of view for evolution to happen their would have to be a cycle of life,death,life,death,life,death over a period of billions of years with life continually improving .Eventually this would lead to Man coming into existance.Now if sin and death came into the world by Adam then Adam would have had to exist before the life,death cycle began which is not possible because he would have had to evolve.
The importance of Adam is that if we dont have an Adam bring death into the world then we dont need Christ redeeming the world.
So from a my and millions more of christians point of view any evolution has to be considered heresy.
So Richard Dawkins is right its one or the other,at least even though totally wrong his position is clear,
Yours Staff

Ccchhhrrriiisss, the advice you proffer, which I am sure that we have all heard many times before, simply disregards significant Epistemological disputes. Would anyone argue that one ought to at least give alcohol a chance in order to try for oneself if drunkenness will help restore the belief in pink elephants? I know that prayer is an effective technique for many in order to cultivate pleasing beliefs, but does that then make them so? I think that you are just jumping the gun. It also seems simply patronizing to suggest that anyone who disagrees with you simply hasn't given the matter much thought. But such is not the case. Indeed, if my question has never occurred to you, then you're hardly one to talk.

Now, while evolution like anything else might be framed within the will of God, you are correct nevertheless, staff, that compatibility with Theism at all, is distinct from Christianity. And it would take some creativity indeed, to reconcile the Fall from Grace with mere behavioral evolution of both selfishness and altruism. So, where does the evidence lead? How are the problems framed thereby? And what promising solutions at all present themselves? For one thing, apparently catharsis that is a feature of the quest for redemption in many faiths, seems to still work even on utterly secular terms.

AaronAgassi,
You may want to look at www.creation.com for scientific answers to many questions about the world, geology, the fossil record, etc. Just use the search engine to look up any topic you may be interested in. You will see that the evidence points to a Creator and the Biblical narrative.

Sincerely,
Renoncer

Hi Aaron...

Ccchhhrrriiisss, the advice you proffer, which I am sure that we have all heard many times before, simply disregards significant Epistemological disputes. Would anyone argue that one ought to at least give alcohol a chance in order to try for oneself if drunkenness will help restore the belief in pink elephants?

The advice that I have suggested certainly is outside typical philosophical apriorism. This is why it is considered a matter of faith. The difference, in this case, is that there are individuals (like me) who are, by human nature, doubters. Many of us aren't prone to just believing what we are told or taught. Yet, many of us came to a belief in God. This isn't "pink elephants" from drunken stupors that we are speaking about. My own journey from agnosticism to faith came only after long bouts of contemplation.

The "prayer" experiment isn't meant to invoke frustration on your part. After all, you ventured into this forum (rather than any of us venturing into, say, an atheist forum). You are the guestam simply telling you that you need to believe in "pink elephants" -- but HOW I came about believing in God.

Faith, according to Scripture, is the evidence of things NOT seen. If you are looking for tangible proof of God's existence through some physical means, you will never have enough to suffice any hypotheses. However, since God is Spirit, he must be reached via spiritual means. God has chosen the simple act of prayer as the means to speak with Him. I am not asking you to believe in God and pray. I am simply suggesting that you can attempt to speak with Him mingled with the remote possibility that you may be wrong about His very existence.

I don't believe in the Andromeda galaxy simply because a teacher or professor told me to. While I considered their words, I looked through my own telescope as a child and saw it...and looked upon it through the telescopes at my universities too. It was simply proving what I had been taught or heard. Likewise, I didn't come to believe in God by simply believing what others told me. In fact, I did NOT believe in God for a long time because of it. It was only after a period of time where I tested my own doubt...and was willing to speak to a God that I couldn't see or hear that I eventually came to such a faith.

The Bible actually ENCOURAGES such a test (I Thessalonians 5:21). Since God is spirit, then you will have to reach Him through spiritual means. It is certainly up to you. I would think that it isn't too wise to have arrived at such a concrete conclusion without having fully exhausted all avenues. For me, I asked God (prayer, in its simplest form, is just talking to God) to "reveal" himself to me. I even told Him that I didn't believe. This became a catalyst for my own journey into faith.

Anyway, I am not trying to "convince" you via some philosophical argument. Nor does it boast any ego to try and convince someone to find a reason to believe. But, in one of those strange coincidences about faith, I do care that you might believe. Of course, I know that you have probably thought long and hard about it before. But, perhaps, you may not have considered the things that I have mentioned.

First of all, I began simply by seeking to correct misrepresentation of Rationalist Atheist arguments, such as that I do feel qualified to do. And trust me, I am sure that we unbelievers have all indeed all been subject to precisely such exhortation to prayer on numerous occasions. But the religious test of doubt is entirely different from the systematic doubt essential to Scientific Rationalism. The religious test of faith is happy to find results at all consistent with and therefore conceivably supportive of a desired conclusion, regardless that the very same results might more easily fit entirely different conclusions.

As for example, the results of those ill conceived Quantum tunneling experiments, indeed consistent with Quantum tunneling, but also consistent with far more prosaic explanation. Scientifically, such ambiguous results are therefore deemed inconclusive. And as to the proposed prayer experiment, they appeal to special pleadings outright. Introspection and imagination as a rule, are simply not Empirical of external reality. Except, supposedly, where God is concerned. Why so?

In truth, the most dramatic results are still readily explainable by entire suggestion and wishful thinking without divine intervention whatsoever. Aha, but see for yourself, you'll reply. Why, to reproduce an entirely subjective experience? Even without becoming a test subject myself, I am already well aware of those who have, including those who had religious experiences and even where convinced by them. What of it? Indeed, what if the desired results never accrue for me? Will you accept that as refutation? Scientific experiments, after all, are defined by conceivable conditions of refutation.

The scientific quest for truth proceeds by process of elimination, narrowing the field of viable hypotheses that to be scientific, must include conditions of conceivable refutation. Theism simply has none. We know that scripture is the word of God, because scripture that is the word of God tells us so. Or substitute successful mystical experience of prayer for scripture. If it doesn't work keep trying until faith grows sufficient. Until then, there is always some excuse as to how Santa Clause as a magical being, might have again eluded detection. Indeed, religion seeks to overcome doubt embraced by science. To reiterate, you are still jumping the gun, because it is the very value of faith, particularly Epistemologically, Methodologically, that is in dispute.

Therefore the entire question of how you came to believe in God, only begs that question: Is faith actually evidence of anything? -Likewise whatever the results of prayer, one way or another. As it stands, your proposal simply is not serious, because it simply ignores all such begged question in the seeming embrace of wishful thinking. But Ontology is not just a matter of personal taste. Therefore, neither is Epistemology.

Hi Aaron,

Then, unfortunately, there is nothing that anyone can do for you. You see, faith is not only the "evidence of things not seen," but it requires a realization that no man is "all knowing" thus requiring an openness to the possibility of being wrong.

Yes, scientific quests for truth rely upon a six or seven step hypothesis tests. However, we are speaking of matters of faith...which, as pointed out, is the evidence of things unseen. Thus, faith cannot be measured or confined to a human argument. For Christians, faith is experienced by coming to God.

The Bible mentions that without faith, it is impossible to please God. Why? Because those who come to him must believe that he is...and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him (Hebrews 11:6). So, it is just impossible to find God without a degree of faith.

So how did I "find" God -- even as an agnostic young man?

It was an unlikely thing, to say the least. I didn't believe in Christianity...let alone the notion of God (or a god). I saw Christians as typically being weak-minded individuals who were willing to believe anything that they were taught. My own experiences with Christians caused me to view them as gullible people who blindly believed (as you said) a Santa Claus in the sky...and who mostly spent their time fighting and arguing amongst themselves over minuscule sectarian doctrinal issues. I saw religion as a crutch...or an attempt by the elite to exert control over the masses.

However, I was willing to acknowledge (at least, mentally) that there are things that I just don't know. I wasn't an "atheist" because I was fully aware that there was no way to prove that God (or a god) did not exist. I just didn't think that there was any way to prove it. So, I was content without a deity. But, I still had a bit of disbelief regarding, well, my own disbelief. I knew that I was quite sure that God didn't exist...but I was willing to admit that I wasn't completely sure.

Again, the Bible says that God has given each man a measure of faith (Romans 12:3). Now, for me, I think that this "measure of faith" was enough to make me realize my own limitations in regard to, borrowing from Doug Adams, "life, the universe and everything." Moreover, it gave me pause to consider such things and even question them publicly. I also had a fear of death. Not only did I fear just "ceasing to exist," but the "unknown" of it all.

This is when I was willing to fully explore faith. I actually tried "talking" to God (in a rudimentary but honest sort of way)...and told him explicitly that I wasn't even sure that he existed. I asked him to "prove" himself to me. Now, I never saw flashes of light...and I didn't even come to believe in God immediately. In fact, I continued as always. However, this was the beginning of a journey...or process...where I eventually came to believe. About a year later, something wonderful happened. I realized that God DOES exist...and I became a Christian while standing all alone in a field one night. I was overwhelmed by something that cannot be expressed by words.

The things that happened in that year in between were interesting to say the least. However, I won't include those things here. But, it is suffice to say that my disbelief in God gave way to a likelihood that he did exist. For me, there is no longer ANY doubt about the existence of God.

That was all I suggested here. I didn't meant to offend you by the very suggestion. However, you spoke of a scientific quest for truth. As I mentioned, faith is the evidence of things NOT seen. So, the ultimate quest for truth would have to include the consideration that those unseen things are feasible. Otherwise, it is impossible to properly test that aspect of faith (at least, on this side of life and death).

From the vantage point of biblical faith, it takes a willingness to be an actual participant in the quest for faith and spiritual truth rather than by standing on the "outside looking in" trying to measure something that is unseen. If someone isn't willing to do this, then there is nothing that we can do. It isn't a matter of "convincing" anyway. Such perspicacity and realization can only be experienced.

Hello,

Sorry to get in the middle, but I just wanted to let you know Aaron, that you will be in my prayers.

In Love,
Joe

Science too, is premised upon human fallibility. It is assertion of divine infallibility that is problematical, as is the support thereof, being faith, the Epistemological utility whereof remaining under contention. That's the elephant in the room: Whether participation in faith is evidence of anything, much less the unseen. And that would tend to moot whatever particulars of whatever process thereafter. And the notion that God makes Himself known by such irrationality, likewise remains somewhat circuitous. Moreover, whatever my writing style is thought to demonstrate about me, INDEED, must be dismissed as Ad Hominem.

Hi Aaron,

And that would tend to moot whatever particulars of whatever process thereafter. And the notion that God makes Himself known by such irrationality, likewise remains somewhat circuitous. Moreover, whatever my writing style is thought to demonstrate about me, INDEED, must be dismissed as Ad Hominem.

...and you will never know whether it really is "irrational" or "circuitous" if you fail to test it by experience and simply dismiss it as mere "argumentum ad hominem."

Like I said, faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen. It is literally believing in what is unseen.

What would it hurt if you were to voice your own disbelief to this unseen God and honestly ask him -- whether you perceive that he is there or not -- to reveal himself to you? Yes, it might give a certain degree of credence to the possibility of his existence...but so what? It is, after all, merely a possibility. If, as you suggest, he doesn't exist, then nothing will ever come of it. If, however, he does exist, then it could be the beginning of a remarkable journey of discovery.

As I said before, you will be in my prayers.

Science too, is premised upon human fallibility.

I think the problem with the Atheist 'scientific' approach is they want to interpret the universe throught prism of concepts and values they have already established, which prevents them from seeing, or accepting, anything that breaks their 'rules'. Even Einstein met with resistance to his then superior theories because they went against the scientific understanding of his day.

Another illustration is "Bees can't fly according to aerodynamic science". If you had never seen a bee fly, and only heard anecdotal evidence of bee flight would your "faith" be in the unproven anecdotal evidence or the aerodynamic "science" of that time? (I know science has since moved on and made peace with the bees).

Science needs to be prepared to recontruct all their concepts from the ground up if new contradicting information appears. As one quote says, "All scientific theories are wrong, some are useful". (Can't remember the author). Unfortunately I suspect not all scientists have this level of humility or honesty. Ssome corners of science appear to have become cults in their own right especially if you examine the cultish hatred of some towards those that present opposing view points. They remind me of some religious leaders who know which side their bread is buttered on rather than being as honest as they should be.

And yes, Religion also needs to be prepared to reconstruct. I have enough personal evidence to establish that God exists, and that which goes beyond the gap-filling of my wishful thinking, but I also know that my concept of God is incomplete, and will change over years.

I can't and don't expect you to adopt my experience as your own (especially as this is the Internet!) but I can tell you that I have seen bees fly and that God has proven his existence to me beyond what my premordial Dawkin-ish instincts can conjure.

I have no Boy Scout badges to earn by trying to convince you of what I believe. Neither you, nor anyone else on this forum, knows me personally (as far as I'm aware).

Peace.
"PassingThru"

AaronAgassi,

Please furnish me(us)with a detailed explanation of what you believe;

re:

1)the past
2)the present
3)the future

Pertaining to the past specifically, please answer such questions as who,what,when,why,where and how if able,and/or if such is relative in your mind.

Pertaining to the present specifically, as one who is a self-proclaimed a-theist, I'd ask you is there any purpose to human life in the universe,in your mind? If so, please explain.

Pertaining to the future specifically, do you have any hope for what lies after you or any lie down into our graves? Or is it a non-issue with you in your mind?

Thanks for reading this and considering answering it.
Whether you answer it on this forum or no, I'm certain it has reached your mind for consideration,at least.

Best individual long term future hope of survival, if I understand you savannah, seems to lie with radical life extension and the admitted long shot of Cryonics as a fallback. I don't understand your question about the past. And as to purpose, it will be easier to refer you to my personal website: http://www.FoolQuest.com

Else: To make a fine point, certainly faith can indeed be compared to pink elephants, as is evidenced by how I have actually raised particular apparent similarities. What remains to be seen, if such prima fascia similarities can be refuted, or more precisely, if there are also important differences that may be contrast, without recourse to circuitous reasoning or wounded indignation. As for proof, proof only exists in logic, and of validity, being internal logical consistence. Whereas, science deals in Empirical evidentiary support, again the burden whereof being upon the positive. The historicity of Jesus is indeed in dispute, but more importantly, the importance whereof to begin with. The mythological supernatural elements remain to faith for Jesus no less than for previous strikingly similar preceding figures, some likewise claiming historicity.
\t
Again, is the test of experience in any way reliable? And why would it be? Epistemology remains the proverbial elephant in the room. That is no Ad Hominem. That is honesty, if you have the courage. As for honestly asking God, is that possible without first believing in God, or at least first taking the possibility seriously? Because, honestly, I don't. You have built up straw men, and put distorted words into the mouth of Scientific Rationalism of Atheism. Therefore I would first rebuke you all to recant all such false witness. Science values honest controversy. So I put it to you, how would you honestly ask Santa Clause? Answer that in order better to define what you ask of me. Unless, of course, what you really want, is for me to participate in faith, with all of its unsupportable bias, not only to cultivate and become receptive to neurologically natural animistic thinking, but then to take it all at face value, that isn't even actually face value, but cultural interpretation. You ask me to accept not your experience but my own, only after that experience has been shaped by the very terms of the so-called experiment, in other words: by indoctrination. Frankly. I'd rather you remain the test subjects for me to observe more objectively.

The perfection and certitude even so often even somewhat scoundrelously promised by religion is both impossible and unnecessary. And any attempt to infuse religion or Theology with scientific skepticism, is inevitably constrained by faith and dogma by any other name. Though I offer no defense for cult-like bad science of scientific orthodoxies, indeed sometimes religiously inspired: Whereas scientific striving closer to truth, indeed: less wrong, certainly does seek to build upon previous work, and without striving to begin free from bias or else in certainly, rather striving only for honest objectivity by the ongoing detection and correction of error so inescapable to the human condition, by contrast religion and Theology pretend that mystical experience is primary and unbiased. But that is simply not so. Being that it is the mind that experiences, even the understanding of mystical experience is immediately shaped by context.

Otherwise, true overwhelming mystical experience may even take the form of a fugue state scarcely even retendered. Therefore, even though I accept the phenomena of all such experience, nevertheless none of that makes any sense, except by the classical notion of the unbeliever willfully and perniciously turning away from the true God. Which of course, firstly assumes the existence of God and His supernatural evidence to the soul. Which is not just circuitous reasoning, but even somewhat bigoted. For that matter, God is often condemned out of righteous indignation. For such anguish is a reoccurring motif of inner struggle. Not to digress however, as for the longing for God, actually, does everyone? And does wishing make it so? Perhaps the longing for God is better treated as metaphor for thirst for justice including honesty. The literal supernatural often strips the sentiment of actual appealing value that calls out at all.

"As for honestly asking God, is that possible without first believing in God, or at least first taking the possibility seriously? Because, honestly, I don't."

And may I ask you sir, What if your wrong?

I mean if I am wrong then I just stop existing and would be none the wiser, in fact staying in my faith though wrong I would have lived a fairly happy life and would be viewed by the world as a pretty desent human being. (Not to say Atheist can't be moral and live happily)

But perhaps my Faith is correct, and you sir are wrong. For your complete refusal to even acknowledge God you would spend an eternity in hell being punished for your crimes and disbelief. (Not because you are an Atheist but because you are a human and Every human has sinned and is fully deserving of hell but God in His mercy sent His Son to atone for our sins if we would just believe in Him and the work He did for us on the cross) Ah but you would see on that day you were wrong and every regret of rejecting God would fill your heart, why? Because you were given a chance to believe, starting with an experimental prayer you refused to pray.

To say there is no God is "jumping the gun" because you have failed to explore every avenue of possibility especially if you are refusing to pray. I am not trying to scare you but logically if your wrong its not a small consequence you will undertake but a large one... AND IF I am wrong I have absolutely zero consequences for my choice in light of eternity because it simply wouldn't have exsisted.

I don't know that I'd want to argue with the historicity of Jesus, nevertheless it remains in dispute. But what is more important, I would argue as to the importance to begin with, of the historicity of Jesus, considering that it is the legend, the mythological element of the supernatural, ever in contention. What if I'm wrong, you ask? What, Pascal's wager? Really? If there is a God, would God be fooled by me lying to myself? Do you understand or even care what would be convincing for me? And if you're wrong, you might become the less rational and tolerant because of your error, miss out upon the real wonders of the universe, and even remain insufficiently motivated in self preservation. And all of that would concern me the more. But you are right that I have not explored every avenue. No one can. Therefore, it is necessary to select those most promising as suggested by whatever preliminary investigation in to critical preference.

Even without becoming a test subject myself, I am already well aware of those who have, including those who had religious experiences and even where convinced by them. What of it? Indeed, what if the desired results never accrue for me? Will you accept that as refutation? Scientific experiments, after all, are defined by conceivable conditions of refutation.

If/When God speaks to you, only you will hear it (usually), therefore it cannot be used as evidence to anyone else, only the hearer.

Someone saying that God spoke to them is not proof of anything, but nether is someone saying that God did not speak to them.

It's a personal thing.

"would God be fooled by me lying to myself?"

No God wouldn't be fooled, and that is the point. You will be get a just punishment accordingly to what you reject. I understand some of where you are coming from but what is the point of self perservation if you know its going to end? I would also say many Christians focus on perservation and a general statement wouldn't be a fair one. I am actually interested in what would be convincing for you as evidence.

"miss out upon the real wonders of the universe"

Some of the world's greatest minds to the very least acknowledge there is a God. Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Nicholas Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, and Isaac Newton to name a few some of which are astrologers exploring the wonders that you speak of. Do you have problems with the existance of God? and Why? I really am curious :).

Hi AaronAgassi,
The historicity of Jesus is not in dispute except with you,If that is the case the historicty of all major historic figures is also in dispute.You dont want to labour on the point because you know yourself he was a historic figure,
Staff

(I don't know that I'd want to argue with the historicity of Jesus, nevertheless it remains in dispute. )

AaronAgassi,you said,

"I don't understand your question about the past."

Please allow me to clarify,as I am interested in your answer.

What I meant was,what do you believe regarding the past,specifically as it respects the origins of life.

In your mind,who or what is responsible.
In you mind,why,when and/or how was this accomplished.

Please answer with the scientific evidence which furnishes the rational proof in your mind,which you embrace at present,if able.

Thanks for your consideration.

Nasher, we seem to agree, that mystical experiences are inconclusive. But it's worse than that: Mystical experiences, vivid and personally persuasive or not, are not good evidence, even subjectively to the one experienced thereof. To reiterate, I accept the mystical experience of others. I do not need personal corroboration. That's simply not the issue.

And mguldner, should I truly fear the God who hides himself from mortal view, endows humanity with reason, but then punishes rational disbelievers working from Empirical evidence or the lack thereof, any more than I ought to fear the Norse gods punishing me unless I fall in battle? Or shouldn't I fear my own conscience more? Because quite frankly, both such notions are similarly offensive. Aside from which, as with Appeal to Force or Fear, Appeal to Consequences of a Belief, remains a logical falsity of relevance, even when the alleged consequence is not so entirely suppositional and circuitously reasoned.

And staff, unless I am dreaming, there is indeed ongoing dispute over the historicity of Jesus. But research for yourself. And you are still side stepping my actual point.

Savannah, in answer to your question as to the past, I am as Neo-Darwinian as the next fellow. And my own evidence is no different than the current body of scientific evidence on that score. Evolution remains the most elegant hypothesis explaining the available evidence. But I do find myself lately undecided as to the Big Bang or any sort of steady state as perhaps suggested by the Plasma Universe. Red shift telemetry from a space probe beyond our sun's plasma field would be nice.

hi AaronAgassi,
Are you saying that Jesus didnt walk on the earth?The opponents of Christ in the early centuries didnt doubt at all that he existed this only started in recent history.
The opponents of Jesus knew nobody would believe them in the early years if they said he didnt exist.
What point did I side step and I will try to unstep it?
Yours staff
P.s You must admit it is a bit funny that evolutionists/atheists are fanatical evangelists.The very fact that they do preach non creation or existance of God in such a manner is a proof that evolution/ atheism is in fact just a religion the very thing they strive to destroy.

Alive-to-God: Maybe it's less a question of whether or not I doubt my own existence, but how seriously so. Answer: Maybe at all slightly less than I consider the possible existence of God. After all, human experience is entirely conjectural.

Staff. I don't think that I have an opinion regarding the historicity of Jesus. And my point that you sidestep, is that either way, regardless, Christ remains entirely an article of faith. So, what difference does it make?

"Christ remains entirely an article of faith. So, what difference does it make?"

But if history proves Christ was a man that actually walked the earth, then He is no longer an article of faith but of actuality. Faith is believing without seeing yet there are sources that mention the Man Christ Jesus with accuracy not just the bible. Perhaps I have miss understood you in your statement if you could please explain.

No, history only at all pursues one Yehoshua Bar Yoseph, a crucified Rabi, not Christ the supernatural myth later attached thereto. Indeed, many previous mythical redemptive figures, some even perhaps likewise historical, likewise suffered for human kind and even raised a man named Lazarus from the dead. Perhaps the most untenable article of Christian faith, is in the pretense of the uniqueness of Christ barely and superficially modified from the ancient Pagan redeemer figure and incidentally with little resemblance to the Jewish concept of Messiah. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tm_rSklxj7k

I'm all for attention to details, and yet it generally remains that the Christ myth was nothing new. http://listverse.com/2009/04/13/10-christ-like-figures-who-pre-date-jesus However, even where that not so, the distinction remains between any historical Jesus and any mystical Christ. One would not establish the other, any more than an historical Saint Nicolas would be taken as conclusive of Chris Cringle the magical Elf and Frosty the Snowman or an historical Heracles would corroborate the existence of Zeus on Mount Olympus.

Undeniably, the preexisting myths influenced and continue to influence what people seek and yearn for. Such is faith. What of it? You continue to ignore the substance of my argument.

Does the historicity of Gautama make you Buddhist? Does the historicity of Heracles draw your soul to Zeus on Mount Olympus? Does the historicity of Arthur make you thankful to the Lady of the Lake for the safe keeping of Excalibur? Does the historicity of Saint Nicolas move you to dispatch your annual wish list to the North Pole? Does the historicity of Mohamed, much less Joseph Smith, expand your library of scripture? Or do you resort to special pleadings for Christ arbitrarily, then dismissing the rest as myth? How is that consistent? How is your own faith truer than another? Surely, if history is distinct from legend, then that applies not less to Christianity. Unless of course, we simply begin from the assumption that the Christian supernatural claims are true and the others not. Then all you really seek is for at all rationalizable consistency with prior beliefs, not error detection including any willing recognition of simple lack of evidence. In which case, again, history is little moment because your minds are already made up.

For another clarification, putting aside whether or not Christ is any more real than the Tooth Fairy, my question was: Considering that in all sincerity, I myself cannot give more credence to Christ than to Leprechauns, then in any prayer experiment, how could I really do any more than go through the motions? Not to mention, why would I choose that avenue of inquiry amid all others, instead of others so much more credible and promising?

I don't know about undeniable evidence of God, in truth I see no credible evidence of God at all. I am not even aware of a refutable hypothesis, such being the beginning of scientific investigation. And I have yet to hear any sort of serious Epistemological Methodology of faith. Some rainbows really are imaginary. The great virtue of scientific rationality is how reason is open to critical scrutiny by all, and that real experiments may achieve repeatable objective results. Whereas, by contrast, in the end, any community of faith can only fall back upon insider-outsider dilemma.

