Christians/Muslims/Jews or anyone belonging to a religious group or sect do not have the exclusivity on morality and all it encompasses.

http://www.ted.com/talks/sam_harris_science_can_show_what_s_right.html
I think well worth a watch.

Sorry, Peter -- you've been rumbled. You might as well go the whole hog and start talking about the 'apophatic' nature of God:

"Apophatic theology--also known as Negative theology or Via Negativa (Latin for "Negative Way")-—is a theology that attempts to describe God, the Divine Good, by negation, to speak only in terms of what may not be said about the perfect goodness that is God." -- Wikipedia

I like to think of it as the 'Sergeant Schultz' school of theology -- "I zee naathing!". But it really is beyond parody. Just read what you yourself wrote:

'In other words, talk of God does not rely on an analogy of “being”, of an analogy to things in the world but to an analogy of relationship.'

Clear as mud.

'It is obvious from Defoe’s novel that Robinson Crusoe is ontologically unstable.'

Ditto. Read over these in one of your more rational moments and ask yourself, with Macbeth: "Is this a nonsense that I see before me?"

Harris himself seems totally blind to his arrogant and sinful nature. He is deliberately or deceitful enough to ignore the fact that as corporal punishment has dropped off rape, violence, rebellion has increased dramatically while disregard for one's fellow human being has dropped dramatically. No doubt along with Dawkins his little sniggers of arrogance are certainly spiritually inspired.

...And the neo medievalists would have us return to a time when the unquestioned foremost geniuses of any time might be deprived of collegiate sinecure *just* for not being trinitarian. Despite being otherwise fully conditioned to the religion of the day.

Sells,

If you could leave out the three quarters devoted to "the trinity", you might have had a point. As it is, you undermine your own position by clinging to doctrine. "The trinity" is only important if "god" (a)exists *and* (b) is not deist.

Please rewrite the whole article.

Rusty

Runner, Thank you first of all for enlightening me as to the source of your scientific knowledge - fascinating.

Has it occurred to the religious people on OLO that all our animal attributes such as love, kindness, nurturing, and as Pelican has so cogently put it, our more human attributes, "our cognitive abilities and higher order thinking" might just be part of our process of evolution, without which man may not have survived. I doubt that a belief in a particular deity would have been a prerequisite for survival. One might wonder what attributes those civilizations who have disappeared have failed to possess. Indeed, we should be cautious that we too do not lose our desireable attributes and go the same way, whilst pursuing some quaint religious philosophy.

David

30 March 2010

Mr. Peter Sellick,

You say;-“our future looks bleak indeed”.

Our future is bleak indeed. Churches make it so.

To add to their list, here comes the church of the Atheists.

If only we were left alone. If Priests, sellers of packaged constructs called religions, left us alone, free to wonder about the essence and meaning of our existence, we would have a more peaceful life.

As is, Constituted religions, like multinational corporations, are plundering our existence for profit.