Yuyutsu,
Yes, of course, the Supreme being cannot be rivalled. That only stands to reason.

I'm sorry, but I find your posts hard to comprehend, as they are too inconsistent. On one hand you claim the Bible is unclear and contradictory, but then you want to quote Scripture as if it means something. You speak about the inadequacy of words, but then you want to use words to communicate to me through your posts. You want to give some credence to the Christian God and the Christian scriptures, and yet deny that God is a person, whereas the personality of God is just about the most clearest and plainest teaching found within just about every page of the Scriptures.

All up, it makes for any meaningful conversation with you quite a challenge..

I could agree with you that God being an infinite being would naturally be hard for our finite minds to understand. Yet God is clever enough to communicate to us what he wants us to know. He doesn't have a communication problem. He's good with words, and he's chosen his words carefully, consistently, and concisely in his 66 books.

I disagree with you that science is poison. Good science can be a great tool for us all; as can be good theology, and as Peter Selleck suggests, good music and art. It's all great if used intelligently.

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Dear George,

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Thank you for Clifford Geertz’s anthropologist’s “scientific definition” of religion which has your favour :

« (1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic (op. cit. p. 90). »

I have no difficulty understanding why a mathematically trained mind such as yours is in resonance with this type of “scientific description” which breaks down the religious process into its constituent components in rational sequence.

Even a crude neophyte such as myself is capable of admiring the remarkable precision of the clockwork.

However, I must confess that while I agree with you that Greetz’s “scientific description” is interesting, it, nevertheless, provokes a rather uneasy feeling in me due to the fact that I perceive it not as a “definition” of religion but as a description of the process of religious indoctrination, a formula for manipulating the human mind.

Geertz clearly describes the process by which religion surreptitiously infiltrates the human mind, implanting in it « a set of beliefs », a set of unshakeable religious beliefs.

I prefer the broad and simple definition of religion as « a set of beliefs ».

I see that Geertz was a cultural anthropologist who was heavily influenced by the German sociologist, Max Weber, both of them considering « that man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun » - an interesting concept which seems to suggest that probably neither of them was a theist.

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Is there a difference, Banjo Paterson?

>>I perceive it not as a “definition” of religion but as a description of the process of religious indoctrination, a formula for manipulating the human mind.<<

Every religion on this planet is designed to first attract a body of supporters, and to generate in those people an immediate animosity towards other religions. Or even between sects within their own religion - Protestants v. Catholics, Sunni vs. Shia etc.

That goal is not achievable using a Powerpoint presentation and an operating manual (or tablets of stone and a Bible, Qur'an or whatever). Indoctrination and mind-manipulation are prerequisites.

Dear Banjo,

>>I perceive it not as a “definition” of religion but as a description of the process of religious indoctrination, a formula for manipulating the human mind.<<

I think we all are free to perceive a text the way we want, but as for myself I do not see it as describing a “process” but a system of symbols reflecting a human predisposition as a result of evolution into humans. Of course, “religious indoctrination, a formula for manipulating the human mind” is a well known invective but I have never seen it used in a scholarly anthropological context. Well then, I am not an anthropologist.

>> I prefer the broad and simple definition of religion as « a set of beliefs <<

You can make all sorts of conclusions from a suitably taylor-made definition.

I am aware that Geertz was not a theist, otherwise I would not offer you Geertz’s definition.

Inculcation of a set of axiomatic cultural norms ("beliefs") is a functional, in fact essential part of having a culture. Cultural evolution is readily able to be analysed in a similar way to biological evolution, as Dawkins and others have pointed out.

So there is nothing intrinsically immoral about the process of indoctrinating members of a culture with a set of beliefs that form the core of the culture. We have, as part of out schooling of our children in secular Government schools, units called "civics" or similar, which are specifically designed to do this. We have all sorts of secular ceremonial events designed to espouse and foster representative or aspirational culturally normative values: Anzac Day, Remembrance Day, Australia Day, White Ribbon Day, International Women's Day, etc, etc, etc.

Whether any one of us agrees with the particular values being espoused is to a large extent irrelevant. What is seen as necessary is that there is a mass observance of some aspect of living within this culture; the particular event is likely to be mostly established by fiat within the socio-cultural hierarchy rather than as an outpouring of individual passions, even if the original impetus for it was (Armistice Day is now Remembrance Day, for example).

The organised religions have followed similar cultural evolutionary lines and have often been more about secular power than anything transcendental.

However, there is without doubt that transcendental/numinous aspect within the experiences of the founders of all religions, as far as I can tell and it is also undeniable that throughout history some people have experienced their own version of some sense of being connected to something transcendentally encompassing. This is a fact, but what that experience represents is still to be understood.

I find the idea of a God as an explanation unsatisfying for reasons gone into earlier, but I am sympathetic to those who don't. Having a bad explanation for something does not mean the reason for the explanation does not exist.

Dear Dan,

I appreciate and learn from the profound spiritual content of many of the biblical texts, of various degrees of authenticity and purity: some of their authors were truly men of God. I do not similarly appreciate the purity of those guys who assembled together those texts and others into the collection now known as the bible. In my view, those who assembled the old-testament were politicians that were more interested in national cohesiveness than in spirituality.

Depicting God as a person is a useful tool, for otherwise it is very difficult to pray to Him, etc. Being a person (and more generally, having any attribute, including even existence) is a serious limitation and I hope we can agree that nothing limits God, but I don't blame the authors of the bible for teaching so to the unrefined masses, which was (and still often is) a practical necessity. They did a great job and here I agree with Craig's last sentence: "Having a bad explanation for something does not mean the reason for the explanation does not exist".

Regarding science, its common practice is a distraction from God and a hindrance to simple faith. There are of course exceptional individuals who use the discipline of science as a spiritual tool, but nowadays they are rare. One motive of science is curiosity, the other is the belief that this material universe has value. Curiosity is a mental sense so in principle it is not different to the other senses of the flash and trying to satisfy the former is akin to trying to satisfy the latter. As for the belief that the material universe has value, none was ever detected: while the Higgs boson was discovered and is likely responsible for gravitation, no particle or wave or anything else was ever found by material science which constitutes or contains value.

Dear Craig,

I enjoyed reading your last post.

<<The organised religions have followed similar cultural evolutionary lines and have often been more about secular power than anything transcendental.>>

To that extent, "organised-religions" are no longer worthy of the name "religion".