Are you aware that there can be those who have mystical experiences, but accept them merely as an episode of inner life, drawing no Ontological conclusion, or who accept, say, entirely neurological explanations? It's not experience, but interpretation, at issue, so far as I can see.

Hi Aaron,
Thomas doubted that Jesus had risen and said he would believe only if he saw with his own eyes.My question is what is stopping you from believing?
The bible has over 40 authors ,all in amazing agreement with each other.It records the good and the bad,it doesnt sugar coat anything,it tells it the way it is.
On this site we have debates etc about almost every aspect of the bible and we have usually different opinions but on the main topics such as salvation we agree with each other.You may have noticed that we all think logically,we are not in a hypnotic religous haze but approach our beliefs in a rational way.I agree with what everest and alive are saying.It appears as foolishness to the unsaved.Its not about how intelligent you are either,some very intelligent people believed as we do.Unlike other books you cannot understand the bible properly without Gods help.When ever I tell people that I dont believe in evolution I get almost the same response,they think I am crazy.When I ask them why they believe in evolution.They say because all the scientists say so and because of the fossils.Then I say what scientists?What is a scientist anyway?The age of fossils is measured by the rock they are found in and that would be ok except the age of the rock is measured by what fossils you find in them.
People believe in evolution without even knowing anything about it.The truth is if you take the millions and billions of years away from evolution the whole theory falls apart.
After saying all that it didnt stop me from coming to know Christ.It was after I became a christian that I realised that it was incompatiable with Christianity.
God has to reveal himself to you.I dont have to tell you that as a person you do bad things as well as good,in your heart you know this is true even if you dont admit it to us.This puts a chasm between you and God.God and man cannot fellowship unless this chasm is bridged.
Issac newton and Michael Faraday believed in him,I know that doesnt prove anything except it is not a matter of intelligence,
Yours Staff

EverestoSama, you are correct that at whatever hypothetical point of future mystical revelation, indeed I'd have to process the experience and decide for myself. And while I am not perfect, I realize that intellectual integrity would demand no special pleadings for my own subjective experiences to subvert the same objectivity of skeptical scrutiny appropriate to the reports of others. So again, what difference would it make, assuming that the experience leads to no more objective corroboration than any previous mystical experience of others?

Alive-to-God, there is nothing missing from my reasoning, except for your suppositions and how they take precedence over history, when history comes at odds with your faith. Whereas I am not denying anyone unless, first of all, they exist, and secondly I were to know about it. And as things stand, I have no reason even so much as to suspect any such a thing. So, given how history can only corroborate, but never even conceivably refute, your current position, then therefore historicity makes no difference, as I have been saying all along. And that's precious little faith, that risks nothing. But such are claims of certainty in revelation. But how do you explain the mystical experience in prayer, of those of other religions?

staff, as to doubting Thomas "Oh yea of little faith!", What a snotty rebuke! Indeed, I find that I prefer the version in the story of Krishna, wherein the child Krishna appears to his parents in his true six-armed blue skinned form, simply because for all the trouble he'd put them to, he felt that the least they were entitled. What stops me from believing, you ask? Can you even consider that it is as I haves said all along, the simple lack of evidence and the existence of more elegant and viable explanatory hypotheses? No, you do not think logically at all. You cleave to sheer pretzel logic, stubbornly embracing the most blatant logical falsities. Indeed, there is far more to support for Evolution than the scientists say so. And I, for one, do understand for myself at least something about it: For one thing, that Evolution is falsifiable: If dinosaurs coexisted with mammals, much less the sons of Adam and daughters of Eve, this would be reflected in the chronological strata of the fossil record. The excuses for Creationism become the more fantastical, the more evidence mounts for scientific explanation. Truly a test of faith! -or rather, of sheer willful incredulity. Not that I hold anything but fallibility in the human condition, no less in the area of morality. But even assuming God exists, I simply fail to see the relevance because of the Euthyphro Dilemma.

AaronAgassi,

You said,

"What stops me from believing, you ask? Can you even consider that it is as I haves said all along, the simple lack of evidence and the existence of more elegant and viable explanatory hypotheses?"

Jesus said,

John 5:40,43 And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life...I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive.

You receive Charles Darwin and such men like him.

Evolution is based upon the faulty hypotheses of faulty men. The simple lack of evidence negates it from being true/good/pure science. It is not self-evident. Facts and truths cannot be derived at conclusively as to life's origins. At best it may only be classified as a theory.

"What stops me from believing..."

I answer:

You cannot because you will not.
You will not because you cannot.

Jesus' answer:

John 12:37-40 But though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him: That the saying of Esaias the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spake, Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed? Therefore they could not believe, because that Esaias said again,He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.

John 3:3 Jesus answered and said to him, Truly, truly, I say to you, If one is not generated from above, he is not able to see the kingdom of God.

1 Cor. 2:14 and the natural man doth not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for to him they are foolishness, and he is not able to know them , because spiritually they are discerned.

Jesus' command:

Mark 1:14 And after John was delivered up, Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom of God,
and saying, The time has been fulfilled, and the kingdom of God draws near. Repent and believe in the gospel.

Believe the Gospel. Believe on the LORD Jesus the Messiah.
Read His record of His Son,His Holy Word the Holy Bible.

1 John 5:9-13 If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for this is the witness of God which he hath testified of his Son. He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son. And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.

Romans 10:13,14 For every one that shall call on the name of the Lord, will be saved. How then shall they call on him, in whom they have not believed? Or, how shall they believe in him, of whom they have not heard? Or, how shall they hear, without a preacher?

Romans 10:17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.

Mark 4:23 If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.

This is the Word for you AaronAgassi. Read the Bible!

Worship God without rivals.

Evolutionary theory is indeed the product of fallible human endeavor. But religion no matter the claims of Divine infallibility, is no less human and therefore fallible and conjectural no less than any other hypotheses. Even receiving the word of God would never free mere humanity from error or doubt. Fallible people have often misconstrued their own imperfection for the word of God. Claims of complete certainty are not submission to an infallible God, but veritably implicit claims of being oneself infallible like God. There is nothing to rule out error even as regarding the very existence of God. Such is the human condition, no matter what. But that's okay. Certainty is nether possible nor necessary. We progress only from mistakes. We are free only in the uncertainty that leaves open a myriad of choices. You ask me why I disbelieve, and then accuse me of obstinate recalcitrance. Why even ask me then? And why quote me scripture the authority whereof I do not embrace?

I believe I now understand your view Aaron, though I disagree with them doesn't necessarily mean we can't coexist. I mean lets face it no argument presented by yourself or anyone else here is going to sway any of us to change our views. I would say to the very least our main objective in all of this is to understand where we are all coming from. This is always my goal when discussing anything like the topic of Atheism and Christianity.

These differences are okay as long as we all acknowledge them as such and speak in light of our understanding of each other. I would hardly expect you to believe something you obviously have made your mind up on and I'm quite certian this will go for everyone else involved in this thread. What do I hope to gain from all of this? In short understanding, I am not here to persuade you with clever arguments and fancy theology and theory but I do want to know where you are coming from. If this seems to personal then you don't need to answer but when you were younger were your parents religious or did they hold to Atheistic views such as yourself?

People coexist under far greater differences. But I think that I've been cleaner about what would change my mind than any of you have about what would change any of yours. It still seems to me that my principle reasons for my positions are straightforward and Epistemological as I have maintained all along, though course, the motivation remains values of honesty. Not that I'm sure that I'd mind, but exactly how would you seek deeper to delve, and for what?

I am sure many of us here won't be swayed, you see to deny the exisitence of God is to deny a relationship we experience daily, and any evidence you bring forth still won't sway us because your evidence won't invalidate our experience and relationship with Christ because for us through faith its quite a real and actual thing though you don't believe it. Seek to go deeper in what exactly? In my faith or in your point of view on the matter? I seek to go deeper in my faith through the usual means of having a daily relationship with Christ Jesus. And on your point of view by asking you where are you coming from, which is why I ask the question "Were/are your parents religious people or do they hold the same Atheistic views you hold yourself?"

Hi Aaron,
It is you who side stepped my point this time.
Simply put what is stopping you from believing?
Lack of evidence.What evidence do you require?
And what are the more elegant and viable explanatory hypotheses?Why elegant and why more viable?
Morality means nothing without God.It becomes just a system of rules put in place by man and if you believe in the fallibility in the human condition then logically then the system of morality is flawed and fallible.You said earlier you werent perfect(paraphrase).How do you know?,
Yours Staff

Nevertheless, I do not necessarily deny the experience. Indeed, I might suggest that it is you all who underestimate or misconstrue its mysteries. After all, what sort of shadow boxing is relationship with Divinity that has no external reality? Indeed, I have suggested a new Psychological field of study in Cognitive Philosophy, which I have dubbed: Endo-Theology, studying the inner life of the walk with God, putting aside the Ontology of whether God exists out there. So, maybe after all, I'm the one here ready to take it seriously. Indeed, there are actually evolutionary neurological theories such as bicameralism, though personally, I'm still going with cultural influence. Deeper into what? I understood you indeed mean whatever roots of my own stance, mguldner. But in answer to your question, and speaking of cultural influences, my parents, much as they may call themselves Agnostic, are actually Atheists. Does that constitute bias? All I can do is to strive for objectivity at all, by ongoing error detection and correction.

What evidence would I require? -you ask, staff. Well, first I would require a distinct and testable hypothesis to treat seriously. Then I would require evidentiary support in competition with whatever competing viable hypotheses. And I deny that morality becomes nothing without God. I don't really expect you'd shoot me just for fun, even where you dissuaded of the existence of God. At least, I should hope not! But I do recognize the serious problems with Axiology, and morality at all, which must be at all intersubjective. All the same, I do not see how the existence of God would be relevant or helpful at all, again, because of the Euthyphro Dilemma.

"Nevertheless, I do not necessarily deny the experience. Indeed, I might suggest that it is you all who underestimate or misconstrue its mysteries. After all, what sort of shadow boxing is relationship with Divinity that has no external reality?"

There is physical and external reality, the external reality is found in the changed life. I have meet many who after accepting Christ Jesus and having a relationship with Him were freed from the bondage of Drugs, Alcohol, and other harmful things. Drug addicts instantly healed never to go back to the thing that was killing them.

"But in answer to your question, and speaking of cultural influences, my parents, much as they may call themselves Agnostic, are actually Atheists. Does that constitute bias?"

No bias but it does help me understand where you are coming from, May I ask how long have you been an Atheist? I have been a Christian for 2 years now I was freed from the bondage of pornography and religion.

Experience changes life, change is the consequence of experience. Therefore, said changes cannot be cited as the cause of the experiences in question, unless one evokes Telos. And in answer to your question, really, I have never been a believer.

The experience is the meeting of an individual and in meeting that individual change has taken place without the meeting of Christ that change wouldn't happen, in your experience as an Atheist have you come into contact with people who have completely change lifestyles overnight outside of books and movies but in real life contact? Also thank you for answering my questions it is appreciated.

Alive-to-God. You said:

Science progresses by narrowing the field of viable hypotheses. Refutation is of paramount importance. A process assured of no refutation, is worthless. But I agree that definition is important. And if the question is of spirits, then yes, for any scientific hypothesis, a conclusive test for spirits, eliminating any other more prosaic viable hypotheses, would be indispensible, yes replete with clear conditions of refutation. Otherwise, all Theological conundrums remain entirely hypothetical. So, no, I would not accept special pleadings.

It seems reasonable to suggest, hypothetically, that an omniscient being would indeed know the most well thought out morality. But it does not follow that the best moral development accrues by attempted imitation thereof. There are too many examples of the highest ideals actually obscuring ordinary prosaic decency. Moral questions for human beings must pertain to the human condition, experience and m manageable responsibilities.

The point of bicameral or divided consciousness as experienced, is that we all experience interior monologue or even dialogue. Therefore, what part is to be labeled as externally divine, except intuitively and somewhat arbitrarily and certainly fallibly? Indeed, your answer to any question of objective corroboration following up mystical experiences, is only citation of scripture romanticizing the subjectivity. Scripture still puts forth nothing testable with clear conditions of refutation.

AaronAgassi said,

"You ask me why I disbelieve, and then accuse me of obstinate recalcitrance. Why even ask me then?"

I answer:

Neither you or I are The Authority.

Matthew 28:18 And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.

The Father Who is God,His Son Jesus Who is God,the Holy Spirit Who is God speak with Authority.

Hear and obey.

Luke 18:26,27 And those hearing said, And who is able to be saved? But He [Jesus] said, The things impossible with men are possible with God.

AaronAgassi said,

"And why quote me scripture the authority whereof I do not embrace?"

Because you do not embrace it makes it no less Truth.

Jesus said to him, I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.
And you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. (John 14:6;8:32)

AaronAgassi said,

"Even receiving the word of God would never free mere humanity from error or doubt."

Receiving your word would never free mere humanity from error or doubt.

Acts 16:31 Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.

1 John 3:23 And this is His commandment, that we should believe the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, even as He gave command to us.

John 6:29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

The preacher sought to find out acceptable words: and that which was written was upright, even words of truth. The words of the wise are as goads, and as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies, which are given from one shepherd. And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.
Ecc 12:10-14

This is no argument, you are merely gainsaying.

You correctly state,"This is no argument".

It was not intended to be an argument.

Truth needs no argument. It needs no defense from me.

God said,"Let there be light", and there was light.

The indictment of God stands against you.

You are guilty as charged. No escape.

Romans 1:18-20 For God's anger is being revealed from Heaven against all impiety and against the iniquity of men who through iniquity suppress the truth. Because what may be known about Him is plain to their inmost consciousness; for He Himself has made it plain to them. For, from the very creation of the world, His invisible perfections--namely His eternal power and divine nature--have been rendered intelligible and clearly visible by His works, so that these men are without excuse.

Heb. 9:27 And, as it is appointed to men, that they must once die, and after their death is the judgment.

May God give you repentance and faith that you not perish in your iniquity.

Worship God.

Hi Aaron,
What evidence do you require for you to believe God exists?
Not evidence some one else comes up with and offers you on a plate.
Also I see you decided to skip pass the morality question,
How do you know your not perfect?Or where does morality come from?
Their must be some logic to your belief that God doesnt exist other than people cant answer my questions.It seems to be I dont like that theory,give me another,and another.
Have you any hypothesis yourself?
Im not sure you are a real atheist in the sense that why should atheists care whether others think God exists anyway,its at odds with their belief system that we all go nowhere after death.I think you are not fully convinced by your own belief.
Also I may be wrong but you seem to think that their is a link between intelligence and athesim
C.S Lewis was an atheist who God found.An intelligent man,probably more intelligent than all of us but came to the knowledge of God.
Einstein was convinced God existed.One other point Are you sure Plato existed?
And yes because your parents were atheist does constitute bias,how do you know your error detection and correction system is correct?
Yours Staff

I have already admitted the problems of Axiology and morality. I go into this further at: http://www.FoolQuest.com/atheism.htm#moral No, I did not skip the morality question, please look again. What I said was that I simply fail to see how you, or the Biblical scribes, purport to have resolved the Euthyphro Dilemma, simply by continually reiterating Divine Command Theory.

And I have certainly answered you as to standards of evidence. But I now gather that you mean is that you want me to tell you what sort of more personal evidence I'd accept. But that's just it: There is none. The existence of God is an Ontological question, not a personal preference. To treat an objective question as a personal choice is sheer fantasy. And the interpretation of signs and portents in personal life appeals to magical realism. The evidence that I'd accept would simply have to be objective. The questions you can't answer are evidentiary, and that is indeed the reason for my disbelief, just as would suffice for any other Ontology. I still demand parsimony of explanation, theoretical elegance and refutability while rejecting special pleadings.

Nevertheless, the question has been advanced before: Is Atheism, not believing in God, properly a creed, any more than not playing chess is a hobby? Are there any alternative values? Barring the experience of what are called anti-mystical experiences, Atheism at all generally tends to proceed from Rationalism. And moral repulsion with the repressive history of guilt ridden religious thought along with the most depraved inhumanity all in the name of faith, often inspires secular humanism. But more specifically, I espouse democracy, failiblism and responsible autonomy. So perhaps the following might at all answers what I take to be your broader question as to reasons for rejecting worship:

Do I find a link between intelligence and Atheism? Well, I certainly see a link between reason and Atheism. So why do I care what anyone else thinks? Fair enough question, although surely I am hardly the only disputatious Atheist! Writing and debate are drives to continually hone those skills by practice and contest. While values seek expression and communication. And what would you think if I closed off and never bothered to argue with anyone with whom I ever disagree? Indeed, no I do not know that my error detection and correction system is itself correct. Indeed, error detection and correction system itself, my Epistemological Methodology of systematic doubt, must itself be subject to ongoing error detection and correction, conjecture and refutation. Such is life itself, literally, even neurologically. Life is uncertain. There is nothing in day to day life, much less Scientific Method, that waits upon absolute certainty. The demand for absolute certainty is as paralytic as any other brand of perfectionism. This is why I am a faliblist. And if you cannot be at all hopeful in light of the fruits of faliblist progress in science, technology, democracy and more, if you cannot appreciate responsible autonomy, then again I ask you: Where is your faith now?

savannah, we are not even going round in circles. We entirely fail to engage. I am not interested in being preached at, and you could hardly care less how I respond. I only post this because staff raises the question as to why I bother to argue. My point here is that such discourteous non engagement or worse, pseudo engagement, is where I know that I ought to surrender to pointlessness and just let it go. This might at all pertain to the general question of why many Atheists simply steer clear.

AaronAgassi,

You've not examined the truth claims of Christianity seriously nor objectively. You've exerted no effort into investigating, the historicity of the man Jesus,the validity of the Bible,nor the record of the resurrection of the man Jesus. You've not even read the Scriptures,no less studied them,to speak with any authority on them. As one atheist himself confessed,"why bother talking about something you've never read",and then stated that he was going to begin a study of the Bible this summer. He was a college student whose father was a christian.

Thanks for reading my posts, as it is evident that they've accomplished their end, by what I have read in your response.

Read the Word of God the Holy Bible.

For the Word of God is living and effectual, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And there is no creature hidden before Him, but all things are naked and open to His eyes, to whom we must give an account. Hebrews 4:12,13

Hi Aaron,

You seem to be a deep thinker. Just wanted to suggest something to consider...

If God exists (which I believe he does), what if finding him was not dependent upon your intellect...but upon your heart ?

Could it be that there is enough evidence out there...but that there will always be 'one more question' that can be asked...with respect to proof of God's existence ?

This is a sincere question which is one that's worth thinking about.

Take care,
John

savannah: Asked and answered. Legends often attach themselves to history. But a Christ figure need not be Jesus, and a child prodigy Rabi from Nazareth need not be divine. Why then should I go deeper into the historicity or not of Jesus, when the entire question of the historicity of Jesus is so clearly academic, immaterial, irrelevant and moot to any question of the veracity of Christ? The ball remains in your court.

live4jc, do you wish to pursue your Epistemological conjecture seriously? Is your Intuitionist Methodological position refutable?

Hi Aaron,

I'll be glad to answer that in a bit. But first, could you answer my question? The one about the possibility that finding God is a matter of the heart and not the intellect.

(If he exists...is this a possibility ?)

Ttyl,
John

Anything is possible.

Hi Aaron,

I appreciate your answer.

You had asked me whether the 'Intuitionist Methodological position' was refutable.

As you're suggesting, the beliefs that people have can be categorized under labels such as 'theist', 'atheist', 'agnostic' etc Then like you're saying, they can be further subdivided and we can be even more specific about people's belief systems. For instance, it sounds like you may see me as subscribing to the 'Intuitionist Methodological position'.

You asked whether my beliefs were refutable. Respectfully, I would suggest that whether my beliefs or your beliefs or anyone's beliefs are refutable will always be a matter of debate, would it not ? (Since proving one belief system over another is not like proving that the Earth is round or that it revolves around the Sun). Having said that, I believe that Christianity is 'reasonable' and belief in Christ never requires a person to abandon reason. Rather, I see belief in Christ and the underlying belief in God as creator, as emminently supported by reason.

But questions such as whether the 'Intuitionist Methodological position' is refutable, while interesting, are likely not the things we think about when we lay awake at night, are they ? I'm not meaning to dismiss this question, but believe that there are other questions we may want to focus on.

If we're honest, in our unguarded moments, don't we tend to think more about questions such as, 'Why am I here on this Earth?' and that sort of thing. Or, 'If I don't wake up tomorrow for some reason or if tomorrow I die in a car accident, what will happen to me ? Am I ready for death ?'

I realize these are heavy questions, not the type we necessarily talk about, around the water cooler. But aren't they also ones that are truly ones that are pressing, and of interest to us, though other questions are out there, that are interesting ?

I believe that at the core, many would agree that these sorts of questions are vital to who we are as conscious human beings.

Take care,
John

You come into the middle of conversation about what it would take to change our various opinion. What would change mine would begin with clear hypothesis for experimental refutation, me at all to take seriously. I have also already responded as to meaning of life.

Hi Aaron,
Its the religous zeal that you argue your beliefs which is not suprizing as athesim in all its forms is just another religion,it has a belief system and it trys to evangelize.
Why would you want to hone your writing and debate skills if it all comes to nought in the end.Their are no fruits of atheism that last,its all for nought according to you.You do not know if your error and correction system is correct,why not test and measure it?Why not test and measure that God does not exist?You cant.Also you admit to double standards accepting problems with morality and still following your religion atheism willingly.It really is just glofified escapism.A system of belief that makes you feel more secure with your imperfections.You comfort yourself by saying all man is fallible and mask/protect yourself by surrounding yourself with this belief system.
I can see why Christ would be at odds with your views.
If Christ is perfect then it reduces your arguements about falibism to intellectual mumbo jumbo.
C.s Lewis had reason,Einstein had reason more intelligent than you or I and they believed in God.
You exclude personal evidence because not because it isnt relevant but because it makes your point of view more difficult to justify and debate.God is a person and when he reveals himself to us,it is personally and thats the only way,
Their is one certainty in life is that we all die.
I accept my the responsibility that autonomy brings and admit I have faults and have done wrong to God and man,you just run and hide and cover yourself with intellectual fig leaves so that you would not be naked,Yours Staff

Yes, why didn't I see it all along! Why should lack of objective evidence strain anyone's credulity whatsoever? Anyone who hears not the voice of your imaginary friends, must be the ones kidding themselves! Seriously, though: If you are accusing me of trying to be persuasive, then I plead guilty. But I do not hold progress to fruitless, just because progress is not eternally changeless. That would be both oxymoronic and purpose defeating! Perhaps even boring. And yes, I do seem better reconciled to my imperfections than you who continually compare yourself to God. Furthermore, hypothetically, if there is indeed a perfect Christ, then faliblism still speaks to the human condition. For if there is a God Creator, then fallibility, uncertainty, freedom and responsibility, would be His great gifts to us that are the envy of the Angels (or so the story goes). That would make faliblism into a Divine Commandment, no, more than that, the very Teleology of our Intelligent Design, and indeed the human drama of uncertain moral struggle of humanity most pleasing of all things to the Divine. Or at least that's the version that I prefer. Take your pick.

Hi Aaron,
Where is your objective evidence God doesnt exist?
Persausive no religous zeal yes.You cant be guilty your an atheist!Tell that one to a Judge.I would say not being a falibist just looking from without that you would have to admit you could be wrong if you believe in fabilism.Christ was/is a man and walked this Earth and was Perfect and through Christ we are made perfect.
I still think your arguements are just intellectual fig leaf covering for your imperfections.What if one of those imperfections was robbery,murder etc.Would you be reconciled to that?
By comparing myself to God,it highlights my imperfection.
What do you compare yourself too so that you know your imperfections?
I view atheism as a religion,nothing more,nothing less.The Irony for me is that any Atheist leaning people I know are intellectual,an intellect given by God and allowed by God to be used to try and prove he doesnt exist.What an awesome God we have,Yours staff

Hiall I think this is a very well put point by the author

7. I Don't Want There to Be a God

Lastly (which is not so much an argument as it is an obstacle), is that I have learned that the source of all atheism springs from the heart, and not the brain. Atheism is not an intellectual position, but a dogmatic faith cloaked in intellectual jargon - else why do atheists argue so feverishly? Why do the emotions rise so? It is because they do not want there to be a God. It is because of what believing in God would mean, and that is something they are not willing to face. "The fool has said in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt, They have done abominable works..." (Psalm 14:1) History tells the story of thousands of atheists who have bowed their knees in repentant faith before the Lord God of heaven and earth. Was it because they suddenly gave up their intellect? Most certainly not! Was it not rather because they submitted their wills to the sovereign will of the true and living God? As long as the heart rages against God no amount of reasoning will stop the infinitum flow of irrational arguments proceeding from a fool, but all arguments will cease once the heart is still.

To my dear atheist friends: not wanting God to be there does not change the fact that He is there, and as long as you continue to fight against God you are only hurting yourself and others.

Yours Staff

Come now, we've been over this: Simpler and therefore more likely competing viable evidentiarily supportable alternative hypotheses of greater theoretical elegance, not to mention burden of evidentiary support upon the positive: If you don't demand evidence that Santa Clause doesn't keep flying reindeer at the North Pole, then don't make special pleadings for God's existence. (Because, and speaking from the heart, that would show ME up as the dogmatist. Why have I not seen that all along?) Neither God nor Santa Clause nor Osiris are testable hypotheses with clear conditions of refutation. Provide clear conditions of refutation, and then ask me. But of course anything's possible and I could be mistaken. So I must strive to remain open to credible evidence should any such arise.

