Oh dear, Extropian1.

>>Pericles, I'm somewhat surprised. I would be prepared to re-examine my synthesis if you can produce a verifiable quote from a high profile scientist wherein he declares that Google is the ultimate authority on anything, that his work relies on the authority of Google for its legitimacy.<<

My sincere apologies for a failed attempt to introduce a modicum of levity into an otherwise fruitless exercise in "god vs. reality".

Witness this particularly pointless exchange with grateful:

>>Even if they do a "virtuous deed" because it is a "virtuous deed" it is still them doing what they are doing because it is what pleases THEM. Logically, when a someone is God-driven they are doing what they are doing because it pleases GOD<<

It is of course utterly impossible, when faced with this style of "logic", to point out that when someone is God-driven they are only doing what they are doing because it pleases them, since they believe it pleases their God.

Think about it, grateful. "Pleasing God" is obviously something that God-driven people do, because it wouldn't please them not to do it. They'd be unhappy, wouldn't they...

There is nothing quite so sterile as an argument for, or against, God. Neither side can possibly introduce any insights that would hold any meaning whatsoever for their adversary.

Which also applies, of course, to arguments between the different versions of god-believers, none of whom could provide a convincing argument for changing their belief system - except, of course, to themselves alone - from one particular form of worship to another.

Thanks Pericles.

However, I wasn’t out to prove the existence of God. I was responding to your challenge about evidence for my statement: "Virtue and sacrifice can only be rational if there is a God."

In defense I said:

“Man is different from nature. He has choice. If he is God-driven he chooses deeds that will please his Creator and avoids those that will not. If he is not God-driven he will only choose such virtuous deeds as serve his own personal interests.”

Consider the following example. Someone is holding a gun to my head threatening to kill me unless i kill someone else. The moral law states don't kill and i have no right to choose my life over someone elses (at least in Islam). For those who are not God-driven a rational decision is to kill the person and so violate the moral injunction not to kill. In their eyes, there no possible gain from adhering to a moral injunction if, as a result, they will die. By living, at least there is an opportunity for some joy even though they will have to live with the trauma of their decision.

On the other hand, it is rational for the God-driven to adhere to the moral injunction. They would see themselves entering the Hereafter as a martyr. If they killed they would see themselves entering the Hereafter as a murderer. It would be irrational for them to break the injunction.

Hence, it makes good sense to say: Virtue and sacrifice can only be rational if there is a God.

Moral values of those who are God-driven are worth something because they are non-negotiable.

For those who are not God-driven an act regarded as virtuous one day, can be considered not so virtuous the next day. Morality becomes contingent on fads and fashions, when the whole point of morality is as a constant offering guidance as to what is right and wrong, proper manners, justice, rights and responsibilities towards family, neighbours, friends and travelers, the community, the human race, the animals, the plants....

Is that the "evidence" you need?

That's a nicely contrived situation, grateful. But believe it or not, the choice to not pull the trigger is not confined to the godly. I suspect that most people, faced with that choice, would think "how could I possibly live with myself, knowing I had been the agent of another man's death?" Once again, a moral choice made simply for the purpose of self-gratification.

Here's one for you.

You are on the jury in the trial of a serial killer. All the evidence shows him to be guilty. However, the criminal has accomplices who have kidnapped your 9-year-old daughter and are holding her hostage. They have told you that if you convict the killer, or alert the police in any way, they will kill your daughter. What will you say to the rest of the jury?

And suppose for a moment that you happen to know that ten of the remaining eleven in the jury are in the same situation - they also have had loved ones kidnapped, for the same purpose. Would you expect them persuade the remaining juror to declare the murderer innocent? Would you help them do so?

What would be your God's moral injunction in these situations? Let a murderer go free to kill again? Or let the kidnappers kill your daughter?

Pericles writes; "My sincere apologies for a failed attempt to introduce a modicum of levity into an otherwise fruitless exercise in "god vs. reality"."

Your excuse for not developing a cogent argument in opposition to my synthesis?

Some of the best brains I have encountered in discussion groups on the internet have baulked at trying over a period of around 10 years. They are cemented into 99.9% atheism and seem scared to venture into 100%. They still tremble at the suggestion of a completely indifferent nature and universe.

Religion will always have the upper hand while self-styled atheists dither about degrees of certainty. I can't be a ditherer like Dawkins. My ire rises every time he's forced to admit that his atheism is 97% god-free. It's a mugwump stance whereby he has his mug on one side of the fence and his wump on the other.

Religion has stolen and codified the choicest parts of human experience that spans many millennia and falsely lays claim now to be the source of said parts. The Golden Rule pre-dates codified religion by a similar time span.

The entirely natural origins of existence will be revealed by science, not by religious faith. That conviction and the Golden Rule are about all the philosophy an atheist, a real atheist, needs. Had the good Dr.Brantley been such an atheist, all other things being equal, he would have survived.

Grateful writes;
“Man is different from nature. He has choice. If he is God-driven he chooses deeds that will please his Creator and avoids those that will not. If he is not God-driven he will only choose such virtuous deeds as serve his own personal interests.”

When you write "Man is different from nature.", you exclude more than half Earth's human population from your considerations. The word "humankind" involves everyone and simultaneously acknowledges the presence of a female population. Or do you hold to the islamic tenet that a female is of lower status/value than an islamic male?

Humankind is not different from nature, it is entirely within and an integral component of the natural world. No human can break a Law of Nature. We are ineluctably bound to and are subject to these Laws. To try to imagine something outside the Laws of Nature leads into the supernatural and religious froth and bubble. But because humans imagine makes that imagining a natural consequence and within the Laws. Thus is the supernatural a contrivance, something of a perversion, of the natural.

Viewing ourselves as special in some ways might be a salve to some timorous egos and a prop to low self-esteem but nature could not care less. In fact it doesn't care at all and would take little note if all humans suddenly disappeared. Earth and the universe would continue. The natural world would have endured a species extinction. It has seen millions of those.

Religious faith takes the sourness out of a lot of unpalatable truths.

Most God people who worship are as if not more than non believers hate driven, let's take some of the people such as Obama, God driven but a warmonger, Bush the same, Abbott and Howard not far behind, Blair the same, the list goes on and on, being an Atheist I do not have warmongering beliefs to kill any one,I love life without the prop of a God who does not exist.
HIV-aids in the 1980's - 1990's was a certain death sentence for those with the virus, thanks to science, not God, it is now no more dangerous to the a Western world than Sugar Diabeties, it is still a death sentence to those in Africa because of poverty and unable to have the science created medicine, your God should be treating them the same, but he is not, if not why not? he is not supplying the pills to them when he should be, if it is not science
Science is what creates cures not some make believe God,even with Evola