Hi Luciferase,

I'm not sure that there is much point for one side to argue with the other - each is operating on a paradigm which is totally exclusive of the other.

On the whole, atheists' arguments seem to be based on scepticism, rationality, evidence, reason and empirical hypothesising, testing and tentative validation.

Theists of all shades seem to rely merely on faith, an antagonism and an almost explicit antithesis to rationality, as if to have faith is a test of one's willingness to spurn rationality and devalue evidence. Hence Pell's Neanderthals.

There is a word for this in Islam, the willingness to spurn the evident and rational, to supposedly look behind the evident and rational for the noumenal, as proof of one's genuine faith in a god. As a friend put it to me, it requires the willingness to see something black as not-black, as having a hidden 'white-ness', so to speak, and revealed only to those with genuine faith.

To rationalists, this is crazy of course, but I guess theists would counter that since scientists don't know everything (and admit that they can't ever know everything), this is not much different.

To which atheists, and scientists, would respond, yes, but we are finding out more and more that we can rely on and work with, vastly more every generation, and in the process, painting any putative work of gods further and further into a corner.

But this cuts absolutely no ice with theists, since faith is all. I even get the idea (viz. Mother Teresa and her doubts) that a 'true' theist would embrace their faith in a god ever more tightly, the less evidence there was for one - as proof of their deservedness to be with god, I suppose.

Utterly evidence-less faith on the one side, and utterly sceptical rationality and a demand for empirical evidence on the other. The only way to go from one to the other is with a mighty leap, not in increments, to abandon one paradigm and adopt the other, all in one go.

Live in hope :)

Cheers,

Joe

Dear Loudmouth,

Your post brought to mind the following:

http://www.eloquentatheist.com/?p=234

Of all his words and writings, Tertullian is most renown[ed] for Credo quia absurdum, “I believe because it is absurd.” In fact it is a slight misquote. “The Son of God was born,” he wrote: “there is no shame, because it is shameful. And the Son of God died: it is wholly credible, because it is ridiculous. And, buried, He rose again: it is certain, because impossible.” The idea was that the first Christians would not have believed such palpable nonsense unless it had happened. This was not unreasonable, as lawyers’ arguments go; but the phrase lives in the simpler form, and will live, as it seems to distill and embody a Christian mystery, a rubric without sense that speaks in a place where we are alone with our name. So it will continue to speak, and haunt and inspire believers, and annoy freethinkers. That is a quality of faith. The mystery can endure, the paradox live, even when history becomes leaves and dust, and blows away.

Boy, how I wish that Tertullian guy was around today.

>>Tertullian is most renown[ed] for Credo quia absurdum, “I believe because it is absurd.”<<

By an absurd stroke of good fortune, I happen to have this very fine bridge for sale. Only eighty years old. Looks really great on postcards. And I'm doing a very special deal for any Carthaginian Latin scholars...

Sheesh. It would have been his lucky day.

"The only way to go from one to the other is with a mighty leap, not in increments, to abandon one paradigm and adopt the other, all in one go."

Yes, a point I raised with our erstwhile thread companion, Squeers, that there is no continuum between the positions.

I have attempted faith, to put aside all logic and reason, to lay myself open to experience living amongst the faithful and following their ways. Alas, I'm just not built that way, damned to acceptance of finite existence, which I find exhilarating, actually.

When I think I'm off to join the cosmos only to find myself unexpectedly before a judge, my defense will be "god made me that way."

Sadly, Luciferase, I think Bertrand Russell's already used that argument. 'If we weren't supposed to check out the tree of knowledge, why make us inquisitive?'
I mean seriously. "Please brer fox, doan thow me inta that briar patch".
You'd really expect a God to have more sense.

"I think Bertrand Russell's already used that argument."
Really? How did it go down with the Judge?