And yes indeed, I would be somewhat distressed if I found myself running rampant on a killing spree. So I'm glad that I do not need to compare myself to God in order not to. Nor, for that matter, do you, in your own estimation, as I do recall. And again, religion has a somewhat dubious record in moral guidance, statistically speaking.

And if you want to call Atheism a religion, I'm not sure that I mind. What does that even mean, and what difference would it make? And as for intellect as a gift from God then used to deny Him, indeed if I thought that there was a God who shields himself from worldly detection, I might conclude that He cherishes his privacy! That makes no less sense than any other conclusion from that premise.

Hi Aaron,
Not privacy but man's free will.If it doesnt make any difference calling it a religion make sure you tell people that.
Why would you be distressed?who told you it is wrong?
If their was never a human moral code of any kind we inately would know that killing a rabbit for stew is ok but killing a person for stew is wrong.
Agreed religion has a dubious record in moral guidance as a whole.
Explain both Santa and God,I dont mind,once you include the evidence that God doesnt exist.Where's the evidence?
You look for evidence of Gods existance and dont believe because you see none but you follow a religion that says god doesnt exist but no evidence exists for that.mmmmm
yours staff
P.s the stews good today!

No I would never call Atheism a religion, nor tell anyone that, because, as I did explicitly state, I was not even clear what you even meant by calling Atheism a religion. After all, Communism has been described, with any justice, as an Atheist religion. And if taken distinctly from Buddhism, the Zen, however characteristically paradoxically, indeed must be classified as an Atheist Mysticism. But Atheism alone in and of itself certainly is not inherently dogmatic. Impugning the motives of all Atheists is nothing by Ad Hominem logical fallacy of relevance, even if such a claim where supportable. Even conceding that Animism is natural, it remains entirely conceivable to imagine an individual being Atheist, even if without the contrast, they never so self identified, simply from never even hearing the very idea of God or gods. You might do better simply calling Scientific Rationalism a belief system, but then, not all belief systems are equivalent or equal. And again, burden of evidence upon the positive. Hello?

You mistake me. I was not making a Reductio Ad Absurdum the way you seek to have understood.

Do you understand what it means, that the burden of evidence is upon the positive, or why so? As for example: Innocent (the null hypothesis in this instance) until found guilty (the positive assertion). Or imagine needing to purchase a can of paint for touching up a house that you have not yet seen. If the store clerk where to declare: Ah, but you have no evidence that it is NOT Canary Yellow! One would not thereby be persuaded. This is because there are endless possibilities of colors and shades, so that all things being equal, the odds would be against any particular color at random. Thus, the burden of evidence remains upon any positive assertion, not upon the opposing broadest null hypothesis. So it is with assertions of the existence of Santa Clause, Osiris, Flying Saucers or Big Foot. Baring all special pleadings, burden of evidence upon the positive is a fundamental of a'priori critical preference. Add to this the better elegance of competing viable hypotheses to Theism.

Nasher, we seem to agree, that mystical experiences are inconclusive.

But it's worse than that: Mystical experiences, vivid and personally persuasive or not, are not good evidence, even subjectively to the one experienced thereof.

To reiterate yet again: Mystical experiences are entirely subjective, but the existence of God or not is an objective Ontological question, not a subjective matter of sheer personal preference. Indeed, when the mystical experiences of different people contradict, or even as may happen, of the same person, and especially as between different religions and cultures, how will the truth be determined? There is no Methodology. Any given mystical experience may be entirely inaccurate. There are no criteria for narrowing the field of contradicting personal revelations, except by Scientific Method and/or standards of Journalistic field research in follow up via Empirical investigation and testing, conjecture and refutation. - and no, not simply by further meditation or even consensus building via the participation in faith.

I have stated plainly, all along, that I accept mystical experiences. I agree that Mystical experiences may have detectable effects upon the experience. Incidentally, many onetime LSD users in follow-up study (LSD being considered by many the most reliable means to mystical experiences) though they themselves claimed to have learned anything, actually did not. However, they tended to reevaluate the course of their own lives, being inspired by the LSD mystical experience. Now, the ancients often believed that Divinity was actually harbored within the plants of their hallucinogenic sacraments. But I respectfully submit that neuroscience has progressed since then. Indeed, drug induced altered states only mimic entirely natural altered brain states. I for one, do not believe that God put those receptors into the human brain, specifically so that we might better know Him with chemical assistance. Rather, the receptors respond to endorphins and such, already natural to the human body. The psychotropics are merely chemically similar. Mystical experiences are entirely natural, not supernatural.

Yes, I've read the New Testament. Even though aspects of his Populist politics relevant to Jewish life in his time, might have garnered my sympathy as an assimilated Jew, no, I do not imagine that I would have followed Jesus. That life of renunciation does not appeal to me. And I find that latter day self declated Apostle Paul appalling! I'd never follow that rightwing nut job.

I could not say that I actually want to find God.

Hi Aaron,
I think your back tracking here have a look at both comments.

1.And if you want to call Atheism a religion, I'm not sure that I mind. What does that even mean, and what difference would it make?
2.No I would never call Atheism a religion, nor tell anyone that, because, as I did explicitly state, I was not even clear what you even meant by calling Atheism a religion.
How convienant that you werent clear!
Atheism is a belief system,the deity you worship is intellectual arguement.It is evangelical in nature which should be against real atheism.The belief system says there is no God but this cannot be proved.Yet atheists still follow willingly without a shred of proof.
It cannot solve the moral problem that evil brings.
Who told you that you were imperfect?
Atheism can exist without communism but they make great bed fellows together.And atheism certainly had a huge part in millions of executions in pograms in USSR.
Considering some doubt that christ existed historically its amazing that he changed the the calendar, AD AND BC.Time begins and ends with Christ
Yours Staff

Alive-to-God, I would tend to agree with what you have just posted. Nevertheless, surely you realize that even this hardly requires an actual objectively and literally real external God. God is a metaphor, not an Ontology. For wont of a better descriptor, I agree with you from a dramatic stand point. I said that I accept the experience, without believing in God, and I meant it. We are all forever inextricably embroiled in all of that bicameral shadow boxing as long as we live. We don't need to find it, nor need it find us. You are amazed at what you perceive as failure on my part to consider such dimensions of life, as I am at your insistence at talking such profound human experience so superficially as to resort to hackneyed mysticism.

And no staff, I have not been backtracking. Indeed, my own comments as sited by you are entirely consistent. Do look again. It's not convenient that I wasn't clear about what you meant. I did not merely so claim in retrospect, I stated so explicitly at the time, in order that you might pause to define your terms. Instead you leaped to proceed on a linguistically leading gambit, even when I didn't actually take the bait!

And I do not see how Atheism is inherently Evangelical in nature, nor do I see how that would make Atheism any less true even if hypothetically Atheism were somehow inherently Evangelical. After all, as I recall, it was you who observed how so many Atheists won't even trouble themselves as to what others believe or not.

But yes, Atheism does not explain morality. But then, neither does Theism, even hypothetically. Remember the Euthyphro Dilemma? Besides, Theism and Atheism are Ontologies, and Axiology, much less Ethics, is not Ontology to begin with. For that matter, I'm not sure how evil is problematic here, and again I am not sure what you mean. Evil of whatever kind, is obviously a very real phenomena. Only Theism begs question of Theodicy.

Who told me I was imperfect? I can't say as I recall. I'm fairly sure that God did not appear to me. But I might have forgotten, I suppose! Anything is possible. But seriously: Human imperfection has been no secret since before the dawn of recorded history.

Communism has been described as an Atheistic religion. And so, the fanaticism of the Communists might make for a better culprit for their crimes against humanity, than the scientific rationality they made such a travesty whereof. It may bear mention that Communism is Utopist, meaning that the perfection whereof they strive, even without God as such, is taken as the bench mark for all that they do. But it is the scoundrel that promises the impossible and the unnecessary in order to wriggle out of the most simple and basic responsibilities. And that is what perfectionism, religious or secular, accrues. And that is why I am a faliblist. Perhaps it is the faliblists who might be said to have been howsoever at all evangelical, as we find that faliblism is crucial to progress and in harm reduction.

Alive-to-God, please reread my comments in context of your post to which they reply. You raised the question of observable impact of mystical experiences upon the experiencer. That is why I said that, even conceding your point completely, for this, an actual objectively real God would not be necessary. And it was in thios context that I refer to God as a metaphor rather than as an Ontology, one way or the other. Assertions are Ontological statements as employing the verb: 'to be.' Theism asserts the existence of God. Atheism asserts that here is no God. But God can also be a common metaphor pertinent to in all manner mystical experiences and Existential conundrums.

Consider the personal contract with God, traditional in Judaism. Clearly, such is an exercise in supposition unless one possesses the kind of hotline to God that so many of those Televangelists seem to think they’ve got! The veracity of such negotiations might be sais to depend upon good faith and individual knowledge and understanding of God. But what can that really mean in worldly life? All such is naught but the same endless human drama of inner life, of perpetual lifelong bicameral shadow boxing in an indifferent universe. In truth, we answer to ourselves as best we may. That is the challenge of true to life human drama. God here is metaphor.

Hi Aaron
Eli Bayleys 2 Point regarding evil

2. The "Problem" of Evil

It is argued that because evil exists, God doesn't exist. However, the exact opposite is true: Because evil exists, it proves that God exists. Were it true that there was no God, and that everything in the universe had an impersonal, naturalistic beginning, then evil wouldn't exist at all. Evil is a moral word, and morality has no place in an impersonal, naturalistic universe. Whatever is, is, and whatever is, is not deviant but totally natural. In such a universe murder isn't wrong, it just hurts. Kidnapping children to use them as sex slaves isn't wicked; it's not even twisted. However, to talk like this is nonsense because every human being inherently knows evil exists, and every human experience proves the opposite. Even the atheist knows evil exists because he argues that the existence of evil disproves the existence of God! The existence of evil proves conclusively that we live in a personal universe that was created by a moral God. The "problem" of evil is really the atheist's problem, not the theist's.

That both evil and God exist is also not a problem for the Christian, for the Bible explains why God allows evil to exist, and how God has not turned a blind eye to evil but has condemned it conclusively and will judge it eternally. Therefore this poses no problem. But even if someone chose to reject the Biblical testimony concerning the existence of both evil and God, they still have no grounds to deny the existence of a God simply because evil exists. There is another valid option (though not a convincing one), and that is that an evil God exists. Whatever someone might choose, there is no grounds for atheism by an appeal to evil.
..........................................................
The majority of atheist are also evolutionists,whereas all evolutionists are atheists.Evolutionists are fanatically evangelical.
Just a correction,I realize its a long post but I made the point that real atheists shouldnt be worried about what others think rather than below.It wasnt me.
(After all, as I recall, it was you who observed how so many Atheists won't even trouble themselves as to what others believe or not. )
Christianity unlike Atheism does explain morality.
I think to follow/believe in atheism then some logical explanation for morality is nessacary.May I add that even if you had some reasoning it would make no difference to me because God has revealed himself to me personally.
You have to be able to answer the question about your imperfection?Christianity has answered the question.
I know I can never be perfect but christ deals with that issue for me.
Where is faliblism progressing too?Why is it crucial?
Yours Staff

Alive-to-God, those are myths, legends and fables.

staff, again, the problems of morality you raise simply are not solved by asserting the existence of God. The existence of God or not, is an Ontological question. And Axiology, let alone morality, is not Ontology. Whether God exists or not, the precise nature of morality in and of itself remains unclear. Know more at: http://www.FoolQuest.com/atheism.htm#moral Divine Command Theory only raises the Euthyphro Dilemma. Nor does promised divine retribution explain why an all powerful entirely good God would ever allow much less actually create, evil to begin with. This is the problem of Theodicy.

The nice thing about science is that scientists who honestly disagree, even in the most heated arguments, never accuse one another of bad faith or ill will. You could stand to learn from that! After all, there are those who contend that science and even democracy are pleasing to God. -Free will, and all that! Therefore, could you possibly imagine that if there is a God, then God knowing our hearts infallibly, will ever recognize even one single infidel or even an unbeliever completely, as perfectly sincere in an honest mistake? Or do you know better than God, how God ought to feel about it? Or to put another way, are fanaticism and reproach actually necessary in order to maintain faith in God despite all the palpable worldly evidence weighing in against Theism? What is more important to you before God, opinion and allegiance, or the content of your heart? Perhaps Atheism is better for character. Perhaps there are Atheists particularly nowadays that are better accountable to ourselves, than many intolerant Bible thumpers are to their God. Well, I forgive you. You know not what you say.

No matter how badly people often do behave, even in the sciences, there are still also such inspiring examples of good sportsmanship, as those famous knock down drag out debates between Heisenberg and Einstein. They remained fast friends, who valued their disagreements that so advanced human understanding. Again, if you do not see such as inspirational, then where is your faith now? And what would your loving God think? At any rate, I certainly haven't persecuted you, and you are getting prissier with me by the minute!

First I am threatened with eternal damnation, and then even more out of the blue, called to account for some alleged persecution of Christians on my long dormant website forums. But if you think that I'm being oversensitive, then let's not dwell thereupon. I look forward to returning to topic.

I live in hope that one day no one need suffer persecution in these United States of America, that gay bashers and Koran burners amongst other agitators will all be marginalized, and that union bashing plutocrats taking piratical tax breaks will no longer castigate teachers and firemen for the national deficit. And I would be alarmed indeed at the persecution of Christianity which is after all, still the majority creed here in these United States of America! But much as the very keys to the sepulcher remain in the hands of a Muslim family so that no zealous Christian sect sharing access will be seem to receive favoritism, in a modern democracy for all creeds to enjoy equality under the law, the government must remain neutral an secular. Therefore I remain dedicated to law under the Constitution. I believe that every nation ought to have one.

Jesus-is-GOD, I fear that you employ circuitous reasoning. If one interprets all world events and turmoil, in any period in history up to the current day, Eschatologically, then there will always be found signs and portents of the End Times. The initial premise always survives into the conclusion. Eschatology is a pseudoscience because there are no standards of refutation. Many have become inured and blasé to progress, nevertheless, in truth, a homeless person living in the back of their car, enjoys a higher standard of living than a French nobleman. The past was like another planet, and so will ne the impending future of rapid change. Trends are at all more reliably forecast by those who understand them, indeed with any better track record, than by Bible thumping soothsayers who have been getting it wrong for thousands of years.

"I haven't noticed that. Jesus-is-GOD's tone has remained quite civil the entire time. Unless you suffer from persecution mania, I'm not sure why you would say that someone is getting "prissy" with you."

We read things in how we wish to read them with certain tones and attitudes that favor us, Christian and Atheist alike.

Upon a careful reread of Jesus-is-GOD's post of 2011/4/20 17:45, I still see, first of all, a sides stepping of my entire point, that Manichaeism is to be rejected and that disagreement has value between people of good faith. That is the ideal of Rationalism. And indeed controversy in good sportsmanship and in good faith, is possible and is ever practiced, even by imperfect fallible human beings. And that is a finer thing and more hopeful than intolerantly declaring that all who disagree with you, regardless of their deeds or content of character, are all going to Hell, let alone that they are all really just all out to get you and end the world. If that is faith, then you can have it.

Oh, just tilting at windmills, I guess. But I suppose that I can take victory by default, when begged questions pressed are nevertheless continually evaded. Remember that initially all that I tried to do was to set the record straight on those seven straw men. And no, that was not an issue of scriptural interpretation. And I have debated Muslims I was friendly with in person. I Googled up your New Age David Spangler. I never heard of him before. What does he plan for Christians? I suppose conversion to his own cosmopolitan and Pantheist Post-Theosophical take on Christianity, if that tickles your ears. To me, it's all much the same. Perhaps he means well if he hopes to encourage interfaith understanding and tolerance. Or is there anything more sinister that I don't Know? Speaking of evaded points, as to mutual defense against lions, if that's how you view controversy, then you still just don't get it.

Hi Aaron,
Just to say its been nice discussing/debating with you.
From my point of view I hope you get to experience god at some stage.A Paul on the road to damascus experience which you wont be able to theorise about.
I hope you understand from our point of view that we see your views as alien as you do ours.But you have made this post interesting.
Yours Staff

I am continuing to research this Spangler person, seeking his views on Christianity particularly as regarding any nefarious intent and any such hostility as you report, coming out from his own mouth and in context. http://www.answers.com/topic/david-spangler I think that we can safely disregard the most fantastical conspiracy theories, the likes of: http://www.cuttingedge.org/news/n2101.cfm

"By the 1980s, the New Age idea had become a mass movement. Spangler, who had worked so hard on popularizing the idea, now found himself in the role of critic of the more dubious aspects of the New Age. He vilified the interest in crystals, psychic phenomena, and even channeling, as taking people away from a focus on self-transformation and upon developing a compassionate and creative life. In 1988, after several years of silence, Spangler published a series of articles in which he professed to have given up on the idea of the New Age as a social event. He now described the New Age as a metaphor for personal transformation and said that its essence would be found in the change and growth of individuals. He called upon such people to work for real change in the social order."

In a video at: http://video.answers.com/where-religion-went-wrong-and-how-to-fix-it-516907702 Spengler seems extremely Protestant, taking a stand against organized religion entirely, partaking instead of Mystical traditions extolling primal experience innate to the human condition. What he and I have in common relative to your own position, then, would be to question not so much the mystical experience, but their evidentiary significance of doctrines that are historical product of human culture. Spengler speaks of the extraordinary perspective connected to the primal mystical experience of the supernatural in the ordinary world. New Age Law at: http://www.allaboutworldview.org/new-age-law.htm expounds upon the intuitive moral autonomy of the New Age, in rejection of external worldly authority of organized religion. "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you." - Luke 17:20-21, "To thine own self be true." - Hamlet or even: "Let do what thou wilt be the whole of the law" - Aliester Crowley

Is the following perhaps an example of the rhetoric that so galls you? "David Spangler, through the voice of a channeled spirit, disdains the Christian worldview as well as others opposed to Cosmic Humanism. He says, “Their world (of darkness) is under the law and shall disappear.”5 Cosmic Humanists need no such outside authority because “mankind, and all life, is basically good,” according to Kevin Ryerson.6 If humanity is basically good, then law only keeps us from being totally free to achieve godhood." But since he has since denounced channeling and such as nonsense, perhaps his tone has also softened. I suppose this is whence you derive your notions of deceptive spirits. It remains, then, that mystical experiences that fail to conform to doctrine, must be vilified and dismissed. Such much. There are some who admonish that the spirits of the departed are still after all only human and fallible. I suppose that means, that before following financial advice from the great beyond, it may be best to first to check the track record left behind in life!

Whatever animosity ever of Spengler's, quite frankly, your own God seems already intolerant enough. No, not at all, Rationalist Empiricism is not an excuse to hide behind! If whenever God would desire to make His existence plain then He'd need not limit Himself to ancient myths and fables or visions and trances, rather God would be well capable to manifest under controlled laboratory conditions and perform miracles on international television. Yet I must agree with scripture to the effect that even such clear demonstration nevertheless might well fail actually to improve human conduct. Because even such actually wouldn't make morality manifest. Nor is it clear for that matter, that even the human knowledge at long last, of a clear Ontology accessible to science, of moral Axiology, would provide a panacea of character building. Furthermore, claims for divine authority to validate any worldly rule, must ever be regarded as suspect and dangerous. Rather, our leaders and judges must be accountable to the rights of the individual. Democratic values are still the best hope of worldly justice at all. What I particularly disagree with is fear as the principle moral agent, rather than sympathy. Atheism is indeed more moral, in that Atheism demands direct confrontation with moral issues, without logical falsities of relevance such as appeals to authority or force. Indeed there are those called Moral Atheists, those who believe in God but deem the existence of God morally irrelevant. After all, morality as some manner of consideration in its own right, is suggested to anyone who would still exercise moral constraint even assuming that there is no God. Indeed, the miracles of Jesus have often in the minds of believers served to obscure even the plainest morals of the parables. Indeed, one might imagine a God so despaired of the supernatural obscuring the ethical, that He might actually choose to hide Himself from humanity in order to protect us! In the alternative, that a God who made human being fallible, only lays in wait to punish the very uses and trust of the same senses and capacity for reason endowed by Him, is monstrous. Honestly, if indeed you look forward to celebrating God's glory while watching everyone who ever disagreed with you eternally suffer excruciations of divine retribution, then what does that make you? If you don't see ethical problems in the traditional gloating hate speech of scriptures, never mind the pretzel logic Theology, then your eyes are not open. Thus do I rebuke you. Yes, I recognize the value of criticism even in context of Christianity. Do you?

As for how I have approached science, indeed what I have addressed is indeed the Philosophy of Science, especially Epistemology underlying Scientific Method, fundamentals without which the practice of science degenerates even into arbitrary superstition and ritual. You may even be aware of some examples yourself. But Evolution isn't one of them. And I still take Futurologists with good track records more seriously than the oracular vagary of Eschatology. All is conjecture and fallible. But that's not the end of the world. It's always a new beginning. Indeed, it may be my falibilism more alien to you than my Atheism, despite the unfounded conjectural nature of day to day interaction with reality for everyone no matter how pious, and indeed, of life itself physiologically and neurologically. By the fruits of human progress shall faliblism be known.

When I said that what I particularly disagree with is fear as the principle moral agent rather than sympathy, I meant for elicitation of morality in human beings.

Alive-to-God, it's all just Biblical Concepts-in-Hat to you, isn't it? I'm fairly sure that were I to post that bananas are a good source of potassium, but a little high on starch, your response would be that bananas were amongst the bounties that the Lord made plentiful top Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, who nevertheless ate the apple in disobedience to God and where consequently banished from paradise. And how the Lord God is a just but merciful God, which you would then support by extensive citation of scriptural passages.

And staff, now that I have pointed this out, you will no doubt leap to the defense, by exposition upon the Bible-based perspective.

Alive-to-God, I fear that you misunderstand the significance of refutability. Indeed, any number of worldly philosophies may be refutable. And that would accord then scientific standing. It is Theism that lacks standards of refutation, and is therefore disqualified from science. -because no one can name any hypothetical observable conditions that if indeed observed, especially in any repeatable experiment, would falsify, demonstrate to be inaccurate, the hypothesis of Theism, let alone any particular religious doctrines. The central question of science for any assertion is: Where that assertion mistaken, how could that be determined by observation and experiment? Not how could the assertion be corroborated with additional evidence in its favor, but what would falsify said assertion. The problem is not the falsifiabibilty of assertions of whatever philosophies of the world to which you allude, but the lack of hypothetical observable or experimental criteria to be accepted for the falsification of whatever tenants of your religion. It is in this regard that religions choice are all entirely arbitrary and no more credible than Santa Clause. That various propositions indeed may be found or at least interpreted to be in contradiction with the bible is entirely moot. It is all the more moot, when you don’t even really answering anything that I am actually trying to say, but simply follow random word prompts back to scripture. As for example, when you point out that a possibility that I only raised for illustrative purposes contradicts Bible passages, and entirely ignore any point that I actually meant to raise.

As to the evidentiary weight of whatever remains unknown, as I take it that this is what you allude to by calling it mysterious: I will conceded that the unknown leaves open any range of conjecture. Anything is possible. Rationalists do not dispute this. But arguing that anything remaining howsoever unexplained, must be ESP, flying saucers of God, is called Argument from Ignorance, or that or that it couldn’t possibly be anything less, Argument from Lack of Imagination. I have already expounded at sufficient length upon burden of evidence upon the positive and explanatory elegance and Occam's Razor.

"Only when a person lets their primitive observations arrive at the most obvious conclusions, do all the things which cannot be seen and measured begin to fall into their proper place, coming into focus to the inner eye." In this you may be correct. The only question is whether such process is consistently Epistemologically and Methodologically reliable. Indeed I expect that you will conveniently abandon such intuitionist process whenever it concludes that the world is flat, or leads to religious heterodoxy. And that might make you the one narrowing the field to fit your shared paradigm. It has been ventured that intuition is a spear hurled into the jungle, and reason the expedition to recover said metaphorical spear from that proverbial thicket of jungle. Hypothesis begins as unfounded conjecture, subject first to critical preference, and then to Empirical reality testing, each of which indeed in turn serve further to narrow the field of remaining viable hypotheses.

You pick and choose your common sense, too. And Dr. Who, ever spouting nonsense with conviction, makes a fine role model for the true believer. Fanfic anyone?

Actually, it was Tom Baker who so described the role.

Bet'chya can't prove that scripturally!

I just revised Eternity and related concepts on FoolQuest.com See? I too can word associate idiosyncratically!

A scientific hypothesis must be subject to repeatable observation. A scientific hypothesis must make predictions that can be tested, experimentally. -But not in such a manner that no matter what happens, such will be consistent or reconcilable with said hypothesis. There must be a range of results within the prediction following from the premise of the hypothesis, but more importantly, there must be a range of conceivably possible results that would not. There must be conditions of refu6tation. An assertion that cannot conceivably be tested and refuted, falsified, is not scientific. For example, theories of gravity that are testable, that can be corroborated if their predictions turn out to be accurate, but more importantly, that can at least conceivably be refuted, if experimental observations differ from predictions that logically follow from premise of whatever hypothesis in question. For example, laws of gravity: If a sledge hammer where to rise up and fly up into the sky, instead of dropping to the ground when released. Or indeed how Newton's Law of Gravity was finally refuted, because it could not predict the orbit of Mercury. Einstein's theories explaining gravity as curvature of space, do indeed accurately predict even Mercury's orbit. But new experiments may yet refute, falsify Einstein, forcing Relativity to be either modified or even abandoned. For another example, when someone on a Yahoo Group expounded her contentions of intelligence as a primary of matter and order coming about in the Universe, whatever that means, I pointed out that intelligence is observed to arise from complexity, from localized decrease in Entropy, not the other way around, and challenged her to pose a chemical experiment, wherein the predictions of her model might differ from those of conventional Chemistry and Physics, so that either or for that matter, both, could conceivable be refuted, depending upon whatever observable and repeatable results. Of course, none such was forthcoming.

