Philo, you seem to see mankind as being separate from 'creation' rather than an integral part of 'creation'. We are, all of us 'God' and 'God' is us. There is no external MASTER, pulling the strings. God is a word to describe 'EVERYTHING'. Your outdated, patriarchal view of existence is a very narrow view of EVERYTHING.

Numbat, how can you say that truth never changes. The only 'truth' is that everything is in constant change and flux. For example, it was 'true' you were once a seven year old child... this is no longer 'true'. The more our minds are in the PRESENT reality, rather than past realities, the closer to the 'truth' we are.

Chinese Taoists understand this and recognise, happiness comes from an ability to move in concert with the tao (the way things have been, the way things are NOW and the way things are heading). Which way is the wind blowing? Keep up... or suffer, as all around you changes.

The closest literal translation of 'TAO' is 'The Way'. For Buddhists it is karma (cause and effect). Mankind effects change and is impacted by change. Our ability to keep up with ethical and sustainable change for our common good is a reflection of our civilised status or collective wisdom. Trying to 'fix' truth as you do, leads only to conflict and unhappiness. Truth changes depending on our perspective and our perspective must constantly change - anything other would mean we are only 'pillars of salt'.

More people than ever before are now educated and therefore more people than ever before are making an impact on the world. Our skills for peaceful negotiation and for creating solutions that benefit everyone need to keep pace with our new found individualistic (self-serving)creativity. Complacent leaders, both political and religious who try to fix and hold their self-serving views are increasingly becoming the primary causes of disharmony and conflict.

K£vin,

Brilliant post. Verging into quantum physics there. The idea that everything is energy and can only be re-formed and never lost, all that has been, will be.

The creator of the universe is simply energy - some call it god, others string theory.

There does not have to be conflict,
only those
who wish to impose,
spin endlessy being dogmatic.

Most humble apologies for excruciating poetry - but it just happened as I was typing and I decided to go with the flow.

Peace.

The fact that the rational human mind exists in reality is not foreign to the nature of the universe, nor should it be divorced from reality it is part of reality. The fact logical ordered sequences occurr [a design feature of our universe] in reality that can be understood by reasoning of the human mind - to me indicates the reflection of our own mental imaging is not beyond the capacity to exist outside physical reality and influence the object of our reality where the human mind reasons.

The human mind locked in the metaphysical itself is not the power and direction of the universe [God] but it reflects the all powerfull mind that has given rational features ot our universe. To the mind of man has been given what appears the ultimate unfolding revelation of reality.

I say again 'truth never changes!' That's one reason man can explore space etc as laws are constant, gravity is always gravity - they do not change. Yes I was once seven years old and it is truth that I will always have once been seven years old. Being seven I built on that fact, that truth and am now more than ten times that.Regards, numbat

numbat,

What is truth? Be it Einstein, or Pilate, for most people, truth is a relative matter that 'bends' depending on your point of view, or current need / situation.

Gravity near a black hole may not be the same as between here & the moon!

7 or 70, faith is a matter of belief that can (or may not be) supported by reason, experience etc. Whilst it is comforting for some Universal constants, infinity certainly opens up some possibilities for the unexpected...

I'll avoid reading the commentary - 131 posts sounds a bit overwhelming - and confine myself to the article. Muehlenberg supposedly writes philosophy for a theological college. I'm accustomed to reading philosophy but I've never come across such poor quality writing and thinking in a philosophical article.
As there is too much to criticise I'll confine myself to one paragraph - the fourth. In it, he points out that the last century was the bloodiest of them all, and claims that this bloodletting was caused primarily by anti-religious forces.
As a person who has read a fair amount of history I would argue that the main reason for the increased bloodshed in the twentieth century was the greatly increased efficiency of killing weaponry, not the moral degeneracy of supposedly post-religious humanity. The 21st century 'war on terror' is all about religious extremism, and this looks like continuing indefinitely.
It is tendentious to argue that either Hitler or Stalin killed in the name of atheism or secularism. Stalin killed because he was a ruthless psychopath. Such leaders have turned up regularly in history, but a combination of circumstances allowed Stalin to give full rein to his murderous character. Hitler killed in the name of a bizarre ideology of racial purity. Such ideologies may or may not evoke religion. After all, it was God (or Yahweh) who promised Moses that he would ethnically cleanse the land of Canaan for his 'chosen people' (that's mass murder we're talking about, folks), and who laid down all sorts of laws to the Israelites to keep themselves racially pure.
In short there's no evidence whatsoever that religion makes people better or worse. Further religion has very little to do with morality. There's no coherent morality in either the Old Testament or the gospels.