Thank you Peter,

I especially appreciate your last statement: "My aim is to show that faith is possible in our time and that none of the criticisms levelled against it is fatal and furthermore, that faith is worth the candle."

Belief in God is an act of faith, thus it has nothing to do with God's actual existence (which is a logical absurd). It is very possible and very worthwhile.

The existence of that "god of bargains" however, is not a logical absurd - for there is a theoretical chance that he exists, but even if he does, even if there exists such merchant-in-the-sky, then he would be just an idol, not God.

<< This goes to show that you do not have to be religious in order to favour a view that deals with the horror of non-existence in death.>>

There is no horror in the sleep of non-existence - except for those who worship existence, which is quite trendy in the West. On the contrary, it's existence which is full of horrors.

Scepticism is not new - it is already embedded in the ancient Vedas, yet it was not an obstacle to faith:

Whence all creation had its origin,
he, whether he fashioned it or whether he did not,
he, who surveys it all from highest heaven,
he knows - or maybe even he does not know.

Rigveda, 10:129 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasadiya_Sukta#Nasadiya_Sukta_with_English_translation

Atheism is largely a sin problem not a belief problem. Notice how for the last 50 years the god deniers constantly single out the God of Israel and the Lord Jesus Christ. A 2 year old know their explanations of beginnings are fairytales. They use pseudo science to cover their lack of true science for any plausable explanations. Unbelief among the church hierarchy is nothing new either. Look what they did to Jesus.

If ever a Scripture was true it is in Romans 1 where God has handed over people to their own hopeless explanations because they deny the obvious. A number of above posters confirm this clearly.

Runner, there are no 'sins' amongst atheists, because they don't believe in such rubbish.
A guy called Paul apparently wrote a letter to the Romans in 30AD.
How do you know that what he wrote was true?
I wonder how mankind managed to get by for many thousands of years before Jesus Christ walked on the earth?

'How do you know that what he wrote was true?'

because he describes you very accurately Susie.

Sells,

As for Kant, I am not a philosopher but I have sort of imbibed him in the education I received from my father (a Catholic with a degree in Family and Canon Law and admirer of Kant), my only source of non-Marx-Leninist philosophy during the Stalinist years I grew up in. So I gather Kant - unlike those thinkers who carried (carry) their atheism as a badge - has inspired many Christian, (even Catholic), philosophers and theologians (maybe Barth is not one of them), contributing positively to the evolvement of Christian world views and philosophies going beyond the insights of medieval scholasticism,.

I was not after theological disputes about Mary (Mediatrix vs Co-Redemptrix) only the psychological explanation of the fact of veneration (not worship), especially in folkloristic manifestations, via the yin-yang complementarity.

As for the “irrationality, immaturity and superstition of believers” as being embarrassingly true, I do not find embarrassing that there are philosophically naive approaches to both theism and atheism.

There are people who see mathematics only reduced to what they need in their non-academic everyday life. However, I do not find this truth embarrassing. Rather those should be embarrassed who want to argue about mathematics with somebody with a PhD in mathematics on the basis of what they learned in Year 7. I think you understand what I mean.

Here you go again, Peter -- on and on and on about what 'we' think. How DARE you attempt to tell me what 'we' think? You know nothing about what I think, and you demonstrate that fact over and over and over again. Your views on what people believe and why are nothing more than projections of your own wishful thinking. Please remove me from your universal 'we' -- and be prepared for others to request the same thing. This pretence of knowing what you cannot know is tedious and transparent.