I am aware that the evidentiary criteria of faith are different, and I challenge them. Science is systematic doubt, striving for impartiality, whereas faith sees doubt as something to be overcome, seeking therefore only corroboration hence embracing no standards of refutation at all, indeed admitting no need thereof.

Of course, competing viable hypotheses that are scientific, testable, refutable, should be tested in order to narrow the field in the scientific process of elimination. All conclusions are somewhat tentative, because scientific progress hopefully ever closer to the truth, less wrong, never ends, never arrives at the complete truth. There is always more to learn. Every solution raises new problems. Occam's Razor AKA parsimony of explanations, is the principle of critical preference that the simplest available explanation that accounts for all the known observations to date, is most likely to be the one closest to the truth. Thus does Science strive to explain the unknown in terms of the known. But religion seeks to explain the known in terms of the unknown. And it seems unlikely that God would be less complex and simpler to explain, than the universe that His existence is invocated to explain! While there may indeed ever be ambiguity and controversy in regards even to the very nature of simplicity, and therefore which hypotheses are indeed more simple than others, Theism vs. well, every other alternative that I can think of, is just not one of those cases. Not by a long shot!

And why is Santa Claus the very paradigm for faith in an untestable hypothesis? Answer: Because of 'Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus!' http://www.newseum.org/yesvirginia Note the exhortation to faith, buttressed by the framing of an untestable hypothesis rejecting all conceivable conditions of refutation, rejecting also in very principle, the burden of evidence upon the positive. What is suggested, nevertheless, in subtext, is that actually faith is beautiful despite reality. Here, I might actually agree. My issue is with faith is Epistemological and therefore Methodological. In the words of Alexander Lowen MD: "Conviction lies not in the ego." And it is the rational ego that interprets reality. Faith, hope, basic trust, are not Ontology. The optimism of the scientific attitude is in the hope that truth can be investigated and problems can be solved. All questions remain open. There are no specific articles of faith. Controversy is a value, not a threat. Therefore, put such childish things as wishful dogma behind you!

Provided only that there were indeed conditions of refutation, an hypothesis experimentally corroborated with repeatable results, remains among the viable hypotheses. And that hardly rules out future refutation in further experiment, or better viable hypotheses.

How am I wrong about faith? Indeed my impression of faith is of dogmatism systematically dishonest with factors which would give rise to legitimate doubt. And religion does explain the known physical world evident to the senses, by way of a mysterious Creator in Eternity, the known in terms of the unknown. But science seeks to explain whatever we don't know or understand, by observations that are available. For example, the Plasma Universe model seeks to explain spiral galaxy formation, by the behavior of charged plasma observed in the laboratory, rather than by as yet elusive ad-hoc dark matter.

God only seems like a simple explanation, because of a great deal of hand waving. That only removes complexity to even greater complexity. The Universe is indeed complex, the universe is full of complex phenomena and permutations. And if you can formulate a mechanically simple model of God, I will enthusiastically support your bid for the Nobel prize! And if there isn't a God, well then, let's use the prize money to build ourselves one!

And if you can formulate a mechanically simple model of God, I will enthusiastically support your bid for the Nobel prize!

The scientific ruleset is fine for impersonal forces of nature such as electricity, gravity, etc but are fairly useless when applied to beings that has their own free will. Psychology is a respected field but it is obviously not an exact science. The decisions a person makes generally follow given patterns but nothing stops a person from subconciously, or deliberately, making a decision against the pattern - especially if that person perceives that they are being analysed. That's why double blind tests are required to remove the "free will" element from scientific and medical experiments involving humans.

Your stance on God's existence demands that God steps down into your laboratory and proves his existence to you by submitting himself to the rulesets you have chosen. Without any implied offense, God is following the philosophy that "you don't need to take your shirt off to prove you are not a fish to a madman." (I don't know who the author of that quote is). He won't bow to our demands.

I don't know if you are into IT, but many years ago common PCs ran the DOS operating system. The original Windows operating systems ran "on top" of DOS. Today it is effectively inversed. The DOS envorinment is emulated "on top" of Windows for those programs that need it. Old DOS programs running within this environment do not generally have direct access to the hardware like they used to however they still "think" they do because the environment created by Windows responds exactly how the DOS progam expects the hardware to.

In the same way we exist in an environment created by God - an environment that he has full control over. He set the laws of physics in place, much like a software environment has it's rules and principles. The fact that those rules and principles can be interacted with consistently doesn't mean that they are universal even though a program running within that environment would tend to think so because it views the world from within the environment that it is contained in It can only see past it if the layers behind it permit it to.

My IT analogy is obviously oversimplified. One flawed aspect in the idea of programs running or "being live" in an environment. It is actually the inverse. The environment reads the program and interprets it as it sees fit. The environment will generally honour the intructions contained within the program but it doesn't have to. Our own existence may actually be very similar - God reading and interpreting us, not the otherway around.

On this topic the recent scientific speculations that the universe may be a projection like a hologram with a definable "pixel size" is interesting although I have to confess I didn't understand the article fully.

In summary, God is sovereign and we live within the environment that He created and controls. he will therefore be met on his terms and not ours. If you do meet Him on his terms, you will have certainty of his existence in the same way that you have certainty of a personal conversation that you had yesterday, even if you can't prove the fact to someone else in a laboratory.

Peace
PassingThru

sez you

No evidence whatsoever nor even any attempt at all at persuasive reasoning.

Completely arbitrary, internally consistent fantasy if that and at best, not only untestable with special pleading, but explanatorily inelegant as well, because claiming that the universe is actually a function of omnipotent consciousness and omnipotent ability, rather than only being dependant merely whatever unknown necessary causal mechanisms to account for what we call physical laws, is like claiming that an adding machine is really a super computer in disguise running an adding machine simulation. Such is no parsimony of explanation, but sheer supposition.

It's like Gaia worship as compared to Gaia hypothesis. Gaia hypothesis proposes that the ecosystem is howsoever homeostatic and responsive to changes made by post industrial human presence, with at most the "consciousness" on an ameba responding to even intrusive biochemical changes, whereas Gaia worship assumes the heightened spiritual consciousness and super intelligence of a Divinity. Which model is simpler and likelier in explanation of repeatable observations?

It is the mind, not the eye, that sees. The astronomer who discovered the rings of Saturn was unable to see them, until he first formed the concept. And if even sheer visual perception is conjectural, this must certainly apply to mystical experiences, the interpretation whereof is well known and understood to be colored by cultural expectations, be they Pagan fairytale, Judeo-Christian or New Age Tabloid Weird. The only exception might be magnetically induced fugue states in the laboratory, because the subject knows in advance what is actually going on. Only such are at all reliably free of fantastic confabulation.

And it is life that communicates with the heart of man, the sensibility of each individual. And that is even the more individual and cultural in the interpretation. But what you cite are not feelings at all, but events of Biblical parable and fable. -And not even the Sumerian original versions at that. You cannot simply conflate personal mystical experience and fidelity to dogma of literal scripture.

Even with such great faltering and reverent temerity, Gideon is performing a divination of the most subtle signs, scientifically inconclusive to say the least. Doubting Thomas would have been less easily satisfied, let alone the Amazing Randy! God doesn't think like us, you say. God cannot grasp concrete observable events, or direct communication. God is Autistic! Any premise is allowable. Jumping to conclusion is another matter. More bicameral shadow boxing,

History must be separated from legend. Indeed, over time long preexisting tales of the supernatural where updated to conform to Monotheism and much later became canonical.

We may disagree, but simply to repeat yourself as if not noticing, is just persistent gainsaying at best. Again: That you explain this away as prophesy in collective consciousness, does not change that Jesus is not, after all, unique in history, but only one among many similar historical figures, similarly mythologized. Indeed, the only known contemporary extra-biblical mention of Jesus, is in passing by Josephus vaguely from recollection, of an alleged ledger of heretics by name. Or do you accept the Book of Mormon? Moreover, the contemporaries of Jesus where well aware of all the Torah foretells. -Therefore something less than a double blind test. Self consistency of narrative in any part, barely even meets some of the criteria of logical consistency. That certainly doesn't make it historically accurate. Faith enfolds Apologetics that utterly distorts your reasoning circuitously, lowers the bar for evidence in corroboration, and embraces no standards of refutation. And you still make special pleadings for Christian accounts, that you reject for other religions and their scriptures.

Aaron,

I've tried to keep up a little with the thread and I commend you for hanging in there and I also commend Alive-to-God because I know I wouldn't have lasted 15 pages!! This will be my only comment!

You have a LOT of the world's wisdom which gets you by in this world very well and I'm sure that as you tell all your friends what you are telling us, there is good bit of jesting and posturing and I say this humbly to you but you as man of this world cannot discern nor even begin to understand the things of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God... but God bless ya for trying!!

"The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned."
1 Corinthians 2.14

And you won't understand anything unless God opens your eyes to see what others don't see. And if you don't ask, He won't open them; so you are where you are because you want to be there. :) But He does love you and He will be there when all your earthly wisdom begins to fail you.

I pray that the God of the universe does indeed put a hunger and thirst for righteousness deep down in your belly because only then will you be filled (Matt 5.6).

Then please come back and share with us what God has done for you!!
Lisa

Again, such is classic insider/outsider dilemma, whereas science strive to transparency, in reasoning open to criticism and repeatable observations and results.

And yet again, as for asking God, can that mean mealy going through the motions, even to the point of hypocrisy, or does asking God require surrendering rational objectivity, sincerity and participation in faith, in short, actually taking it seriously, which quite honesty, you all know that I just don't?

Plausibly, God might determine to make Himself manifestly stand out as alien to the culture of the experiencer, nevertheless, in actuality, mystical experiences as reported, do tend to reflect prior culture. Mystical experiences do not need to be visual. My point is, Phenomenologically and even nurophysiologically, that all perception, all experience, is unintelligible save by interpretation, by conjecture, impossible without context and therefore bias from prior expectations. This then would apply even to mystical experiences, even to experience, whether by whatever supposed psychical contact or purported physical manifestation of God if there is one. Yes I'm sure about the discovery of Saturn. Indeed there are many other similar well known anecdotes to drive home the same point.

While conjectures may indeed motivate seeking for corroboration, unlike faith the systematic doubt of science demands also the effort at refutation for the sake of ongoing error correction. As to the conjecturality even of perception, yes of course, experience may fail adequately to prepare one for certain new experiences. Perceptually, the result may be miscomprehension or incomprehension, as with native islanders literally unable to see the sailing ships of the Europeans, or aboriginals out from the jungle for the first time, so inexperienced with longer depth perception, that they repeatedly try to brush distant objects that seem small, out from in front of their faces, or outsiders in the jungle suffering extreme eyestrain, from all of the vines at every depth of field, making them refocus constantly.

I am well aware of doctrine regarding how God awaits human invitation, and I am sure that this can be biblically supported. So why belabor a point that I neither contest nor deem important? Besides, if indeed circumstances are such, then it would seemingly follow that experience, inexperience, context bias and prior expectation, would all pertain, as they all clearly do in mystical experiences as reported. The Science Fiction trope clearly inspired by mystical experience, of telepathic aliens explaining that they are not actually speaking English or using familiar metaphors, but rather that the recipient human mind simply processes the abstract concepts and information of the alien telepathic message that way. But here is entertaining conjecture all for sheer creativity's sake, supposition all quite untestable.

Aaron, I suggest you study Ecclesiastes and see what happens to all your logic...

I have, actually. What about it, ginnyrose?

Alive-to-God, you admit the question: 'was THAT God?' Indeed, is it ever? No, not from the wishful autosuggestion you recommend nor the scriptural citation that you proffer, and all even entirely aside from any problems of Theodicy. (Although it has been suggested that Atheism from burden of evidence upon the positive, is merely to hold the universe innocent until found guilty, merely the default assumption that circumstances of suffering are merely of happenstance rather than actually by Design.) It is a truism that nothing is brought away from mystical experiences that wasn't prior baggage going into them and that such is the entire learning opportunity of all soul-searching: of evaluation or reevaluation, of Axiology. Again, the allegedly miraculous frequently misses the metaphor entirely, obscuring any relevant moral of mere human responsibility.

Aaron,

Forgive me if I'm wrong here but you said:

But here is entertaining conjecture all for sheer creativity's sake, supposition all quite untestable.

Are you referring to all that has been discussed so far or just what you said in your post and in Alive-to-God's post before this one?
Are you saying that only things that are testable are true or factual?

Veronica226, I was indeed referring to as subject of entertaining but untestable conjecture, that which I had just raised, being Science Fiction telepathy and similarly mythical supernatural inner experience of God. Indeed, Alive-to-God, you claim that experience of God is unmistakable, and yet you disparage mystical experiences persuasive to others yet irreconcilable with your own predisposition of dogma, as counterfeit of deceiving spirits. Confound your arrogance and fantasy, sir/m 'am! Can't you ever get out of your own head anc see yourself?

Aaron,

Veronica226, I was indeed referring to as subject of entertaining but untestable conjecture, that which I had just raised, being Science Fiction telepathy and similarly mythical supernatural inner experience of God.

Indeed, Alive-to-God, you claim that experience of God is unmistakable, and yet you disparage mystical experiences persuasive to others yet irreconcilable with your own predisposition of dogma, as counterfeit of deceiving spirits.

Fair enough question. Being untestable males them, first of all, well, untestable! But there are reasons also to consider them unlikely. Untestability may be linked to other issues of critical preference, such as parsimony of explanation and alternative explanation, because, if there is any known way for a phenomenon to occur and thus to exist, that might tend to at least to point the way towards a testable hypothesis. All in all, what we have here seems more than anything like a non solution in search of a problem, because explanatorily, there are clearly simpler and more viable hypotheses available. The problems religion strives to answer are not explanatory as such.

For that matter, how is an alleged Divine essence pervading all of Creation not God? This hardly even seems a contention of Theological debate, much less falling short of purportedly experience of God or the Divine. Even leaving that aside, how are New Age mystical experiences disqualified, and in what way, but mystical experiences dogmatically correct not? It all seen beyond even merely circuitous. Besides, clearly traditional Monotheistic faiths, indeed the less Pagan than Christianity what with Trinity, angels, interceding Saints and all, also certainly do report mystical experiences of God on high or pervading or within or indeed howsoever He or She might ever be conceived of. I do agree however, that not every religion or sect necessarily purports or admits direct mystical experience to begin with. For that matter, not every religious disposition tautologically admits hearsay of prior experience at all, much less cannon or scripture, despite the inescapability of context and therefore bias. Only organized religion needs canonical scripture for obvious reasons.

A long scriptural citation, all side stepping my repeated point regarding the manifest arbitrariness of embracing those mystical or personal experiences which happen to agree with your own position, still somewhat orthodox at that, while denigrating and dismissing those that do not.

Alive-to-God, it was Veronica226 who offered the qualification regarding reported mystical experiences on the part of the New Agers, describing pervading Divine essence. Hence my reply. But continuing in response to you, Alive-to-God, the simpler and worldly explanatory hypotheses of science are not oversimplification, and do cover the field better than Theism, which has never actually explained anything, but only removed every explanatory problem to God, leaving God scientifically unexplained under special pleadings.

Alive-to-God, you also say: "Your 'non solution in search of a question' while a charming phrase, doesn't acknowledge the truth about the world in which we live, or the heartcries of the people who populate it." Indeed I do not acknowledge as true the falsehood you embrace, however, I partially agree in so far as that the Ontologies of Physics might not address the heart cries at least of many of the people. And that is why I have said "The problems religion strives to answer are not explanatory as such." Rather, indeed, religion strives to answer the heart cries of those who are drawn to worship. I hope that the distinction is now more clear. And questions as to the motivations for and satisfactions from science, are distinct from the questions of science itself. Scientists can conceivably have any number of different motivations, yet still desire to discover truth and still strive for objectivity. Although I have argued how falibilism which accurately describes the human condition from which the investigation of science proceeds along with human progress, also does thereby inspire and address the heart cries of autonomy. But you balk.

Also, you still assert that various spirits are of different stature. That is plausible, though entirely untestable and evidentiarilly unsupported, nothing more than a handy excuse to dismiss purported experiences of God that, for example, are cited in support of other scriptures than the Bible or other Theological positions than your own. And no doubt, the same dismissal might be advanced by adherents to other faiths, in order to dismiss your own stance. They will say that it is you and yours who are the ones deceived by whatever mischievous sprites and ifrits! Indeed many creeds and faiths also similarly claim for themselves, the cultivation of outpouring, rather than external authority alone, some like Christianity zealously so claiming to themselves alone as the true faith, while other religions such as Hinduism more inclusively admitting other worship than their own as at least possibly likewise efficacious. Surely, with no standards of evidence save the bias of differing faith, and therefore no clear Epistemological Methodology or standards of objectivity, are not all such various claims and contentions equally and reciprocally arbitrary? Again, I cannot help but be minded historically, of how the reciprocally intolerant Catholics and Protestants each insisted that it was the other's hallowed ground, being of false faith, that was spawning vampires! -Likewise, entirely arbitrary. And that might be why I don't care as much as you might wish about your own Theological fine distinctions.

You: "Bias is necessary, if only to be challenged later by a greater, fresher revelation." Why, how faliblist of you, Alive-to-God! Indeed, bias is intrinsic to context without which no thought or experience. No matter how personal and exalted, can ever even remain intelligible. That is the conjectural nature of all experience and reflection thereupon, entirely fallible. Epistemologically, we learn only from our mistakes, by error detection and correction. Hence, Methodologically, the systematic doubt of Scientific Method. Alas, however, I fear that you are missing the boat of fresher revelation by centuries, actually. For faith and the embrace of untestable hypothesis makes error dogmatic, no matter subjective passion. It is your own wishful thinking and spirit of self deception to blame.

Not really.

First of all, one cannot actually be called by anything or anyone that does not first really exist. And furthermore, clearly I am too skeptical. I could only go through the ritualistic motions of inviting God, without the requisite sincerity of the appeal. But perhaps the greatest sticking point, as yet unaddressed, would be as to the very validity of the experiment, which I question. -Precisely BECAUSE of the vividness and confidence of the sought for altered state of consciousness if successful, nevertheless and no less entirely subjective. Wary of wishful thinking, rational people do not strive to cultivate personal certainty for its own blissful sake, but instead seek truth and value honest opinion of one's own, to be challenged by Empirical investigation of reality not subverted by brainwash and autosuggestion.

As the saying goes, online no one knows that you are a dog. But statements are speaker independent, and so I seldom worry much about that.

Yes. But if you tell me that you are God or a spirit, then that will be another question entirely.

No, my reason for presuming that you exist, is from context, prior knowledge of people with internet access. And one way or another, that is where I will tend to assume the text to which I respond comes from, barring the manifest Touring Test failure of an obvious 'bot. And conversation by whatever medium is at all a means of acquaintanceship. But as for thoughts entering my own mind, at least in any rational conscious state, I will tend to assume are likewise my own. And that soul searching is for finding oneself.

You could all be sock-puppets, but I'm too polite to point that out. For that matter, even face to face encounter is still as conjectural as anything else. And indeed we know of, for example, subatomic particles and even extra solar planets only howsoever indirectly by inference from observations with instrumentation. Yet none of this helps buttress Theism.

What is it that you feel that I am not being sufficiently honest about? That if I even provisionally accept any self representation, with however little at stake, in online discourse, sight unseen, then I must likewise also take with conviction or at least more seriously and open-mindedly, the word of God as allegedly self represented in scripture and perhaps also in stray thoughts and fantasies of my own? Really? Not to mention, again, that such special pleadings masquerading as equal time, must apply arbitrarily, only to the scriptures and fantasies of one faith, but not competing faiths and their scriptures. Truthfully, if you chance upon my discourse say, with conspiracy theorists let alone terrorist sympathizers, you may discover that I do pick and choose what personal claims I am quite ready to swallow in online discourse. Indeed, have you not heard of various impostures online? Take my advice and do not go into business with refugee Nigerian princes! The Bible is available online too. But that is nothing miraculous. I accept that someone wrote the Bible, indeed several scribes over time with ongoing revision. That does not require that I accept it to be the word of God. For that matter, the only claimant to Godhead that I have been acquainted with is a mental patient.

So here's my answer to you: No, I do not believe that you exist because you called me out. Rather, I tend to assume that someone exists that is posting under a given handle. I mention that impression explicitly, indeed hither to implicit, only because the question is raised by you now. Likewise, before you ask, I certainly expect that someone, indeed many someones, wrote and revised scripture. And I might well simply not seriously entertain such prior bias or context by which you might hope for me to interpret from inner life whatsoever any affect or cognate as any personal intimate manifestation of God "calling me out." Still, I certainly cannot rule out, in very principle, any such a possible psychotic break in future. Pray for me!

One might even better know a long dead personage, by historical study, although the relationship will be somewhat one-way. But what of it? For that matter, one can become very well acquainted indeed, with fictional characters by art appreciation in the study of of literature. It remains, however, that they only speak to us in imagination and reflection.

Pray for me!

I find this request odd after reading your posts.

Nevertheless....

Since you reject the written record of God's dealings with man, I would like to make a suggestion for you: you pray this prayer, or something similar to it: "God, I am not sure you exist or what is touted as your word, but if you do exist and if the Bible is true, reveal it to me" and then wait to see what happens.

Forgive me ginnyrose, I was sarcastic. I knew better and couldn't help myself. But I have already addressed at some length the various problems with the suggestion that I myself pray in outreach to God, if you care to discuss that seriously. You'd be the first to take me up.

Yes Old_Joe, I agree that one can gain acquaintance with people and things, indirectly, without personal contact at all, much less dace to face. And since this holds true no less of long dead historical figures and even fictional characters, only plausibility at all may pertain. Ontology and therefore Epistemology are separate matter. Indeed, I can say that I am at all acquainted with the mythic figure of God, perhaps even different variants as a character or personality and also as a concept or life form. -especially as appears in the Torah, among other literature and in the minds of different thinkers.

Brothertom, thanks for comparing my bio to a fortune cookie. This is why dating forums and the like so aggravate me! Although, since you mention it, and not to pry, but dare may I ask what great self doubt so oppresses you?

Aaron,

You said:

if there is any known way for a phenomenon to occur and thus to exist, that might tend to at least to point the way towards a testable hypothesis.

So I am assuming that you think there is no "known way" for God or mystical experiences to occur, therefore rendering them untestable. Correct?
IF this is correct, then you must also throw out all of history. If I asked you to reproduce the Holocaust with the ORIGINAL people, you would think I was nuts. You can't bring Hitler back from the dead. But since that isn't repeatable, it's not testable. And since it's not testable it must not be real. We must then question every history text! We must not believe anything anyone says about anything in the past that cannot be repeated and tested.
I have come to the conclusion that you believe in Scientism. (Forgive me if I am assuming or wrong.)

I have a bro-in-law like you. I don't even debate him anymore because he is so arrogant and hard-hearted. I will pray for him and I will pray for you. Which thankfully, as an atheist, you cannot ask me not to do. Otherwise it may imply you fear that something may actually happen when I pray, which would be admitting the possibility of a deity. I also think that your refusal to pray even a one sentence prayer proves you are not really an atheist. You could just say, "Fine. I will placate these silly religious people and pray that stupid one line prayer. Then I will never have to hear about it again!" And then tell us you did so. Or even post your "prayer" on here. (Perhaps a "God, if there is a God, save my soul, if I have a soul.") But since you refuse, it makes me wonder if you fear that something will actually happen.
If you don't fear any so-called deity, then prove it and pray that.

*Edited for some spelling errors.

with the suggestion that I myself pray in outreach to God, if you care to discuss that seriously.

Perhaps you have touched on this subject and I missed it in your posts...however...

As I recall there are others who were in a similar situation who did pray as I suggested and they got an answer, and it was not imaginary. Since you are not interested in doing so, I do wonder about two things. One: if faith in a supreme being is a waste why do you spend so much time fighting, debating something that does not exist?

Two. Here is a quote by Ravi Zacharias:“Is it possible that somewhere in the deepest recesses of the human heart, we are really not battling intellectual ideas as much we fighting for the right for our own sexual proclivities and our passionate indulgences?” Perhaps Ravi is right in your situation?

There is no known way for God to exist in the first place, no Chemical Theo-Physics or Structural Theo-mechanics, if you will. If there were anything so concrete then we might be closer to any testable hypothesis. Whereas, the possibility and feasibility of the holocaust, in many different aspects, might indeed be deemed testable, and has indeed been subject of research and experimentation and indeed corroborated. Therefore, the actual events are left to historical investigation. God, by contrast, remains impossible. Therefore seeking God by historical investigation seems a waste of time. But that doesn't mean it can't be tried. Thus far, nothing persuasive has arisen. Nothing that can stand without special pleadings.

