Crabsy,

Allowing for your sullen tone, yes, I think you have grasped my position.

Sells' view appears to me to be a needless refinement of the more general gase you assert.

I reject both on grounds that routine means of investigation have been avoided by fiat. This is a perfectly routine and reasonable position. I don't investigate every report of fairies in my garden, but I would regard as ingenuine someone who, professing a desire to truly understand fairies, then ignored any helpful suggestions about how to go about determining whether there really are any such, or whether all sightings are *trivially* explained by mundane means.

*you* propose such a proclivity, desire beyond survival etc. Fine. Get on with it.

I perceive a parallel in which crank "sceptics" of, say, the expanding universe, or evolution complain that educated and working scientists, having studied hard, worked for their positions, kept themselves abreast of their fields and made defensible contributions thereto, somehow *must* for "fairness" discard work they know of their own knowledge and experience to be worthwhile to "consider the alternatives". Usually "alternatives" long debunked to the certain knowledge of the scientist. All just to satisfy the egos of "objectors" unwilling to make the same type of investment in their own position.

Nice try, but the onus is definitely on you to find by "searching" rather than "defining by fiat" a religious experience not explainable by ordinary manipulations of mundane emotions or psychological states.

Sells has simply tried to make even more soup from this very little oyster.

Anytime the "sneering comments" become unacceptable, just present the reason why one circumstance of self delusion "yes, yes, I think it's coming on now" differs from another.

Rusty

Cronus wrote:
<<It rather strikes me Atheism is the truly arrogant position to adopt.

1. Knowledge is metaphorical – over time everything ‘scientifically’ proven is disproven or replaced and ultimately we know by reference to other things.

2. Knowing how something happens does not tell us why they happened, all science ends up at axioms which by nature can be supported by showing consistency but not proven.

3. Holding oneself to be the arbiter of truth (if it isn’t proven to me then it is wrong) makes one out to be God – I am the determiner of truth.

4. Our capacity to know is being seriously eroded – as estimated 4 exabytes (10^19) of unique information were generated in 2008 which equals unique information generated in previous history – who can even attempt a passing understanding of human knowledge? Or has the store of human knowledge become a God in itself and one that is increasingly beyond us.

Perhaps the quality required in these debates is humility.

Agnosticism is understandable, ‘I doubt for certain reasons’. Atheism is an absurdity given the poor durability of human knowledge and the requirements for omniscience in order to claim I’ve looked everywhere and know all things – by use of a recursive only God can disprove God!Posted by Cronus, Tuesday, 22 February 2011 9:23:10 AM>>

Cronus, this is brilliant. Not just humility is required. One also requires a sincere intention to get at the truth which in turn requires a preparedness to be honest with oneself.

Well of course it does, Cronos.

>>It rather strikes me Atheism is the truly arrogant position to adopt<<

Similarly, you consider attributing the creation of universe and all that is in it to a supreme being, to be the essence of humility.

And your absolute certainty that this is the case carries with it, you believe, not a trace of the arrogance you attribute to atheists. (No need for the capital "A", by the way. It is simply an abstract noun)

OK, let's see what you have come up with.

>>1.Knowledge is metaphorical – over time everything ‘scientifically’ proven is disproven or replaced and ultimately we know by reference to other things<<

Hmmm. I would have thought that this is an essentially humble stance.

It accepts that we are far too insignificant, a teensy speck among the billions of galaxies, to be able to fully understand what happened when the universe was formed. And so we continue to learn. Something new every day.

>>2.Knowing how something happens does not tell us why they happened<<

Absolutely true. Atheists aren't arrogant enough to presume that we do know why, either. We leave that to religionists.

>>3.Holding oneself to be the arbiter of truth (if it isn’t proven to me then it is wrong) makes one out to be God – I am the determiner of truth.<<

That's a stretch. Most people I know are happy to accept that we don't know, and continue to remain open to new research, theories and findings. We do however favour some theories over others, though, which pretty well puts us on a par with religionists.

>>4.who can even attempt a passing understanding of human knowledge?<<

Certainly not atheists.

In fact, let's recap the religionist's view.

- you guys don't accept that there is still a whole heap more to learn

- you presume to know "why"

- you consider yourselves to have discovered the "truth"

- and you tell us that you know everything there is to know: God did it

Sorry - who was it you were describing as arrogant?