And if you want me to go through the motions of prayer, Veronica226, ginnyrose, then you should be willing to discuss with me the problems I have already raised repeatedly with that proposal, instead of just jumping the gun: Old_Joe has asked me if I ever you ever wonder why I am not called of God. Not really, I replied. First of all, one cannot actually be called by anything or anyone that does not first really exist. And furthermore, clearly I am too skeptical. It only ever works for anyone already giving any credence to Theism to begin with. And honestly, I do not believe in God. I could only go through the ritualistic motions of inviting God, without the requisite sincerity usually considered intrinsic to the appeal. But perhaps the greatest sticking point, as yet unaddressed, would be as to the very validity of the proposed inconclusive experiment, which I question. -Precisely BECAUSE of the vividness and confidence of the sought for altered state of consciousness if successful, nevertheless and no less entirely subjective. -Not to mention that there are no standards of refutation. What you propose is at best a Psychological experiment, with no bearing upon external reality. Indeed, there seems no standards for competing and contradicting experiences of seeming equal intensity characteristic of different people and different religious traditions, or sometimes even of the same person on different occasions. Wary of wishful thinking, rational people do not strive to cultivate personal certainty for its own blissful sake, but instead seek truth and value honest opinion of one's own, to be challenged by Empirical investigation of reality not subverted by brainwash and autosuggestion. In science, doubt is not an enemy to be overcome. Rather, systematic doubt is the guide of Scientific Method. Moreover, none of the above so coy, is anything I'd ever ask of a God with the power to manifest unambiguously before the entire world to perform miracles under laboratory conditions.

ginnyrose, Ravi Zacharias sais nothing that Freud hasn't. Yet the oppressive role of sexual repression goes to motivation which remains entirely a separate question, however important. Clearly people and cultures less sexually repressed are happier and healthier.

Alive-to-God, I take a heartcry to mean a subjective outpouring, or more generally a yearning. Or do I misunderstand? And science is defined by the Scientific Method, systematic doubt, all in the quest for truth, truth being correspondence to reality, where scientific hypotheses are such as are testable with conceivable conditions of refutation. The scope of investigation of science includes anything testable and refutable. There are no other exclusions. There are laboratory experiments, but also field research and historical investigation. For example, a refutation of Evolution might be the discovery of a fossil rabbit from the Cretaceous. As to the measure of human progress, surely we can include not only science and technology, but democracy, standards of living, cavil society, literacy, peace, human rights and many other values held dear. And again, other religions hold the God they worship to be authentic, and others such as yours to be figments of prior dogma propped up by malign deceiving spirits. Therefore, yet again, no, I do not see substantive difference, only arbitrariness.

Old_Joe, all acquaintance is as conjectural and fallible as any other thought and perception, even no matter how uncomfortably close. We learn about others both their sympathetic and unsympathetic characteristics. And that goes also for societies and the literature they produce. Appreciation thereof can be uplifting. But anecdotal evidence as of religious experiences remains both common to all religions and the least reliable kind of evidence of all. In the New Testament it is suggested God has good reason to see no need to prove His existence, specifi9cally that corroboration of the existence of God would not help to improve moral conduct. And as you know, I would tend to agree. As to the value of my soul, again here you allow the mythically miraculous to obscure the metaphor and the moral. What I value and you exhort me to abandon, is my integrity.

Rationalizing anti-intellectual put downs are not unique to Christianity amongst religions. Is not your God supposed to despise such vice as hypocrisy? If instead He despises even unto damnation, integrity, then is He not thereby instead a devil? Then again, is every folly out of your mouth indeed the voice of the Lord? Or is it merely the proselytizing intolerant who devalue integrity? This may be a text book case of how heteronymous religion fails to improve morality which is a function of autonomy. What need be there of deceiving spirits? You do it to yourselves.

My imperfect integrity, can even if at all sufficiently cover my fallibility, as you put it, imperfectly, fallibly. My imperfect fallible integrity is of consummate value to autonomy. Your alternative is a paralytic and irresponsible fraud. Complete certainty is neither possible nor necessary, and nothing in life or science ever truly waits thereupon. Even given an infallible God, fallible human beings can only deal with Him fallibly. If you are truly a Creationist and subscribe to Teleology, then you must cherish imperfect autonomy, strength of character at all and integrity, all as nevertheless God given. Can it be that you so vaingloriously identify with God on high from persistently speaking with His authority, as thereby to have lost all perspective of humility?

In the real world, people who disagree cooperate extensively nevertheless. It is demands of certainty and uniformity that have unleashed anarchy and civil war. Autonomy does not bring anarchy, quite the reverse: Autonomy brings honesty, progress, Scientific Method in quest of truth, technology, democracy, higher standards of living, civil rights, and all manner of good things. It is your perfectionism and Existential inadequacy that brings despair and Nihilistic value destruction, hypocritically masquerading as the very font of hope itself.

Disagreeing people in the real world do cooperate extensively, imperfectly, not %100. Indeed, parties in dispute cooperate simply by both showing up in court. There's nothing Hobsian about it! Indeed, I can assure you that a proper bill of rights in Israel in order to move disputes into court, will be indispensible for even imperfect justice crucial to peace at all, not perfect harmony, in the Middle East. Falibism is the key to democratic progress. Religious certitude and self righteous nationalism are the obstacle.

My confidence remains short of absolute certitude so long as I remain open to refutation.

Alive-to-God, First of all, that's a myth, and second, I am not clear as to the hypothesis allegedly tested or exactly what you are getting at. But I am reminded of how in India, the skeptics had a problem getting the people to trust snake bite serum instead of the prayers of fakirs. The problem was that depending upon the species of snake, most snake bites are survivable to begin with. And so, it appeared that the prayers of the fakirs where generally efficacious. This indeed would be a case where it is clearly safer to learn from the mistakes of others. Fortunately, the stakes are not always that high.

Old_Joe, Rail and protest of shifting sands all you will, but there are no firm grounds. All is subject to conjecture. Absolute certainty is the hallmark of arrogant madness. All that can be done in hopes of drawing ever closer to truth and getting things at all less wrong, is to reason and to look to the evidence, to detect and to correct error as we go, as best as we may, making progress every day. So I feel free to speak even without absolute certainty which is neither necessary nor possible. Just as you are free to attempt refutation thereof. Nothing in life or in science actually waits upon absolute certainty. Shall I take that simply setting the bar impossibly high to absolute certainty, is your best retort? Indeed I may yet change my mind in future, but it'll take more than that! That you refuse to change your mind ever, only means that you can never learn or grow.

Aaron,

Many of us here have tried to reason with you, but it seems to be a waste of time and effort - am not sure why I even check out this thread...

Let me tell you a story, a testimony...

A couple of weeks ago a rash of tornadoes hit the south. In my county there were two - twelve hours apart - which later converged with another in Alabama that struck Tuscaloosa. These EF5 tornadoes were very destructive.

My daughter-in-law was here at our house with me when she got a call that a tornado is headed our way from Philadelphia (MS) and will get here in 15 minutes and will you please go to the school and get your children?! After she told me, I grabbed my keys, ran to the car and went to the greenhouses and demanded we all leave because a tornado is headed our way (and we were right in its path). My husband thought I was in a panic - at the time - and over-reacting. I was demanding and insistent and no questions tolerated! If you do not go with me, I AM LEAVING, GETTING OUT OF HERE! But he went with me. I had a delivery to make anyways so we went to Columbus to do that, getting out of harms way. After we were up the road ten miles the sun shone in places and we wondered if I was over-reacting. When we got to the city the electricity was off - due to storms up the line.

When we came home we learned the tornado did go over our town but did not touch down until out of town in a field .75 mile from our GHs. It meandered northeast destroying grain bins and later joining another tornado in AL all the while scattering debris across the countryside, some came from as far away as Philadelphia - an hours drive from here.

Later we learned this tornado that went over us had picked up asphalt off of a road out in a rural community about 15 miles - as the crow flies - from our town. It also plowed a field. It was destructive. We did not know how destructive this twister was until later. All we knew is that there is one coming and that one did hit ten miles north of here 12 hours earlier.

When people heard a tornado was coming they got into their vehicles and ran, or got into storm shelters - they got out of harms way! Few people grabbed things to take with them: they knew there was no time to gather people, things - escape was NOW or get hurt or killed. There is no arguing with a tornado. It is fast and will not consider your opinion at all. It does as it will and you have to submit to its power or be consumed by it. So it is with God: you cannot argue with God and win. Someday his wrath will be visited upon this earth and there is no escape. Those of us who see it coming are yelling at people to run, just like I did to my husband and employee. And we ran and nobody faulted me since for it either.

And that, sir, is the lesson the tornadoes taught many who lived through it. All who were in the area will have a tornado story - all I have talked to was aware of its coming and took measures to escape its wrath. And no one was injured in our county! But it did cause people to think more about God then ever before!

End of story.

And if you disbelieve it, there are pictures on the internet of its destruction. If you still will not believe those pics you are only fooling yourself.

I wish that it was possible better to stick to evidentiary questions of Epistemology, of what is persuasive, how so and why. ginnyrose, as for testimony, anecdotes are rightly considered the most unreliable form of evidence. I fail even to see the relevance of your tornado story, no matter how personal and dramatic. I don't doubt, psychologically, that such events raise awareness of mortality and panicked outcry to God. But is panic and wishful desperation any more than dogmatism and name calling, ever wisely considered the most lucid frame of mind for investigation of reality?

Aaron, I invite you to come to Mississippi and Alabama to see the destruction wrought by this twister and interview the people that lived through it. Then you can answer your own question about the validity of reality and its impact on the mind and emotion.

The Bible is full of testimonies of God's working in the lives of people and nature. Romans 1:18-22 discusses this very issue:

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,

19 because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.

20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.

21 For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

22 Professing to be wise, they became fools,

23 and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.

If you choose to ignore the obvious, that is your privilege - God gave you the ability to choose. You cannot say when you appear before God that you were not warned.

Hi everyone.

I hope it is alright if I ask and say a few things so late in this discussion.

Something that Aaron said near the end here caught my attention:

"Absolute certainty is the hallmark of arrogant madness."

Aaron, would you be absolutely certain of that?

Of course you may be. You certainly stated it without a hint of doubt or skepticism that you could be wrong. And so you should?

But the statement is nonesense. Absolutely.

Skepticism and doubt by means of endless questioning create an illusion of wide-open spaces in the mind, giving the impression of a far distance between things that are actually very near.

Creation and a creator are self-evident and have to be explained away with a never ending set of narratives powered by a combination of imagination, supposition, and fact. It is the presence of that last part, the fact, that acts as a glue to hold them together in the minds of their believers while they overlook cavernous and gaping holes between the occasional appearance of evidence in the stories that never cease to be told, re-told, and re-invented.

Our epistimology is very simple.

It is what John the Apostle said,

"That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;
(For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;)"

John stated that with absolute certainty.

You may call him an arrogant madman.

He said he was sent by Jesus Christ. Who he saw die on a cross. And who he saw alive again.

And he(John), being dead, yet speaks today.

Kind regards,

Chris

Dear Christian friends,

Could I offer a peice of advice?

A man might try to conceal the fact that his house caught on fire and has burnt to the ground by starting a bunch of small fires in an ajacent field, and if you pay attention enough, he could succeed in obscuring the obvious. That his own house burnt down.

Solomon warned of reasoning with people that he called foolish by way of their own reasoning.

Hundreds of small intellectual fires can't obscure the fact that the house of athiesm caught fire and burnt to the ground long ago.

Our God begins His story without ever trying to prove His own existence. He is present in the first sentence, and He simply said in the beginning...

God.

If there is anything that I can recall He has called anyone to reason about concerning Him and them, it is over their sins - which He said, come, let us reason together, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as wool.

And how was that to be - by His cross.

The death and the burial and the resurrection of Jesus, that is His reasoning to this world, And to skeptics also.

Jesus died.

And He rose again from the dead.

And He is alive forevermore.

Come now ginnyrose, the calamitous weather in Mississippi and Alabama is scarcely in dispute. And I'll sooner turn for explanation to a Meteorologist than a Theologian.

And ChrisJD, Neither Creation nor a Creator are actually self-evident, merely the obvious first anthropomorphic conjecture in ages past, of human beings, ourselves creators of artifacts. But investigation has proceeded since then, with new knowledge driving new conjecture and more viable hypotheses. You may even have heard tell yourself. No, the house of Atheism is not the one raised to ash. And the glow across the field isn’t from "small fires" or scientific fine points alone, but great discoveries and advances. You use a word that I do not understand: Nietzsche said that there are no facts, only interpretations. In other words, as Popper contends, everything is subject to conjecture. There are no firm grounds, nor need thereof. Indeed, what are "facts"? What does the word even mean? I cannot glean from context whether you intend to denote reality, information, knowledge, truisms or anything else entirely, when you allude to "fact." Nor am I clear for that matter, what metaphor you intend by "glue." All that I can tell you is that real history is often a partial component in legend and myth. And the scientific rational quest for truth does not simply swallow fairytales whole. Only in faith that grasps for any evidence that fits for corroboration, with no standards of refutation, assumes that if there where Pharaohs in Egypt then thus it only follows that Moses performed miracles. The diamonds of truth amid the dross of error and fancy, may come shine apart and even fit together. But the dross of error and fancy must be weaned out. The wide open spaces in the mind are no illusion, not as regards to the range of human imagination. And only by process of elimination through ongoing error detection and correction are the range of viable hypotheses from sheer conjecture narrowed by refutation, fruitfully. How sure am I? I am unawake of any better Epistemological hypothesis. So, how sure do I need to be? Absolute certainty is neither possible nor necessary. Nothing is science or in life actually waits thereupon. You have only been left behind.

AaronAgassi.

If you keep messing around with the Lord, your bound to get saved. See you on the flip side my friend. :-)

Hey, if our relatives go Mormon, they can marry us after we're dead!

And all with absolute certainty!

Hi again everyone.

Aaron, just a few observations if I could, I hope to be able to share more a bit later:

"Creation nor a Creator are actually self-evident, merely the obvious first anthropomorphic conjecture in ages past, of human beings, ourselves creators of artifacts. But investigation has proceeded since then, with new knowledge driving new conjecture and more viable hypotheses"

The ancients took the obvious observation of creation and worshiped the creation ignorantly through superstition. Modern man takes the obvious observation of creation coupled with scientific investigation and worships the creation through endless storytelling that is the product of his own mind and imagination.

Modernman has not become more enlightened about his origins through scientific discoveries, just more sophisticated in his ability to tell the stories he believes about it.

His explanations are not more viable because they match reality only more acceptable to more people because of their power to decieve.

If Christians have been left behind, it is because those that have passed them have continued to run a race that was over long ago(Acts 17:22-31).

Rail and protest of shifting sands all you will, but there are no firm grounds. All is subject to conjecture. Absolute certainty is the hallmark of arrogant madness. All that can be done in hopes of drawing ever closer to truth and getting things at all less wrong, is to reason and to look to the evidence, to detect and to correct error as we go, as best as we may, making progress every day. So I feel free to speak even without absolute certainty which is neither necessary nor possible.

Again I will say what Old_Joe (I think) said, you say there is no absolute cerainty, but you say THAT with absolute certainty. Where I come from we call that the boomerang blunder. A statement that commits suicide. A self-refuting statment. If there really is no absolute certainty you can never say that statement. YOu can't say there IS absolute certainty and you can't say there ISN'T absolute certainty. All you can say is "I don't know" and leave it at that. This is the bedrock of postmodern relativism which leads to moral relativism which, as someone already said, leads to anarchy.
That way madness lies.

Also I saw some comments about your "integrity." The only reason you have any integrity is because God, by His grace, restrains you from being evil. Restrains you from being like Hitler. That is why atheist will be punished so severely by God, because you deny Him who gives you the ability to have integrity!

I will also say with others, I'm not really sure why you're even here. You will not change our minds. Not because we don't have an "open mind" but because we have known God, and you cannot take that away nor refute it.

Hi everyone.

Aaron, just a bit more if I could?

"Nietzsche said that there are no facts, only interpretations."

"Absolute certainty is the hallmark of arrogant madness"

When I saw these things I remembered reading in chapter 3 of Neitzsche's "Beyond good and Evil", where he is discussing what he calls 'the religous mood', or put another way, the affect of religion on the conscience, and he speculates that religous changes in people were owing to their own misinterpretation of facts. He says:

"...is it not possible it may have happened principally because psychology had placed itself under the dominion of morals, because it BELIEVED in oppositions of moral values, and saw, read, and INTERPRETED these oppositions into the text and facts of the case? What? "Miracle" only an error of interpretation? A lack of philology?"

First, he does not deny that facts exist. Just errors of interrpretation.

At the beginning of the chapter Neitzsche admits of needing an army of helpers to help him in anylizing the history of the 'problem of knowledge and conscience' as he puts it, and not only an army of helpers, but as much as near divine powers of Heaven and Earth(obvious sarchasim), and yet, without these, he says, he is willing to do it himself.

And why? Why go at an infinite problem with impotent powers? Because he says, "...a curiosity like mine is once for all the most agreeable of vices--pardon me!"

The men that gathered at Mar's hill in Athens gathered there and "spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing". Perhaps they too shared curiosity as an agreeable vice and enjoyed 'the big hunt'.

It's so grand, afterall, to discover some new thing, isn't it? And perhaps it is enough for the ego that believes it is destined to perish from existience to secure for itself some imortality in the form of being remembered by other egos for what it has done. Or at least admired for it in the present.

But anyway, if it is enough for Neitzsche and the army of skeptics that have followed him to explain away the expeirence of others as owing to a misinterpretation of facts, then why not their own? Why is the skeptic's own psychology not rather questioned and doubted as to what drives them to seek explanations for the experiences of others when those experiences do not agree with their own?

cont...

con't...

"Nietzsche said that there are no facts, only interpretations."

"Absolute certainty is the hallmark of arrogant madness"

Neitzsche makes the most astounding statement in his work(published postumously I believe), titled Ecco Homo, he says:

"I refuse to be a saint; I would rather be a clown. Maybe I am a clown. And I am notwithstanding, or rather not notwithstanding, the mouthpiece of truth; for nothing more blown-out with falsehood has ever existed, than a saint. But my truth is terrible: for hirtherto lies have been called truth. The transvaluation of all Values, this is my formula for mankind's greatest step towards coming to its senses-a step which in me became flesh and genius. My destiny ordained that I should be the first decent human being, and that I should feel myself opposed to the falsehood of millenniums. I was the first to discover truth..."

The first to discover truth. Wow.

Perhaps he did not mean that aboslutely.

Right before these things Neitzsche makes just as astounding a statement when he says:

'I require no "believers," it is my opinion that I am too full of malice to believe even in myself'

The first to discover the truth, too full of malice, to believe in even himself.

I gather those two statements together and mention them because I think they speak deeply to the issues here.

One of the things that will affect our interpretation of facts is the condition of our hearts. The Lord Jesus chided his followers for the hardness of their hearts and this, most often, in connection with their unbelief.

The condition of our hearts is a strong influence upon what we percieve and what we believe.

Neitzsche's statement of having discovered truth, being so full of malice, is astounding.

But what else is astounding.

His interpretor H. L. Mencken, in writting in the introduction to Nietche's 'The Anti-Christ', says of him:

"What he flung himself against, from beginning to end of his days of writing, was always, in the last analysis, Christianity in some form or other—Christianity as a system of practical ethics, Christianity as a political code, Christianity as meta [Page 12] physics, Christianity as a gauge of the truth. It would be difficult to think of any intellectual enterprise on his long list that did not, more or less directly and clearly, relate itself to this master enterprise of them all. It was as if his apostasy from the faith of his fathers, filling him with the fiery zeal of the convert, and particularly of the convert to heresy, had blinded him to every other element in the gigantic self-delusion of civilized man."

In the preface to the work, Neitzsche himself ends by saying:

"...Reverence for self; love of self; absolute freedom of self....

Very well, then! of that sort only are my readers, my true readers, my readers foreordained: of what account are the rest?—The rest are merely humanity.—One must make one’s self superior to humanity, in power, in loftiness of soul,—in contempt."

Taking these two together, it is astounding to consider the irony of what was perhaps missed by both, that such wholehearted love and esteem for self is the greatest self-dellusion of all.

con't..

Before I leave off I wanted to mention again what I would humbly suggest is our simple epistomolgy here, that of our Apostle John.

John did not write out of any sense of curiosity.

He said:

"That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;
(For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;)That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you"

He says that he saw Jesus the Christ die upon a cross.

That He was buried.

And that he saw Him alive again.

People may call John a madman. They have called Jesus Christ, Who always spoke with certainty and with authority on the reality of Eternity, the same.

Let me try an analogy: Viable hypotheses are like likely suspects. Just as a likely suspect has no alibi, a viable hypothesis has yet to be refuted. Moreover, the obvious suspect often turns out not to be the guilty party. He or she may have an alibi after all, or better suspects turn up from investigation. Likewise, the most obvious hypothesis need not be correct. Obvious thoughts are not the same thing as obvious truth. Like all conjecture they are then subject first to critical preference and then to Empirical reality testing. To claim that hypotheses are viable because they are deceptive, is circuitous, because that conclusion at all comes only by beginning from the assumption that the hypotheses in question are deception, from the very start. It makes more sense to suppose that an untrue hypothesis might be deceptive because for the time being at least, it remains viable. And while that is always possible, what you are so eager to denounce, ChrisJD, is simply the practice of reasoning and following the evidence. And that is just antirational.

And yes Veronica226, even that there is no absolute certainty, though it may be the greatest certainty there is, might not be absolutely certain. It remains however, the most likely and by a significant margin to say the least. And if I am mistaken, feel free to refute it if you can. Everywhere there is uncertainty to any degree, nowhere yet is there complete certainty. Nowhere that any of you have shown. But no one really waits upon absolute certainty in going about our lives, nor in any conduct of science or journalism. We all take chances in everything we do. And it's a good thing that we do.

Alive-to-God, I'm still not sure about your hypothesis. But if I get you at all, then what you are suggesting is that if anyone survived snake bite after seeing the totem, then the God of the Israelites exists, and otherwise not? That would not be a conclusive experiment if there is any other way to explain the successful result. It might have been a different god, or the local snakes might have been of one of the non fatal species, or anyone lively enough to hurry over for a look at the totem, was not poisoned enough to die from it. - So that all that's really being tested, is the severity of poisoning. Or indeed the more likely, the events as described never really happened as scripturally put forth, if at all. It's a myth, after all! And who where the control group in order to compare results? This would be a poorly designed experiment. For another thing, experimental results need to be reproducible, repeatable, independently. Research experimental procedure for yourself, and then get back to me.

ChrisJD, I simply do not use the word: 'fact' because I do not understand what that word means. Know more at: http://www.FoolQuest.com/metaphysics_for_dummies.htm#fact Nor was I able to glean from context precisely what you intended.

Well, myths are often rationally inconsistent, and instead consistent only to mythological thinking. Hence God's utterance: Adam, where art thou? is merely dramatic, consistent with Adam and Eve's sense of vulnerability and exposure in transgression. Or if one were to insist upon rationalization, then in that case, coming from an Omniscient Creator, the question was rhetorical. Then again, as Mark Twain remarked, if God had only instead forbidden the snake, then Adam would have devoured that conniving snake rather than the apple! Whyfore asketh thou, anonymous777?

Hi everyone.

"And while that is always possible, what you are so eager to denounce, ChrisJD, is simply the practice of reasoning and following the evidence. And that is just antirational."

Aaron I'm not sure what you are referring to by my being eager to denounce.

But endless storytelling by adults is ridiculous. The thousands of narratives that are constantly being spun in order to tell the ever evolving story of evolution are just as fanciful as Athenian legends except they are lent credibility by the strength of experimental science, which provides the empirical data from which their creative fiction is sprung.

The core assumption of materialism/philosophical naturalism and by extension neo-Darwinian evolution is never questioned and cannot be discarded, no matter what evidence surfaces. The theories(and stories that are told to support them) plasticize in order to absorb any data; any contradictory evidence simply becomes the new orthodoxy, once it is sufficiently spun and reinterpreted with enough evolutionary jargon to make it palatable for the scientific elite and unintelligible for the scientifically illiterate masses.

"ChrisJD, I simply do not use the word: 'fact' because I do not understand what that word means."

I know Aaron.

Since we have mentioned several times now the passage from the letter of John I was reminded how Jesus is there called the Word. In the greek language it is called Logos. I remembered a message that I heard one time from a Pastor that I have admired much. He was Jewish and he suggested that one of the Hebrew words in the Bible that is translated Word has the literal meaning of: the reality. That which is real.

I'm not a scholar, but I would believe this is the same word which John would have used in Hebrew to speak of Jesus.

The Reality.

anonymous777, why ask me riddles when my answer makes no difference to you? You already had your own sermon prepared. And which of us is hiding? I generally deplore Ad Hominem in dealing with impersonal rational questions of Ontology for Empirical science, that call for levelheaded lucid reason. But let me just this once make this more personal and emotional so that you can relate, by testifying if you will, by confiding in you that I will never regret all my love and support for someone I cared for a great deal, going for an abortion and struggling with the standard Pro-Life mindfuck. I really do not believe that zygotes are ensouled and have consciousness, and I wonder if anyone else really truly does. Deep down, don't you know it's all a myth? Aren't you a little old still to be believing in God?

ChrisJD, what stories do you think are "being spun" about Evolution? Whatever the details in contention, the general principle is under no serious attack. Evolution is testable, refutable, but there is still no refutation to date. Neo-Darwinian Evolution is still the only generally viable explanatory framework that fits the evidence, and the only reasonable expected outcome projecting from what we know about reproduction, genetics and adversity in the wild. It is more remarkable when species under stable conditions themselves remain in any relative genetic equilibrium, than otherwise. Change is the only constant. Indeed if by 'fact' you really mean 'logos' or unwavering changeless certitude from God, than no wonder you make no sense. Simply calling something so does not make is such. Whatever evidence must be weighed. And for Theism, the evidence stripped of special pleadings is found wanting. 'Logos' originally only meant discourse, until Christian mystification.

Hi Aaron,

"Whatever the details in contention, the general principle is under no serious attack."

The general principle is never taken to be under serious attack because it's alcolytes never bother to sweep the corners of the monestary, that is, they don't really care about the details! Because the details are the stuff that the stories are told about Aaron.

That may be fine of course, for people who believe that absolute truth is unatainable and that the best we can hope for is to move ever more closer to it by small, imperceptible advances like Papa Darwin said all of life progresses, and who also hold at the same time that "There are no firm grounds, nor need thereof". Fine, but not consistent.

"Simply calling something so does not make is such"

A hearty AMEN Aaron!(edit: at least not for us Mortals)

I don't suppose you could return it, being it means 'it is so'.

Perhaps it is maybe?

As for Evolution, the evidence stripped of special creative story telling shouts a doxology to the glory of God.

Neo-Darwinian Evolution is still the only generally viable explanatory framework that fits the evidence, and the only reasonable expected outcome projecting from what we know about reproduction, genetics and adversity in the wild.

Hmmm, lets see...
If evolution if true, then:
1. Transitional forms would be found SOMEWHERE - either alive today or in the fossil record.
2. Mutations that we can observe in species would be beneficial.
3. Nature would have the ability to increase itself in complexity over time, making things better or creating new species.

Is this correct?

Last time I checked (which wasn't long ago, because my mother is in school and has had to take a lot of biology and A&P courses), these criteria still haven't been met. It seems to me the observable, testable data points to something else.
(I didn't go into detail because I didn't want to hijack this thread. Unless of course that's the way it should go. Or we could just make a new thread...)

Everywhere there is uncertainty to any degree, nowhere yet is there complete certainty.

Well, I am completely certain I exist. And that my kitty next to me exists and the laptop I am typing on exists. If I was unsure about that, then why pet or feed my kitty? Why even use my laptop? In fact why even live?

This is what I call "the paralysis of infinity." Let me give an example.
Lets go back several hundred years to when people thought the earth was flat. Now there are those who believe it is flat and those who believe it is round (btw the Biblical writers believed the earth was round. They talk about the "circle of the earth."). Now those who believe it is flat will say, "there is NO WAY I'm sailing out that far in the ocean! I will fall off!" And they, of course, never set sail for the new world. Those rounders are wrong!
Now the round earthers would say, "Lets set sail, there are new places to explore!" And they promptly set sail.
Now you may have the "open minded" people. They think both positions are valid but neither is right or wrong. They however end up on the shore never being able to decide whether to stay or to go and by default end up staying.
If word comes back that a new world has been discovered the flat earthers will claim it's a lie and the round earthers will set sail. And to quote an author...
"But the open minds would be paralyzed. By keeping all their options open in regard to what may or may not be true, they have supplied themselves with an infinite number of options, probabilities, and possible realities. The problem is, open-minders have a hard time settling on any ONE option as the "correct" option because that would require a judgment which would, of course, mean that the other options were "wrong," and this the open mind cannot abide. Open-minders, therefore, often end up imprisoned by their own inability to decide on a clear course of action based upon the facts because they are constantly questioning the reality of the facts themselves.
I call this the paralysis of infinity - infinite options, but no ability to choose, define, or decide on any single one as correct. As Shakespeare once said, That way madness lies. ... And what of those open minds of the time who refused to weigh in on this great question? What of those who refused to make what they called "arrogant and foolish assumptions about things that could not possibly be known"? What of them? What did THEY accomplish? What did THEY contribute to society at large? History's only remembrance of them is to acknowledge that there were at that time some dissenters.
Those who abstained from the fray of decision became nothing more than a byword - a footnote to the history and deeds of men who dared to decide.
We must always remember - and never forget - that those who will commit to nothing, who stand for nothing, and who risk for nothing, in the end, rarely accomplish anything." - Eric Ludy

There are two sides to everything. And open-mindedness is not an option. Because if you claim that, you by default act as one of those to options.
Example: there is a God or there isn't. Or you can claim open mindedness, "there may or may not be a God, who am I to say?" but by default you will live as if there isn't a God. If a person was truly open minded about that, they would only be able to sit around and think "is there a God or isn't there? If there is I must live righteously, but if there isn't then I don't have to. But if there is..." and round and round and you could never live your life cause you could never make a decision. No one is truly open minded. They think they are, but they act as a flat earther. Thus proving that in theory they are open minded, but in reality they have taken a side on an absolute truth.

ChrisJD, there is no shortage of discourse upon Evolution and Creationism, and I am loath to attempt an entire recapitulation of the entire debate. Suffice that I am not entirely unaware thereof, and I know of no serious attack upon Evolution, and no credible support for Creationism. I leave it to you where you care to take this.

Veronica226, the fossil evidence, however extensive, is still limited in its comprehensiveness. But all life forms are transitional. And every time a transitional form between any two forms is discovered, the Creationists demand two more transitional forms in the smaller remaining gaps, and so on. And I think that you can corroborate that with your own research. Mutations are random, but only sometimes turn out to be somehow beneficial. Darwin spoke of survival of the fitter. This is often misquoted as "survival of the fittest." There is a book out entitled 'Survival of the Sickest' It turns out for example, that Sickle Cell Anemia, protects from the Black Plague. DNA on the spiral helix, must be symmetrical. In the human animal, there are half missing damaged genes associated with the jaw muscle, rendering our bite so feeble in comparison to other animals. But it is those enfeebled muscles over the skull, that allow our heads to grow so as to accommodate our brains. People born with healthy jaw muscles have skulls as small as Chimps. They are known as pinheads. Would God the Creator be so perverse? And cumulative changes over time, do increase in complexity, and not just in biological evolution.

And yes, you do feed your cat without complete certainty that the cat food might be tainted. There is no paralysis except from the demand for certainty. And other biblical writers referred to the four corners of the Earth. That is why the globe model of the Earth was deemed heresy. In any case, sailors continued to set forth into the unknown. Progress is a benefit of doubt and faliblism.

anonymous777, if I vented feeling, it is because that seemed to be the discourse you where opening. But you seem actually blind to feelings that don't fit your dogma. And don't be sorry I supported and helped a dear friend to endure Pro-Life headgames and go through with the abortion she needed, I'm not and neither was she. As for whatever is factual, as I have already stated, I do not even use that word since realizing that I do not know what it means. To any extent that I am confident in any point of Ontology, I believe my reasons to be rational, not emotional. And I do not resort to torture for rational persuasion, unless of course you really do find my writing style that painful! Still, I might also experience hallucinations under that degree of pressure as endured by Wurmbrand. But so what? And on an historical note, Christians where throwing one another to the Lions soon enough. Christians did not shut down the Coliseum. Eventually, it simply lost its funding as the Roman Empire crumbled.

Aaron wrote:

And don't be sorry I supported and helped a dear friend to endure Pro-Life headgames and go through with the abortion she needed, I'm not and neither was she.

I am confused. Why do you inject your support for abortion -did someone else introduce this subject but I just missed it? What relevance does it have with the discussion at hand?

For whatever it is worth not all are so ambivalent about abortion as you. We have here on the forum a brother who had a couple children aborted who grieves deeply about what he had done when he was away from God. You may work to justify the killing of this child, but if you are fortunate the day will come when you will suffer extreme emotional pain over your callousness, your blindness.

I feel so sorry for the female you supported in her decision to abort. Stats inform us that she will eventually learn to hate you, distrust you for your role in allowing this to happen. It is called post-abortion syndrome. I have seen too many of these victims first hand and witnessed their tears.

Your posts are proving more that you have to deny the reality of God in order to stifle the convicting of the Holy Spirit in your life.

anonymous777, why can't you understand how utterly irrelevant I find such accounts as that of Wurmbrand's conversion, and why so? What have I failed to explain on that score, and how so? Again: Statements are speaker independent.

Old_Joe, we are now just gainsaying. anonymous777, I thought that you all place such stock in personal anecdotes and experiences, so I tried to shift from purely abstract debate upon the existence of God, to an attempt to ask you to relate to my deep objections to the absurdities of Fundamentalism that inspire ongoing atrocity. Indeed, if there is a God, then He understands. But don't seem to be getting through to you on a serious matter of loony Theology, oppressive public policy and its dangerous personal impact.

Ad Hominem projection much?

Atheism stands accused of denial. But no evidence is presented. It becomes tiresome. Very well then: I respond by rebuking the hypocrisy of evils done in the name of God. You condemn the motivating delusions behind the inequities of other religions, in willful blindness to much the same closer to home. Specifically, no: a zygote does not have consciousness. So I am glad I was there for a friend in crisis struggling with that malignant propaganda. That is my testimony, from the heart, if that is what you think that you want.

It is not up to me or others to refute you or prove anything to you, because I have nothing at stake. If I win the argument, it is not me that wins, but you; likewise if I lose the argument, it is not me that loses, but you. I have no personal burden to argue or prove anything to you because I have nothing at stake. I walk away with no personal consequences one way or the other, all burden lies with you, because either way you have all the personal consequences. It is YOU who is at stake, therefore it is up to YOU to have ABSOLUTE certainty for your own sake.

There is only one place that ABSOLUTE certainty can be found, and that is Christ. The Muslim doesn’t have it, the Jew doesn’t have it, the Buddhist doesn’t have it, neither the Hindu, neither the Romanist, neither the Atheist, neither the religionist, nor any who is not trusting Christ. “Religious certitude” as you like to call it, with regards to eternity, is only found in the person and work of Christ.

Bravo.

Miccah, since you mention it, I think that there is everything to gain from the embrace of faliblism. So it appears to me that you do have something at stake. But please yourself. Moreover, if you have been following this thread at all, you know that I reject your claim that it is up to me, nor possible nor necessary, to be absolutely certain of the falsehood of your fairytale. And the logical falsity of relevance of Argument from Force or Consequence is moot.

First of all Old_Joe, we've been over this at length: The burden of evidence is upon the positive. It is for Theism to demonstrate the existence of God. Of course, you personally can do as you like. But it's peculiar of you to remain in a conversation from which you will only state that you are abstaining! Furthermore, I have taken a positive position, that of faliblism, for which I have presented support. But not to change the subject: There is another specific assertion in question as well, the contention that Atheists are in denial, repeated and pressed with no evidence at all. -Besides being an Ad Hominem anyhow. Evasive, much? And obviously Muslims do indeed claim absolute certitude exactly as Christians, indeed very much so, and a Muslim or any other religionist if so disposed, could explain away Christianity much the same as other competing religions have been explained away in this very discussion. Unless you are the ones in denial, seriously, why won't someone actually field that begged question, among so many, at long last?

The begged question that I allude to, Alive-to-God, is about how other religions claim absolute certitude no differently than Christianity, and that they too can always explain away the claims and experiences of their competitor religions including Christianity, likewise by resort to deceiving spirits and whatnot, all much the same. How and why then, should any religion be deemed any more credible than the other, save by circuitous reasoning under special pleadings? Regardless of the different paths to salvation extolled by different religions, they all claim the same certitude of each their own dogmas and promises of salvation. Moreover, such certainty, such dogmatism, is a factor in the intractability of conflict, and falibliism is the only escape. Even though, incidentally, Christianity and Islam agree that genuine repentance is crucial to salvation before God.

- no EverestoSama, not only in death through Jihad. Such much. But it is interesting how you seem to believe that God honors His variant contracts under different faiths. Jews, incidentally, are expected to draft individual contracts with God. And then there is the most famous quotation from Hamlet: " To thine own self be true."

No, Alive-to-God, the burden of the evidence is not on the one with the most to lose. Statements are speaker independent. The same statement can always come from differently motivated people in entirely different circumstances. Besides, more circuitous reasoning: I only have so much to lose, if there is indeed a God, and indeed such a God who lays in wait to punish honesty with Hellfire. Whereas, by contrast, you are wasting your life upon the paralysis of demanding absolute certainty.

ok

Miccah, since you mention it, I think that there is everything to gain from the embrace of faliblism. So it appears to me that you do have something at stake. But please yourself. Moreover, if you have been following this thread at all, you know that I reject your claim that it is up to me, nor possible nor necessary, to be absolutely certain of the falsehood of your fairytale. And the logical falsity of relevance of Argument from Force or Consequence is moot.

I warned you once already. You keep messing around, and your gonna get saved.

See you on the flip side my friend. :-)

Brothertom

You cannot argue faith, or reason it out.

Which is to say that it is irrational, indeed, antirational.

And I never claimed to be seeking God.

You posted: "AA seems to be selling wolf-chow more than seeking He who is the Truth, Life, and only Way." That is why I replied that I never claimed to be. And you are sidestepping my point.

Hi Aaron, and all,

"ChrisJD, there is no shortage of discourse upon Evolution and Creationism, and I am loath to attempt an entire recapitulation of the entire debate. Suffice that I am not entirely unaware thereof, and I know of no serious attack upon Evolution, and no credible support for Creationism. I leave it to you where you care to take this."

One of the difficulties for man once he has ruled out the possibility of revelation from outside himself and Divine revelation in particular, is that all he is left with, is himself.

Karl Marx said that the criticism of religion is the prequisite of all criticism and that, once accomplished, it "disillusions man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around himself as his own true Sun".

His own true sun.

But man is a miserable measure for himself. Even some of the most vicious anti-God philosophers have recognised the wretchedness of mankind but instead of serving as a deterent to approaching the most serious questions of reality and existence armed only with human ability, reason, and capacity, they've dived right in, fully pursuaded that, although most all the world is under some miserable dillusion or other, entirely so or just in part, they are different, somehow.

As Neitzsche put it speaking of himself:

"But my truth is terrible: for hirtherto lies have been called truth. The transvaluation of all Values, this is my formula for mankind's greatest step towards coming to its senses-a step which in me became flesh and genius. My destiny ordained that I should be the first decent human being, and that I should feel myself opposed to the falsehood of millenniums. I was the first to discover truth..."

And without Darwin, it is unlikely there could have been a Neitzsche, or a Marx. Philosophical naturalism, ruling out the activity of God in history or nature, is what gives the philospher of atheisim, in all his stripes, the feeling of intellectual freedom he needs to range as far and wide as his heart desires, for life and existence then are all wide open spaces, hills and valleys and praries, for horse and rider, mind and the will to power, to be forever free.

Is there a primary appeal in that?

If the social-Darwinist suggests that all human behavior can be explained as a sort of competition to pass on our genes, then some of that behavior(particularly their own and that of myriad other philosophers compulsion to write and re-write volumes upon volumes year after year of endless speculation) then their own behavior and for many their plied trade and craft, is an attempt at preserving their own memory and legacy. To ensure, somehow, that they won't be forgotten. To pass on their intellectual genes and prowess in the form of words and ideas.

Jesus said that his teaching, was not his own, but His that sent him. And he added that, whoever speaks from himself, out of his own heart, mind, and human capacity and reason, is seeking their own glory.

One scholar says that this phrase 'seeking their own glory' could be said literally as 'the glow that is their own'.

Well, Marx had it right then didn't he? Take God away from the thought of man. And man can be his own true sun. He can shine, with the glow that is all his own.

Jesus added something else that I didn't mention there.

He said that whoever would do God's will, would know about his teaching, whether he was speaking of(from) himself.

Or from God.

He said it was God's will, for people to come to him.

But Jesus has a very lowly appearance. And he doesn't offer to anyone their own personal glory.

Something more marvelous, he offers to them to share in His own.

ChrisJD, aside from the historical pedigree you draw, all that I can glean from your last post, is that you disapprove of free thought and individualism. I'll grant however, that Social Darwinism is amoral and Nihilistic. Darwin himself deplored Social Darwinism, valuing social cooperation as more highly evolved.

anonymous777, I spoke of no onus, merely burden of evidence. Statements are speaker independent. And burden of evidence is in support of hypotheses is upon whichever explanatory hypotheses, not personalities, and upon specific positive assertions. (Again, you don't buy a specific color of paint to go touch up a house you haven't seen, simply because you don't know that it isn't that particular color. Rather, any such decision would have to come from whatever available positive knowledge regarding the likely color of said house.) All competing hypotheses must draw evidence from the same body of known evidence. But then they are all subject to such articles of critical preference as parsimony of explanation and standards of refutation, wherein Theism still does so poorly. The same Empirical evidence drawn upon in support for the existence of God, also fit and better with competing more viable hypotheses. For example, Meteorology still better explains weather than Theology. Not to mention that no particular religion is really any less fantastical than another. And never mind Theodicy. Therefore, denial howsoever motivated, is not the only explanation for Atheism. To begin with, there is sheer credulity. Many convertors to Atheism extol the great relief from the hypocrisy of pretence and intolerable pressure to find faith in repression of honest belief from evidence and reason.

Worse, while a merciful God might well conceivably forgive wrongdoing, how could a moral God at the same time ignore virtue instead to lay in wait to condemn even the most entirely honest and/or devout sectarian disagreement from compassionate Buddhists, neighborly Muslims and highly moral Atheists? The allegedly miraculous only obscures rather than better explaining morality, indeed often inspiring Moralism wherein morality in the abstract may become lost in wandering because of focus entirely upon purity of motivation, losing sight of concrete responsibility regarding reasonably foreseeable consequences together with moderation and fairness of accountability in the real world, that ought to be the focus of outwardly directed compassion and compunction. Such is another example of paralytic demands for impossible and unnecessary perfection. Faliblism instead allows for harm reduction that actually helps others.

Alive-to-God, Statement are indeed speaker independent. Their truth and validity or not, do not change like tomorrows headlines in 'Back to the Future' depending upon who makes the statement. That goes, by the same token, for the burden of evidence, that simply comes with whatever hypothesis, not as an onus upon any person.

Holy Euthyphro Dilemma, Batman! Jesus-is-GOD, your God and His so-called morality is entirely arbitrary and amoral. Without God, would there really be nothing to stop you from running out on a killing spree? And most of the world could hardly care less about your God or Devil, much less take up sides. The world runs upon cooperation and compromise between civil people who disagree. It is the black and white thinking of Manichaeism that renders conflict intractable.

Hi Aaron, and all, I hope it will be ok if I respond to something you mentioned to another member here.

"..while a merciful God might well conceivably forgive wrongdoing, how could a moral God at the same time ignore virtue instead to lay in wait to condemn even the most entirely honest and/or devout sectarian disagreement from compassionate Buddhists, neighborly Muslims and highly moral Atheists?"

I'm in a coffee shop right now and they are playing Bob Marley. Ever heard his song Get up Stand up? They are playing it now.

Part of the lyrics go like this:

We sick an' tired of-a your ism-skism game -
Dyin' 'n' goin' to heaven in-a Jesus' name, lord.
We know when we understand:
Almighty god is a living man.
You can fool some people sometimes,
But you can't fool all the people all the time.
So now we see the light (what you gonna do?),
We gonna stand up for our rights! (yeah, yeah, yeah! )

Catch that part... Almighty god is a living man.

Wow, is Marley saying that God is actually man?

I'm not sure, but if he was, man proves it otherwise, all the time.

See, as I understand it, our problem is not that we have not been good enough men, its that, being men, made in the image of God, we haven't been... are you ready...?

We haven't been, good like GOD.

The problem Aaron, as I understand it, isn't that we don't have moral capacity, or that, some of us, Christian, Jew, Atheist, or otherwise, don't use it exceptionally and live relatively good lives. The Bible says that some of us do(Romans 2:13-16).

The problem is, our goodness, doesn't measure up to God.

It's like what I was trying to say to you before. Man is a miserable measure for man. God has given to us one standard by which we can judge ourselves by His own goodness, and that standard is the life of Jesus Christ.

Is that an impossible standard? Yes it is. Everyone of us, including Buddah, Mohammed, Krishna, and every other human being has failed of that standard. I believe the Bible teaches that that is the unfortunate consequence of our having left the saftey of the Garden. Before that, we were in a state of innocence, and not obligated to anything except to not break the one Law that had been given to us(not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil). We were made in the image of God, but we were not God. And that was ok, so long as we remained in the saftey of the Garden.

But once we ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God said this of us:

"Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil"

We were still NOT God. But now, we would be obligated to live as He does. Not in a Garden of peace and satfey, but in a cursed world, soon to be populated with many other imperfect men and women, made in God's image, but who were not God either.

And it would show up bad.

It would show up every time we made a self-ish or self-centered decision. It would show up when we were confronted with loosing something we loved, or like with Cain, when we were confronted with our own wrong doing. His response was murder.

Our being made in God's image, but not being God ourselves, shows up everytime we are confronted with divine pressures in this world and life.

I think of it this way: an image of a bridge may look like the real thing, untill you try driving cars over it. Their weight would crush it. And so the divine pressures of this life unfailingly put stress upon us untill our own image shows through, and we fail to reflect the image and glory of God.

This has been true of every one of us. Except Jesus Christ.

Though He is fully human, the Bible says of Him something that is says of no other human being, ever. It says,

... He is THE IMAGE of God. And it showed in His life.

He passed every test and bore the weight of every divine pressure in this life, with no cracks, no fractures, no hint that what He was on the inside, could not stand the pressure and bare the weight. Because, as John says of Him, He is the reality, He's the 'thing' itself. He's not an image of a bridge, He's the bridge itself. And He alone could bare the weight of living as a man, as God.

Bob Marley says "Almighty god is a living man".

No, not any living man. He's THE LIVING MAN, who died as a criminal for the sins of men, who was raised from the dead because HE had no sin of his own.

Brothertom:

And I might add...the the church has never been called to debate the gospel, but to preach the gospel. Truth has no compromise or dialogue..it is either accepted or rejected, believed or not believed; It stands on it's own.

This is key - God IS, pure and simple, and all Truth comes from this central, and pivotal, core point. There is no argument, no 'reasoning' or anything else that can stand against him. It may well try to stand against our arguments, but not against the truth of Christ in us the hope of glory, the reality of the presence of God in our lives. God's existence does not depend upon our ability to reasonably explain or argue his existence. He was in the beginning, is now, and evermore shall be.

Yes, Alive-to-God, apart from such pragmatically selfish inconvenience. And whereas Pelagianism though still lamentably perfectionist instead of faliblist, nevertheless seems to offer Psychological alternative to the even cynical Theistic claims that only love or worse obedience or worse still amoral terror of God, can human conduct towards one another be improved, the Euthyphro Dilemma is meta-ethical: Theism purports to rebut moral relativism, but inexorably runs aground upon the shoals of the Euthyphro Dilemma because Divine Command Theory appears only to render the content of morality entirely arbitrary. If morality simply depends upon God’s decision what to make commandment, as you maintain, Alive-to-God, then how can God’s decision thereupon be informed by morality? Surely, morality as the dictate of God would be entirely arbitrary and hence amoral unless there is any reason, at least such as would be known even only to God. Would sheer malice become a virtue hypothetically if it amused God to so declare? Surely, that would render morality entirely arbitrary and thus amoral! Or is God, as the epitome of morality, bound from doing or saying anything so evil? If so, then morality as a principle transcends even God. Or else as an intrinsic aspect of God, then remains mysterious. No matter which way to slice it, Theism, the assertion of the existence of God or gods, simply does not explain morality. Hence, any punishment and reward system, bribes and threats of the Appeal to Force logical falsity aside, asserting that God is the source of morality explains nothing about morality whatsoever. Indeed, if there is a God, then, as Sartre observed, man must be freer than God, because man can sin. Again, an ultimately good God would actually have to be bound by morality, making moral principle primary even beyond God. What does it mean at all, then, to assert that God is the source of morality? Just how does that work? What does it even mean to assert that morality is supernatural? No, none of that really makes much sense.

ChrisJD, let us suppose as has often been proposed, that compelling evidence and reasoning in conclusive support of the existence of God, would only destroy the opportunity for antirational faith. If even God cannot save the unbeliever, or more precisely, even God cannot save except by faith, then God is not to blame for the damnation of even the most virtuous unbeliever. But such circumstances are extolled as the will of God, making such a God more of a Devil laying in wait to punish virtuously honest differences of opinion.

Innocence is so often overrated, and I for one never mourn the loss of innocence, the mythic fall from Eden. By contrast, the legend of Prometheus finds humanity not in any garden paradise, but miserable, grubby, dank and cold. By the theft and gift of fire, Prometheus symbolically liberates humanity from helpless ignorance and overrated innocence. The fire is a more positive symbol than the apple, for the dawning of the rational adult ego state from which rational interpretation of reality, consciousness of past and future, and hence scenario planning and purposeful strategy, even meaning and question, all ensue, opening the way to uncertainty, freedom and responsible autonomy. Indeed, I do not seek sainthood in specific any more than infallible impossible and unnecessary complete certainty in general. Faliblism offers hope that is not utterly unreasonable, pride that need not be vainglory, and perhaps even perspective at all of humility, or more precisely, merely of moderation and proportion, but without call to demeaning mortification. The loss of innocence does not inflict impossible and unnecessary demands for purity and perfection, but only the need of fair and even minimal responsibility in light of reasonably foreseeable consequences. That is how faliblism vastly reduces Existential anxieties. For wont of faliblism, you are simply so tough on yourself, that you then give up completely as an imperfect human being. It is from faliblism that you have everything real to gain. One can still be religious and faliblist, if only faliblism is deemed pleasing to God who created fallible humans in order to bequeath us free will burdened by compassion only with realistic responsibilities. That God is simply pleased by sincere effort and the passion of uncertainty, for Him alone impossible. That such faith is a gift, but not of knowledge as such, hope at all without the snares of wishful thinking and self-deception.

Menderofnets, Brothertom, since you both so commend faith, the more innocent and mindless the better, over reason, indoctrination over education, preaching over argument, confound you then that all religions alike do preach and preach and preach! The elephant in the room yet remains, in that other religions claim absolute certitude no differently than Christianity, and that they too can always explain away the claims, both scriptural cannon and personal; experiences of their competitor religions including Christianity, likewise as the work of deceiving spirits and whatnot, all much the same. So the begged question remains: How and why then, should any religion be deemed any more credible than the other, save by circuitous reasoning under special pleadings? Regardless of the different paths to salvation extolled by different religions, they all claim the same certitude of each their own dogmas and promises of salvation. Moreover, such certainty, such dogmatism, is a factor in the intractability of conflict, and falibliism is the only escape. Even though, incidentally, Christianity and Islam being related, actually agree that genuine repentance is crucial to salvation before God, for whatever that might be worth.

Hi Aaron,

I'm in wholehearted agreement with what Areadymind has written about how man's moral goodness 'falls short of God's glory'. I know that earlier you had written something in response to what Brother Tom had written. Tom had been writing about how he mistrusts himself, and you had encouraged him to be more positive about himself, so to speak. I believe that one thing the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ does, is it frees us from the illusions we naturally tend to have about 'our greatness'. Naturally all of us tend to pamper our own flesh and to assure ourselves about how good we really are- especially compared to others. (I'm certainly talking about me- outside of Christ's grace). But the illusion of our greatness is a hard burden to carry, because inside part of us knows that this isn't really true. So we either need to be honest and agree with God about what we're really like inside, or carry on the illusion and like Adam and Eve we metaphorically sew fig leaves to hide the nakedness this is really there.

Last night, my wife was sharing with someone about a little object lesson she thought up to describe how our standards of 'goodness' compare to God's standards of 'absolute perfection' or holiness :

'Imagine you go to Burger King and you order a Whopper to whet your appetite. You take a bite of this marvellously crafted burger and find it very satisfying, until suddenly to your dismay, you find your eye drawn to a 'fly' that had somehow found its way into your burger. So you head up to the counter with box in hand, and show the burger to the cashier, asking for a refund or, if nothing else another burger. To your shock and dismay, however, she reacts in a cavalier fashion and replies," Sure there's a little fly in there, but look there are also luscious red tomatoes, and salty green pickles, not to mention the juicy burger itself, grilled to perfection". This illustrates how 'our good works', as much as they may seem good to us, are not, to a God whose standard of goodness is nothing short of 'perfection'. That's why the prophet Isaiah wrote that, "our righteousness is as filthy rags."

Also wanted to touch on another topic, I believe you had brought up earlier- the theory of Evolution. It seems that for many people the fact that animals show 'adaptation' is proof of Evolution, namely the idea that one species can evolve into another species, over time. However, there is nothing about the fact that rabbits change colour to adapt to the prevailing environmental conditions of Winter, as compared to those of summer, that suggests that birds arose from lizards, or that ultimately humans came from chimps and before that, lower creatures, starting with amoebas.

My friend, I hope you continue to wrestle with 'the big questions'; the really important ones that relate to God (and our accountability to Him).

Take care,
John

BrotherTom:
There are those who are able to clearly explain and articulate reasons for their belief. Others point to the experience of the Presence of God in their lives.

What would we rather have? Sound doctrine or the Presence of God in the lives of people?

The evidence of the condition of the Church can, sadly, tend to the first and away from the second, seeking to rationise Him into our own ways and means of understanding, rather than seeking Him in His glory.

live4jc, I believe that I merely invited Tom to unburden himself unless that would be presumptuous of me. Without more, one can only guess at how I might have any further responded. But if there is a God, then why else would God, the ultimate embodiment of benevolence, create human imperfection unless first calling it good, seen by the Lord as valuable in its own right? Strength of character at all, even howsoever imperfect, remains a human treasure. So if God is faliblist, is not God glorified simply by sincere effort? After all, it is a truism that we can often be the harder upon ourselves than the always understanding God. The honesty of faliblisim is key to reducing inner tension and hypocrisy.

And Evolution is an explanatory scheme in order to account for adaptive variance and speciation. As to what observations naively or a'priori suggest what hypotheses, that is subjective and fairly moot. Conjecture is always unfounded, only thereafter subject first to critical preference and thence Empirical reality testing. It is in that light that Evolution or any other testable theory must withstand attempts at refutation and competition with other viable hypotheses, if any.

"But if there is a God, then why else would God, the ultimate embodiment of benevolence, create human imperfection unless first calling it good, seen by the Lord as valuable in its own right?"

Good concerning the original creation means, complete, not lacking anything.

Man was complete as he was made in the Garden. He lacked nothing that he needed to live in the paradise he was given.

Once out of it, he lacked everything he would need, to live as God.

God did not call Adam's imperfection and inadaquacy to live as God in a fallen world, 'good'. He called His creation as He made it, complete.

The time for our moral character to shine(and be commended if it could) was in the Garden, when our parents were confronted with the choice, under the best conditions possible. They lacked nothing: not companionship, not food, not shelter, not God's direction.

Since then, what has been needed is not sincere effort(as good as that is sometimes) but something greater than ourselves.

Enter Jesus Christ.

The Lord Jesus Christ, Who the Bible calls 'The Second Adam', faced a much more serious test than Adam. And He passed!

Adam's test was human.

Christ's test was divine.

Adam was tested in a garden paradise, lacking nothing.

Christ was tested in a desert wilderness, with an empty stomach for 40 days, alone. And that was just the beginning. For every moment of His life after, the Divine quality of His personality and being would be on trial, and would be subjected to every effort the Devil could make... to make it crack.

And it held. Gloriously.

Up to the moment when His sweat became as great drops of blood. And when He said of His enemies, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do".

Aaron, personally, I do believe that God considers the sincere effort of men in His decisions about them.

But I believe He has offered us something tremendously beyond ourselves.

The grace of Himself.

"Innocence is so often overrated, and I for one never mourn the loss of innocence"

I heard a young girl talking on the bus today. She was talking to someone across from her about the fights she had been in, and one in particular where she told the other girl that she had many places she could hide her dead body. Among other things that she mentioned, was how most of the people in her school would not know how she hated them, because she would conceal it, unless they did or said something to her she didn't like. And how she hadn't wanted to stand on the stage with her graduating class, because she hated them so much.

You know what I thought?

She didn't care about the loss of her innocence either.

Not only that, but she probably had many reasons, and many thoughts in her mind, why she was right to think and be and do as she did.

Solomon said that all the ways of man are clean in their own eyes. But the Lord examines our hearts.

And that most every man will proclaim... are you ready?

His own goodness.

Who needs innocence, when your good anyway.

Only the sick need a physician.

"Regardless of the different paths to salvation extolled by different religions, they all claim the same certitude of each their own dogmas and promises of salvation."

It's been rightly said that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

John said he saw Jesus Christ die by Roman execution on a cross.

He said he was buried in a tomb.

He said he saw Jesus Christ alive again.

The level of claims and purported evidence is much the same in most every religion and most every scripture or cannon, and the standards of evidence as low, the special pleadings all much alike.

Innocence is irrecoverable, and the struggle for the counterfeit a fruitless, introverted narcissistic and often oppressively puritanical and judgmental preoccupation. Indeed, it's not like you even seem to care what that girl on the bus was so angry about and hurting. Not dogma but sheer human curiosity is the agent of compassion and opportunity for any sort of grace of much worldly good. Therefore, put childish innocence behind you. Just be a mensch! Then again, she does sound pretty rotten, concieted and stuck up, superior and perfectionist. I bet she doesn't subscribe to falibilism any more than you!

When it comes to such saintly serenity, the genuine article is very rare. Statistically, it seems that the process mostly fails and even backfires. Indeed, the posters on this forum seem as troubled as anyone else. After all, people are different and often each may stir to different callings entirely. One size does not fit all.

Aaron,

You're dying!

What will you say to God when you breathe your last breath in this world and come face to face with your Creator?

Please answer the question.

Hi everyone.

"...it's not like you even seem to care what that girl on the bus was so angry about and hurting"

Dear Aaron(I hope it is ok if I address you that way),

I hope that you will not believe that I do not care why that girl was angry and hurting as she was. You are right to mention it because there are so many things that can hurt us in this world through no fault of our own.

As I was thinking of what you wrote today I remembered a story that the pastor that I mentioned before had told. He was from Romania and the Communists had come and taken over his country. One evening after coming home from being with his congregation he had a strong urge to go to a nearby tavern(no it was not to drink!). His wife objected to it as what would it look like for the pastor to go to the tavern but he insisted that he had to go. He didn't know why.

When he and his wife arrived it became more appearant. A Russian army officer was there, waving a pistol around, and drinking heavily.

After an exchange between them they three sat down at a table. The army officer explained who he was and why he was there waving the pistol around.

He had been a Russian Orthodox priest before the Communists came to power and in order to save his own life, he had betrayed his own congregation. He had even killed, as I recall it, Christians. And now, he drank. And drank. And drank. To forget what he had done. But he couldn't.

And so pastor Wurmbrand explained to him who he was, how he was a pastor and so on. And he spoke to him about Christ. He asked him if he still believed in Christ and God and he said he did. He said he knew about all of it, and he even believed that Jesus could forgive others. Just not him. For nothing could God ever forgive him for what he had done. It was too much.

So the pastor asked him if he remembered the creed. And he did. And going through it, they came to part that says:

I believe in the forgiveness of sins.

The pastor pointed out to him how it does not say only some sins, or a certain amount of sins, but I believe, it says, in the forgiveness of sins.

Something happened to the army captain as he repeated that.

And soon with joy he was repeating it:I believe in the forgiveness of sins.

I know Aaron you may not believe that story has anything to do with any actuall forgiveness. I understand that.

But we do believe in the forgiveness of sins and it is one reason why we try to tell other people about it. And why we do also care for people and why they are the way they are. We care and we believe, it can all be changed.

May God bless you my friend.

It occurs to me that Jesus might have more sympathy for Atheism that one might imagine. Jesus recommends private piety, and warns against exhibitions of religiosity. Therefore, at all virtuous Atheists striving and accounting to themselves, might win some praise from the child prodigy scholar and youngest ever qualified Rabi. After all, a Jew is commended to occupy the mind with justice.

ChrisJD, the power in the psyche of understanding and forgiveness is quite evident but with or without religion.

Savannah, of course in last gasp terror I might imagine and say anything. So I will take your question to be, in all consideration, hypothetically putting aside such inevitable duress, what would I say to God under such circumstances? Nothing. But then what would I say, hypothetically, upon finally meeting Him? Well, first of all, I'd be surprised of course! But tautologically, there'd be nothing for me to say that God would not already know. He'd even know all of my questions the more clearly than I myself. But unlike you folks, I do not pretend to know better than God what God knowing me better than I know myself, ought to say to me. I will not argue in that vacuum.

No Alive-to-God, what you say is not in keeping with faliblism, because your answer to inevitable error and ignorance of personal shortcoming or misdeed, is not error detection as best we may, but recourse mythic infallibility. And how's that working for you? Imperfectly, oh mere mortal? I thought so. But maybe that's okay.

Just as Keizer Wilhelm felt himself justified in sinking Allied shipping, because he did warn us after all, in a full page add in the new York Times, no less, likewise: "God is completely justified in damning them for their unbelief, because He has made a way they can be saved, and they rejected it." -after God, according to your account, gave us sheer credulity and then hid the evidence in an alternate dimension accessible only by altered states or ideations indistinguishable from wishful thinking, and amid a range of similarly fantastical competing religions! Yeah, your God's a real laugh riot! Seriously, in its own right, why would honest disagreement be immoral unto damnation? Can you really be so surprised that so many decent people find your views depraved and morally offensive? Your mythic God actually punishes compassion and righteousness along with rationality and credulity. And this bespeaks not the beatitude and grace that you so desperately crave. You are in the grips of hypocrisy and irresponsible infaliblism. Faliblism is your only escape. And I call your position antirational because of what Brothertom posted: "You cannot argue faith, or reason it out." This is a rejection of reason and of systematic doubt. If that's not antirational and barking mad, then what is? Rationality and rationalism do not take a backseat to supernatural faith in pursuit of truth.

Do you not maintain that God is good and moral? Please clarify. If God is utterly amoral, then perhaps the Euthyphro Dilemma becomes moot. But what if, as you suggest, righteousness is substituted for morality, however the two might be distinguished? In that case, it would seem the dilemma remains the same. And preaching for a God who discourages people from thinking too much about righteousness, ought to raise alarm. Are, for example, Atheism or Homosexuality unrighteous simply because God so ordains? Could God, if it so amused Him, decide that child rape, torture and murder is righteous? Or does God according to his own righteous nature, condemn violence and abuse, because they are already unrighteous? And in that case then, what is unrighteous about Atheism and Homosexuality? Does God at least answer to Himself?

You answer is by recourse to analogy with trees. But your analogy immediately falls apart so quickly that you do not actually say anything about morality or righteousness at all. To say that both radio towers and mountain peaks can look a bit like trees, and that mountain peaks would make imposing trees, says very little about radio towers! Sin is yet another question entirely, let alone redemption by whatever formula. Although, personally, the best I've heard might be simple Existential disgust.

Prompting and foundation entirely distinct. Anything can be a prompt or motivation. That's no problem. How is the honesty of falibilism a compromise? Because you claim to have better? Bah humbug! And I still do not know what the word 'fact' means, or what you mean. All I see is that now you are simply throwing the word around, in order to avoid giving account. And that's typical usage indeed!

"It occurs to me that Jesus might have more sympathy for Atheism that one might imagine. Jesus recommends private piety, and warns against exhibitions of religiosity. Therefore, at all virtuous Atheists striving and accounting to themselves, might win some praise from the child prodigy scholar and youngest ever qualified Rabi. After all, a Jew is commended to occupy the mind with justice."

My apologizes for hopping in here but I read this and hope to bring some kind of understanding. This would be incorrect, a virtuous Atheist is just as bad as a virtuous religious type. Just as a Virtuous Atheist would be just as bad as a terrible religious person. Why?

It's simple, Christianity isn't about morality or how virtuous you can be or become in this life. Its about who you put your hope and trust. If you believe being a virtuous atheist will give you some small glimmer of hope of pity you would be incorrect in your thinking because the bible clearly states what mans "virtuous efforts or good works" are to God, ie "Filthy Rags" or to be more to the point menstraul rags or if you want to be more modern a used Maxipad or tampon.

That is how much indebt we are when it comes to sin that even our best efforts can't pay the cost of our sin. That is the point of Christ Jesus, He died on the cross and infinitely paid the price of Death for the whole world IF they would only believe and trust on His life giving work. Faith in that should lead to virtuous living because it should flow from a heart of gratitude and love for the One that died for you and me.

Again a Christians salvation is based SOLELY on Faith and the Grace of God who sent His son to die and His work on the Cross for our sins. Virtue and morality have nothing to do with it because we can't possibly be good enough to save ourselves, we are infinitely lost and dead without Christ Jesus.

AaronAgassi,

I am praying for a Holy Spirit encounter for you my friend. No amount of knowledge will bring you to the Lord, only experiencing the living God will do. Been there as well my friend.

May the Lord give you dreams and visions tonight. May He touch you and reveal Himself to you.

Blessings to you Aaron.

mguldner, you express a Christian view not unreminiscent of similar amoral mystical traditions likewise rejecting morality and immorality as worldly dross. Indeed, even Nietzsche partakes in this tradition. Nevertheless, when Christianity began to win a reputation for a shameless cycle of easy redemption followed by renewed sinning, doctrine changed in demanding not only repentance in the embrace of Christ, but any hope at all of reformed conduct as demonstration of true repentance. We are imperfect, but what are we if we don't even try? Faith without works? In the words of Periyar (E.V) Ramasami “Devotion is nothing but one’s private asset. But morality is a public asset. If there is no devotion nothing is lost. But if there is no morality, everything is lost”

Indeed Miccah, if you rely upon prayer alone, then why even mention it?

I never said, we don't try, what I mean is the attitude of the heart changes (repentance or a change of mind/heart)and the very root is simple belief and trust. What has changed you may ask? It moves from saving ones self, to desiring change and lifestyle out of gratitude towards God because you love Him and His wonderous work on the Cross. True Belief will spark this kind of gratitude and Love. I don't place any trust or hope in myself or my good works but everything I do is for God out of Love, not so I will be saved but because He has saved me.

The only difference between an Virtuous Atheist and a Religious person is one simply claims to know something they really don't know or understand while the other simply denies such a beings existance. Please refer to Matthew 7:22-23 for such an example. Many will say before God wasn't I a good person? Didn't I do enough good works? and Christ will respond "I don't even know you." this is the basis of Salvation to Know Christ, and in order for that to be possible one has to believe He exist and is indeed the Son of the Living God and His work of the Cross is their salvation.

There are many devout villains, and many changes of heart that need not be Christian or even religious. And if even I can recognize that, why would not an Omnipotent God? Many religions identically and intolerantly claim the exclusive path to salvation. Would you truly damn Gandhi for not being Christian, and then praise Torquemada for his Christian piety? Bah, humbug!

I would deny both as saved, Gandhi didn't put his faith in Christ Jesus for his salvation, and Torquemada was catholic and so likely never did either. Also Murder isn't Christian piety so I will agree with your Bah, humbug. Yet another point my "devotion" doesn't save me either but again my belief in Christ Jesus. I am devouted out of Gratitude because I believe Christ Jesus is who He says He is The Son of God and that the Work He says he did is sufficient for my Salvation based on Faith and His Wonderous Grace.

How at all any less dogmatic and arbitrary than any other savior figure or path to salvation?

All other presummable paths to salvation rely solely on the works of its followers, even you saw some kind of theorical hope for the "virtuous" atheist. But for the Christian Christ did it all on the Cross, all that is required is Faith and belief in Christ Jesus and His work on the Cross and God's Grace (unmerited favor). But again correct understanding of God's gratitude and grace he has shown us will express a life of gratitude and love toward the Father and Son.

Aaron wrote:

when Christianity began to win a reputation for a shameless cycle of easy redemption followed by renewed sinning, doctrine changed in demanding not only repentance in the embrace of Christ, but any hope at all of reformed conduct as demonstration of true repentance.

You make an excellent point here: when easy redemption is followed by renewed sinning. I have seen it as well and it is a tragedy. But this is not God's way. Redemption means a life will be changed from the inside out: it becomes new. Unfortunately very few who claim to be born again aren't. These people say a few words and hope that God will spare them from an eternity spent in hellfire. They are hypocrites of the worst sort.

Aaron, a person's morals is an outgrowth of his walk with God.

You speak of atheists being moral: in my limited contact with atheists, I have never seen a moral one. The ones I have met are so self-absorbed to render themselves obnoxious. They love to fight against something they think does not exist. If this is true then they are the most blinded of all persons: why fight something that does not exist?

On one hand you deny the existence of facts or question its meaning, yet you post as though what you are saying is factual!!!!

Hey Aaron,

I never said that I rely on prayer only. As I do understand that experiences are a factor as well. Hence why I posted what I did.

Still praying for the same for you my friend. :-)

mnguldner, again, all other exclusive religionists use identical rhetoric claiming the uniqueness of their preferred savior figure. They all say: Ours is different because it's true! Ours is different because of particular details we hold to be key! And so on. But the claims of truth are all circuitous, rendering whatever claimed uniqueness little more that a matter of preference in mythology and parable.
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ginnyrose, have you browsed my www.FoolQuest.com/metaphysics_for_dummies.htm#fact yet? What I have actually said is that realized that I do not know what the very word: 'fact' means, when I realized that different people use the word so differently for entirely different denotation, without realizing that none of them are actually talking about5 the same thing at all. The word: 'fact' is used so interchangeably with a range of other different words that themselves are simply not synonymous. Indeed, I have no idea how you are using the word: 'fact' on this very forum. But we seem to be in agreement about the inconsistent results of Christian redemption. I might also hazard that individual results might not be entirely binary, but only partially helpful at any given time, even if one strives for progress and to do better over time. And if you eyes are open, you must observe other people getting at all good results heeding other calls upon other paths. -None the least, for example, Gay Christians. And if you do ever meet even one compassionate and conscientious Atheist, then as even one example, even a single proverbial black swan, constitutes refutation, you might reconsider. Indeed, unless I am mistaken, history records that Darwin was a highly principled individual and even a kind hearted fellow at all. Certainly Rationalism and Atheism historically are fueled by humanistic moral outrage with abuse in the name of God and worship of an unjust God as might inspire such inequity. Indeed, I confess that hypothetically I might find some difficulty forgiving a God who damns even the most righteous Pagans, Infidels and Free Thinkers, all simply for failing, even in entire sincerity, to embrace one seemingly fantastical evidentiarily arbitrary creed amongst so many. And I am hardly alone.

Indeed Miccah, who knows what experiences might finally open even your mind to reality.

Hi everyone.

"...again, all other exclusive religionists use identical rhetoric claiming the uniqueness of their preferred savior figure. They all say: Ours is different because it's true! Ours is different because of particular details we hold to be key! And so on."

Aaron this just isn't so.

I've repeated this to you several times:

John said he saw Jesus Christ die by Roman execution on a cross.

He said Jesus was buried in a tomb.

He said he saw Jesus Christ alive again.

Aaron, there is nothing in those claims that has any similarity with any religous of philosophical leader past or present.

John says that Jesus Christ is alive today.

Not different because its true.

True, because He is alive.

Your arguments are with Him.

Nothing you say addresses the claims of other exclusive religions, identical to Christianity in whatever their claims to exclusive truth of what they likewise regard as key points of doctrine indeed as might vary even howsoever broadly or slightly.

All claim exclusive truth. All point to points of doctrine held to be key. Yet the differences however great or small, must be deemed moot until truth is established. But all fall back upon faith and circuitous reasoning all just the same. In the Epistemological desiderata of error detection towards sorting out any one true faith, Christianity is exactly the same.

"Nothing you say addresses the claims of other exclusive religions"

Ohh Aaron, but it does. And not only their claims, but all of our own, you, me, and everyone else.

It's the most all-encompasing event in history.

Spoken to us by the One Who is the Reality.

AaronAgassi wrote:

Indeed Miccah, who knows what experiences might finally open even your mind to reality.

Isn't that the truth. That is exactly what happened to me. The Lord opened my eyes and my mind to the truth and the only reality that there truly is. This was a little over 6 years ago.

Looks like we agree. :-) Blessings Aaron!

Aaron, I just looked at your website and I will tell you it looks boring. Now this is a fact. Can you understand my definition of fact? The fact is there is nothing there that will even motivate me to study it. I scanned it but consider it a waste of time. Is this a fact? I will let you decide. In any case I still consider it boring!

Now, I gave you a tiny example of what fact is where I am. Does this make sense?

"...Rationalism and Atheism historically are fueled by humanistic moral outrage with abuse in the name of God and worship of an unjust God as might inspire such inequity"

Hi everyone, I wanted to come back to this because it is something that you hear quite a bit.

Karl Marx, who is responsible for what is today called Communisim, said this relating to what Aaron suggested,

"The criticism of religion ends with the teaching that man is the highest essence for man – hence, with the categoric imperative to overthrow all relations in which man is a debased, enslaved, abandoned, despicable essence"

Marx's philosophy gave his followers an imperative that did not play out as he suggested it would. Instead, wherever the world has been painted red by the millitant atheist followers of Karl Marx, it has been bathed in blood. Human blood and untold human suffering.

Pastor Wurmbrand, who spent 14 years in Communist Prisions described it this way:

"...they had taken away from us everything, even our names. We were nothing - they did with us what they liked...They trod you under their feet. We were nothing. And we had nothing."

Instead of elevating man, atheistic philosophies have elevated those who have acted upon them to positions of power while crushing the masses under their own feet. If anything, they have elevated a few men to the status of diety among their followers and enshrined them within the cult of personality.

Like Marx said, removing God from man's thinking makes man "his own true sun", and the cult personalities that have led them have not objected to being that 'sun' and object of worship.

Yes, the bloody and the powerhungry have used religion and even Christianity as a cloak to disguise themselves while they have commited their crimes. But the mass-murder of millions under Athiestic regeims needed no cloak, their garments were red with blood to begin with.

Neitche claimed to have killed god.

He also said of himself, "I know my destiny. There will come a daywhen my name will recall the memory of some-
thing formidable--a crisis the like of which has never been known on earth, the memory of the most profound clash of consciences, and the passing of a sentence upon all that which theretofore had been believed, exacted, and hallowed. I am not a man, I am dynamite."

Instead of being a place where criminals have had to hide and conceal their true intentions under religous pretense, athiestic philosophies and the houses they have built have been places where theives and murderers can do their dirt in the light of day.

All with the ultimate good of mankind close in their hearts. Of course.

Whenever genuine followers of Jesus Christ have been brutalised by these oppressive systems, they have also shined. And shown to a skeptical world what Christ gave to them to follow. And they have even won some of their torturers and executioners to Jesus, so that those who were murderers, risked their lives to save the people the formerly put to death.

What other athiests could have won them too is not appearant. At least not to me.

ChrisJD, you address none of my reasons for or explanations how you fail to address my point of how the rhetoric of different evangelical exclusive religions is so much the same pretzel logic.

ginnyrose, such would be a prediction or an intention. If that is how you employ the word: 'fact' then I can understand why you remain so confidently confused.

ChrisJD, isn't Marx something of a straw man here? Nevertheless, if there is any sympathy left for Marx, it's for his choice of grave inequities and abuses to challenge, which remains relevant. Jesus was also a Communist after all. Both Christian and Marxist brands of Manichean Moralistic infaliblist dogmatic prudery have failed catastrophically in their turn. It is to science and democracy amongst fruits of faliblism to which we owe civilized progress, neither service to fantastical Gods of intolerance nor their secular cousins amongst equally fanatical ideologies.

Hi Aaron,

"...isn't Marx something of a straw man here?"

No, Marx is not a straw man, just one in a long list of athiests responsible for mass-murder and torture in this world. They put into practice the creed which is as much Satanic as it is athiestic, 'do as you will', or as one athiest put it, 'no gods, no masters'.

Human reason is the athiest's dogma and opinion is his golden rule because he alone is the measure for himself, and anyone else that offers another measure besides that is just one self-guided autonomaton chiding another.

Christianity is not anti-rational, it is supra-rational.

It begins with a rationality that decesnds from Eternity, down to man. James calls it the wisdom from above and Paul says it is 'Christ Jesus' our wisdom, which none of the princes of this world knew, for had they known it, they would not have crucified the LORD of Glory.

Man cannot rise above what he worships. And man, using only earthly wisdom and human reason, can't go any higher than the top of his own head.

No wonder then that so many athiest demi-gods are worshiped in their cult of personality.

Jesus alone takes men higher.

But you have to get low first in order to see Him

ginnyrose, such would be a prediction or an intention. If that is how you employ the word: 'fact' then I can understand why you remain so confidently confused.

Ok, so I presented by opinion as fact. Yet you do likewise and consider yourself superior.

You know what? when God spoke to man through his prophets he used language that is simple, to the point and wastes no words. When man works to discount God's word they usually become very wordy, confusing the listener. Job had friends like that. Eventually, God spoke to them and informed them that they have kindled his wrath and have not spoken what is right. Then God told them to take animals for a burnt offering to Job and that he will pray for them. Wonder how humiliating that was for them?

Truth is not subjective; it just IS. Many religions have risen claiming to be the embodiment of truth, but all of their founders have died - grave yard dead and they rotted and stank. Not so with Jesus. He, too, died but resurrected, unlike all the other founders of religions. Most, if not all, of the founders of other religions can point to a grave that holds the body of their founder. Not so with Christianity: there is a grave but it is empty! Hence, His credibility: he lives!

Is Atheism a creed, any more than not playing chess is a hobby? Should Christianity be held to account for Aztec human sacrifice? After all, they’re both religions! ChrisJD, if you are at all acquainted with historicism etc., you know perfectly well that Marx was not a faliblist. Indeed, faliblism was Popper's rejection of infaliblist Utopist ideologies especially Communism.

You claim exclusive infallible truth, suprarationaly, transcending the rational, down from on high. That is a gigantic special pleading of blanket exemption from rational accountability and therefore antirational and barking mad. Indeed your justification is sheer stubborn refusal to embrace the human condition of imperfection and uncertainty. God is on your side, and you can't be mistaken about persecuting Gays and oppressing reproductive rights. Really, you should understand that the commandment of no gods and no masters anciently came in the name of YAHWEH: http://www.counterpunch.org/estabrook03292005.html And thinking for oneself ought to follow as corollary.

Sometimes it's the little words that sow confusion, Ginnyrose. Indeed, I do not know if I present opinion as fact, because I still do not know what the very word: 'fact' even means. What I can tell is that all assertions, Ontological statements such as employing the verb: 'to be', are, tautologically and inevitably, both opinion and claims of truth. Such is the fallible human condition. Indeed, truth is correspondence to reality in assertions, and reality is objective not subjective. But knowledge, being fallible awareness of truth, is always open to question.

And incidentally, Jesus is hardly the first mythic religious founder claimed to have overcome death.

Hi Aaron,

"Certainly Rationalism and Atheism historically are fueled by humanistic moral outrage with abuse in the name of God and worship of an unjust God as might inspire such inequity"

I mentioned Karl Marx again because you said this above. Though he criticised religion, though he and others may have been moraly outraged by the abuses of religion in the name of God, he and his followers have bathed the Earth in blood in the name of militant atheism. Atheism has lit the fires of religous persecution and murder all over the Earth. And wherever genuine Christians have suffered by their hands, they have also had something to offer them as an alternative, something that could change them from monsters, into even saviours of men. I'm not sure what atheists of other stripes besides marxists(of which there are millions), have offered them. Maybe you know what they did to get them to put down their guns and stop murdering whole familes and nations.

Aaron,

"You claim exclusive infallible truth, suprarationaly, transcending the rational, down from on high. That is a gigantic special pleading of blanket exemption from rational accountability and therefore antirational and barking mad."

On the one hand you have said that absolute certainty is the mark of arrogant madness, yet you keep arguing with people you call 'barking mad', and this you assert, absolutely, without a hint of doubt.

Are we the ones that need a straight-jacket Aaron? Or is the philosophy you are holding on to tightening around you the more you kick and struggle at us?

"Really, you should understand that the commandment of no gods and no masters anciently came in the name of YAHWEH"

Worship is an expression of worth. And worship is instictive in human beings. When the atheist said 'no gods and no masters' it was not to exclude worship, just worship in the name of everything that is called God or master; it was to exclude the worship of God in order to make room for the worship of themselves through the exhaltaion of their minds and wills. Personal freedom is their sacred revelation and personal gratification their sweet savor of incense.

"And incidentally, Jesus is hardly the first mythic religious founder claimed to have overcome death."

Aaron, Jesus was aware of the claims of impostors before him(John 10:8).

Trying to resurrect dead stories that died out long ago because they never had any living fire to begin with in order to obscure the abiding testimony of Jesus Christ which has changed the World forever is like trying to throw dead coals on a live one in order to smother it.

Satan and this world with him have throw every concievable insult, assult, shame, ignominy, lie, deciet, trick, accusation, obfuscation, power and ploy against the testimony of Jesus Christ and IT CONTINUES TO BURN.

Determining where that fire comes from is a deeply personal matter, between that Fire and us.

Not to anyone in particular, I just wanted to point something out that Aaron said. Hopefully my fellow believers will understand what I'm getting at...

You claim exclusive infallible truth, suprarationaly, transcending the rational, down from on high. That is a gigantic special pleading of blanket exemption from rational accountability and therefore antirational and barking mad. Indeed your justification is sheer stubborn refusal to embrace the human condition of imperfection and uncertainty. God is on your side, and you can't be mistaken about PERSECUTING GAYS AND OPPRESSING REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS.

Perhaps this is the real reason he bucks against the spurs? Because personal "rights" are at stake?

Multiple times he has implied or said that we are mad. If so why argue with insane people? It's the same as going down to the asylum finding someone who thinks the sun isn't real and arguing with them. You can't argue with an insane person. It. Just. Doesn't. Work. So why continue to argue with us if, because we believe in absolute truth or a super-rational God, we are insane. Because personal "rights" are at stake.
So lets get down to the heart of the issue, why don't you want there to be a God?

Yes Veronica226, civil rights are a substantive matter at stake, and I mentioned religious intolerance in context of humanistic moral outrage as an historical motivation of Atheism as indeed ought to give pause to any human conscience.

Alive-to-God, Atheism may indeed be associated with individualism, but as we can see, also with humanism. Indeed, the mere absence of Theism allows any range of parameters. Whereas religions and ideologies though they may claim to be all about togetherness are often somewhat conditional and monolithic whereas true friendship needs to be more open to difference.

"The testimony of men from the beginning of time is that they did know when God had communicated with them. We can tell they knew, because they either replied to Him, or, did something He had asked them to do. By this we are sure they were sure." Such testimony is hardly unique to Christianity.

I refer to honest disagreement. You reply, what: Disagreement with God about the nature of God in the very face of God? Not quite. That is sophistry. You know perfectly well I refer to beliefs and opinions held in life that may be true or not, but differ and disagree with one another. For without difference of opinion, the scientific rational quest for truth is impossible. And if there is a God, could it be that there will be any soul for whom there will be no surprises in meeting our Maker? Indeed, I don’t know about you, but if, just for example, the religion of the Norsemen turns out to be the true faith, I for one am screwed, because my chances of falling in battle in order to attain Valhalla do seem slim to nil! In that case, see you all in Nifelheim! Indeed, given significant doctrinal dispute even within Christianity claiming suprarational information, how can one chose the correct denomination in order to avoid eternal damnation?

Hi Aaron, I have a desire to say a few things regarding some things you mentioned if that is ok?

First, you are right to say that some of the horrible things done in the name of God in this world should affect our conscience and cause us to stop and consider.

If you will recieve it, I think that this site exists in part out of a desire to see the Christian faith expressed in a way that is most consistent with the teachings of its Master and out of a desire that this world could see something other than what has often represented Christian faith in history: wars, in-fighting, bigorty, pettiness and so forth.

If you have an interest, you may be surprised by listening to some of the audio resources here that describe events surrounding times in the past when we believe God has visited whole peoples and communities. You could do a search here for instance about Evan Roberts or Duncan Campbell, or Ludwid Von Zinzendorph.

Second, you are right also to question us about the very confusing appearance that formal and institutional Christianity gives to those outside of it. You are right to chide us for all claiming supra-rational revelation and at the same time disagreeing on so many things.

And again, if you will recieve it, I don't think most of the people would disagree with you about that, and that, too, this site exists in part with a desire to see the Christian faith expressed in the power and unity that characterised the early Christian church.

Finally, with all of our weaknesses and differrences, and I believe that you will find that most of the people here will readily admitt to it, I think we would also, almost unanimously, would say that we have no confidence in the verity or truthfullness of any of our demoninational institutions for our salvation, but we put all of our hope and confidence, in Jesus. Who we beleive is Christ.

Kind regards to you,

Chris

Likewise, does it not seem somewhat inane to tarbush all Atheists because of Stalin? If you can be more particular in religion as to embrace Christ but not Quetzacotyl or Xenu, then why can't I be specific in my Atheism? I only have to defend scientific systematic skepticism and faliblism amongst options compatible with Atheism, not any other particular positive hypothesis unless howsoever implicit. Indeed my serious point remains as regards alleged suprarationality and sectarian and other dispute: Rationalists thrive upon disagreement because it fuels scientific Evolutionary Epistemology of competition for fitness among remaining competing hypotheses, with Scientific Method and standards of evidence. We learn from our mistakes. But when different personal revelations contradict, what then? It is not disagreement I chide, but the paralytic demand for unanimity, so unprepared for inevitable dispute. The differing revelations are untestable! There are no standards of refutation. Claims of complete certainty are actually the problem, not any solution. Faliblism is the answer. And if you reply: Ah, but how can you be sure of that? -then you just don't get it! Worse, demands of consensus in the name of a God who damns the infidel and the unbeliever, can only undermine real crucial and substantive cooperation between people of sincere good will.

Hi Aaron,

I hope you will consider again the invitation that I left for you, to listen to some of the content here.

My comments to you were not intended to fuel more contention among us Aaron, but you took it as an opportunity for such.

Perhaps it is rather, that rationalists thrive on disagreement, not becuase it fuels discovery but because it fuels their competion for self-promotion, and the desire to be right. Conflicting evidence can always be explained away and refuted with rhetorical flurish and epistemological sleight of hand. And no dogma except the dogma of materialism is too sacred to be knocked over by the newest and latest fantasy turned theory turned back to revolutionary hypothesis from the next up-and-coming scientific starlight.

Oh if the men in white lab coats really were the impartial paragons of evidentiary analysis that they would hope to be the whole enterprise of evolutionary story telling would fall flat on its face for lack mouthpieces shameless enough to keep inventing and telling stories for adults, with no end.

Real science, like the kind that builds rockets, doesn't tolerate the same infantisim. It doesn't work when your stories have to actually do something, like take a man to the moon.

In the meantime, plenty of people are self-assured their self-correcting process of arguing over data really will take them to the stars, unaware or unwilling to believe that they're not much different than a bunch of ping-pong balls bouncing off one another in a lottery box, unable to escape because there's no one among them that can open the lid.

Our own hearts Aaron, not the truth in plain view, is very often the cause of disagreements, arguments, factions, and strife of all kinds, philosophical, religious, scientific, or otherwise.

Especially, when everything, is subject to conjecture. Ad infinitum.

ChrisJD, much as I do appreciate healthy debate, I have been in no way disingenuous. Indeed, what have I posted last, in any way different or inconsistent with what I have maintained all along? Furthermore, your counterargument does not actually contradict my own assertion: When I say that rationalists thrive on disagreement because it fuels discovery, I mean that the process is fruitful. And when you reply that rationalists thrive upon disagreement because it fuels their completion for self-promotion desire to be right, you are advancing a psychological hypothesis regarding motivation. These two assertions are not contradictory, but indeed complementary. What would be false would be to advance your observation as an Ad Hominem to invalidate my own initial remark. Remember that statements are speaker independent. The same assertion can come from different people with different motivations, without reality changing like tomorrow's headline in 'Back to the Future.' Of course, such motivations in the conduct of science are best tempered with good sportsmanship. And often they are not. Nevertheless, bad sports are eventually found out, no matter how powerful, and scientific advance is only stalled for so long. Or so we may still hope. Such remains the best option ever fruitful in human progress, regardless of unsupportable suprarational claims.

"Especially, when everything, is subject to conjecture. Ad infinitum." -It is of this that I celebrate even while you so despair: "Our own hearts Aaron, not the truth in plain view, is very often the cause of disagreements, arguments, factions, and strife of all kinds, philosophical, religious, scientific, or otherwise." But there remain far more productive alternatives to strife in faliblism than demands for unanimous consensus over suprarational claims that inevitably differ and only fail to arrive at complete universal consensus even arbitrarily, which is neither possible, necessary nor fruitful. It only accrues a life in fear of inevitable heterodoxy amid one's own ranks such as you have only just expressed in your last post. Honestly, aren't scientists who can enjoy controversy and remain fast friends, far better off? It's fun, good sport, admit it! Why must there be acrimony, except from sheer self fulfilling prophesy of expectation thereof Again, is there not far less of sheer conditionality and instead the more graceful deference, maturity and latitude for difference to be found in true friendship than in the sad and forced counterfeit of infaliblist consensus pressures? What have you really accomplished by so needlessly raising the stakes of disagreement unto terror of eternal damnation?

The Pareto Principle states that there is twenty percent of the work that actually accomplishes eighty percent of the job, whatever intended results. Responsibility therefore mandates best effort at identification of that crucial twenty percent, because completeness, perfection, is Thermodynamically impossible, not to mention, generally unnecessary.

"In the meantime, plenty of people are self-assured their self-correcting process of arguing over data really will take them to the stars, unaware or unwilling to believe that they're not much different than a bunch of ping-pong balls bouncing off one another in a lottery box, unable to escape because there's no one among them that can open the lid." This is observably untrue from history. Indeed as far as sheer fantasy of trailblazing theory to which you allude, often indeed at all religiously inspired by the way, even I will not go so far as to venture that the Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Mechanics or the most Ad Hoc abstraction in quest of the missing mass has been fruitless. Quite the contrary. We learn from mistakes. Cosmology that has so long come to rely upon mathematics is overdue for corroboration or refutation by Empirical Astronomy. Yet it comes. And, funny thing: It seems that even the Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Mechanics may have become testable!

Indeed by real science, I take it that you mean R&D even in engineering as opposed to pure science. But if you look into it, you will discover the value even to the most utilitarian technology, of pure science despite everything. You may even learn about the problems with the most pragmatic R&D that even abandons the scientific quest for truth in favor of practical results. It turns out there is a flip side to whatever drawbacks of those wild and even to long unchecked flashes of the fantastical. The same standards of reality testing remain crucial, no matter how practical the goal. It the end, it still all comes down to testability, falsifiabilty, standards of refutation and error checking by imperfect fallible human beings.

While as for any scientific challenge to materialism, have at it! Bring it on! What are the competing hypotheses? What experiments might help narrow the field of competing hypotheses? I would be very interested. Just remember that the formal stance is Gestalt not Reductionist.

"The site moderators ask you before you post that you consider praying and ask the Lord if you have the right spirit to serve others in the body of Christ before posting and pressing the submit button. Please also look at these scriptures: Matthew 12:36, James 1:26, Colossians 4:6." I contemplate my best spirit of service to others. But I would never stand everyone to account for ever empty word uttered in a lifetime! All the truly unkind words together might well be crushing enough! Indeed, no one can always know the most gracious reply under every circumstances and never ponder in retrospect. It's like stage magic, legerdemain: Even watching the most graceful speakers, does not mean ever knowing how they do it! I loathe and mistrust people who don't like to argue. They don't care how you feel unless it's convenient and in accord with their own withheld intentions. They are devious and self serving and most pointlessly so. But there was one person who's acquaintance I made who was never argumentative but without being such a tool, he was no coward and yet always considerate and even honest at all. To this day I cannot tell you how he pulled it off. Before you ask, it wasn't religion. I feel that you all fear injury from my words, and that makes honesty a heavy burden. Alas, my verbal dexterity has its limits. So does my innate goodness. I strive at all only to be a mensche and aspire to no sainthood. I only hope that can ever be enough.

Hi again Aaron,

"When I say that rationalists thrive on disagreement because it fuels discovery, I mean that the process is fruitful. And when you reply that rationalists thrive upon disagreement because it fuels their completion for self-promotion desire to be right, you are advancing a psychological hypothesis regarding motivation.These two assertions are not contradictory, but indeed complementary. What would be false would be to advance your observation as an Ad Hominem to invalidate my own initial remark."

Discovery can also be a self-congradulating deception if we are not honest about what we have found, or have self-preserving motives for finding it. It is human pride that fuels competition and the desire to be right and human pride is a gigantic engine of deception. When it comes to our hearts there is probably nothing that is as blinding to reason and judgment as pride.

It certainly is not false to consider the detriment that human motives can be to human pursuits. What would be false, self-deceiving and dishonest, is to ignore the evils of the human heart while embarking on a never ending pursuit of truth.

"I feel that you all fear injury from my words, and that makes honesty a heavy burden. Alas, my verbal dexterity has its limits. So does my innate goodness. I strive at all only to be a mensche and aspire to no sainthood. I only hope that can ever be enough."

It may be that the rigid and demanding standards that empirical science uses to measure truth about physical reality are too hard to apply in measuring the truth about ourselves.

Kind David said that God requires truth, in the inward parts.

No Aaron, arguing and contention are not good fun.

Kind regards nevertheless.

I entirely agree and yet I do not despair. And so I reject your conclusion. Indeed, arguing and contention are observably good fun for those who do not despair of imperfection. Do you not concede the virtue thereof? For the sake of continued progress, both collective and individual, we must strive in hope to remain even howsoever imperfectly at all open to criticism and curiosity.

Consider those talented writers who cannot progress due to painful oversensitivity to criticism, because critique is so crucial and indispensible to improvement in the writing craft. Consider also the writers that do exchange, value and actually enjoy even the most frank and honest critique, and how successful writers tend to emerge from that group. This is enough to demonstrate that openness versus painful sensitivity to criticism, is variable amongst different people, and that greater openness to criticism is a desirable habit or trait. That this applies also to other endeavor and inquiry that writing, should also be obvious. Rigorous business planning as will be demanded by any prudent investor is another prime example. Relationships and our dealings with others are yet another perhaps most important example of all. Everyone needs others to be open to whatever their concerns and grievances, even when they do cut close to home.

Perfection is neither possible nor necessary. We are imperfect and can only strive at all for at all sufficient error detection and correction. Does your faith help or hinder your therein? For Menschlichkeit or creditable humaneness, is the art of being a mensch, upfront, honest, responsible and accountable, yet gentle, with benevolence, empathy and sympathy.

"I entirely agree and yet I do not despair. And so I reject your conclusion. Indeed, arguing and contention are observably good fun for those who do not despair of imperfection. Do you not concede the virtue thereof? For the sake of continued progress, both collective and individual, we must strive in hope to remain even howsoever imperfectly at all open to criticism and curiosity."

Aaron, the problem isn't at all the prospect of inquiry and examination.

Christians certainly are open to examination for the purpose of finding fault:

David prayed this way " search me o Lord, and know me".

All of us here are well aware of our need to be examined and corrected as to our lives and our beliefs, daily.

The difference Aaron, is who we look to, for correction.

Rather than the imperfect, sometimes petty, self-serving and limited critiques of man, which can always be denied or explained away, we have sought to be searched by God.

This website is full of testimonies of people who have felt themselves come under the exacting, infallable, scrutiny of God.

Do you concede that even imperfect openness versus outright painful sensitivity to criticism, is variable amongst different people? And do you concede any value in the former? After all, I take it that you do not accept and even seek criticism or: rebuke, only direct from God in Heaven, but also from your fellow human souls on this mortal coil, or strive to in all humility. Is tha5t not so? And as a point of doctrine, only Christ and maybe Adam will ever actually be perfect. Therefore, do you intend to surrender to God any hypersensitivity to criticism? And would God then bless a renewed pleasure and zest in friendly sporting controversy? Or is that too much even to pray for? Is hypersensitivity to criticism incorrectable even by the Holy Spirit? Or indeed do you hold such as a virtue of pious zeal? In yearning for the perfection of guidance from On High, will you turn your back on all uncertain Earthly feedback to cross your path until certified by God Himself as a sign from Heaven?

There is parable of how the blissful Buddhist monk acolyte, having been preached to by his master that all is Buddha, came upon a stampeding elephant in the streets. While all heeded the shouts of alarm from the boy mahout, the elephant driver, to get out of the way quickly, the blissful Buddhist monk acolyte instead reasoned that if all is Buddha, then the elephant is Buddha, the acolyte hi8mself is Buddha, and surely Buddha cannot hurt Buddha, therefore the elephant could never hurt him. After getting thrashed to one side by the stampeding elephant, the now decidedly less than blissful Buddhist monk acolyte confronted his master who rebuked him thus: the mahout riding the elephant shouting for you to get out of the way was also Buddha! The parable is as to the value of worldly intelligence and a warning against becoming too pious for any Earthly good.

Hi Aaron,

"In yearning for the perfection of guidance from On High, will you turn your back on all uncertain Earthly feedback to cross your path until certified by God Himself as a sign from Heaven?"

Aaron, not at all. I know I have been corrected, challenged, and even rebuked many times from things I have heard from others, whether they were believers or not. More than once something that a homeless man has said to me while I've been out on the streets has spoken strongly and directly to me. I was corrected once from leaning towards self-righteousness when a homeless man who I had spoken to before shared with me a simple verse from the Bible as I was passing by: he reminded me how James said that whoever would keep the whole Law of God, and yet offend in point, he has become guilty of it all.

Aaron I'm not sure why you feel we are hyper-sensitive to criticism? Afterall, you have been here for over 30 pages, contending with any and everyone that has responded to you about your beliefs, and ours, even calling us 'barking mad', and as far as I know, no one has felt overly sensitive to what you have said.

I don't believe we are overly sensitive to criticism here, but guarded as to what we recieve, what we take to be true, period. A wise man recieves correction, but the simple believe every word.

All truth belongs to God.

All wisdom comes from God.

And a thing can be true and wise, no matter whose mouth it comes from. The difference for us, is our starting point: how we go about measuring the words we hear from others.

Solomon said that the the fear of the LORD, is both the beginning of wisdom, and of knowledge. Things need not mention God to be true or right(most of the proverbs of Solomon do not mention God directly), but we are suspicious of things that purposely leave Him out, and we out right resist things that openly reject Him.

God is the source of all truth and wisdom, and whatever is true and wise should not present any difficulty in retracing its steps back to God its source and master.

Aaron, a while back you suggested that we should embrace death(I take it you meant as a natural and perhaps even a good part of life).

Solomon said to us speaking of the Wisdom that He left for mankind and that he recieved as a gift from God after he sought Him for it: he said of that wisdom, that everyone that hates it, loves death.

True story: There was a religious man with bad eyesight, who refused to seek medical help, holding out instead for a miracle. He was a housepainter and did a poor job.

ChrisJD, unless I've been dreaming it, you've advanced that human vulnerability to criticism dooms objectivity to imperfection (which of course I agree) and that therefore rationality is Ecclesiastical futility (which I do not agree at all). And this began really to amaze me! And not in the way you'd hope.

Also, when have I commended the embrace of death, and what would that even mean? I that something perhaps somehow deemed implicit from some other position that I have taken? I disbelieve in the hereafter of course, but as an advocate of Cryonics and Radical Life Extension, I am seldom accused of graceful resignation. I have incidentally also advanced Theistic or religious arguments in favor of Cryonics and Radical Life Extension. But honestly, I do recommend facing reality as to the annihilation that is death, instead of taking self preservation as supernaturally ultimately unnecessary. As the saying goes, martyrdom must be shouldered, but must never be sought after. Though howsoever aversive, survival instinct is to the good. I therefore hold all consolation from the glorification of death therefore to be a great evil.

As for true statements that do not mention God or any other particular, that might be no more than parsimony of explanation as pertain to whatever specifics in question. Of course, many points can be reframed Theistically in many ways, perhaps even to some moral illumination of parable. Other times it might just be silly.