Pericles, My apologies. I always make the mistake of assuming everyone can follow the conversation that develops with each thread.
Unfortunately I haven't the time or the inclination to go back to the beginning to explain in detail the development of this conversation and just how it has strayed from the topic.
For my own part I got very tired of West's contemptuous ranting on about religion as being responsible for the expression of mans baser nature. Start at the top and work your way down but, please don't make me responsible for whatever it is you think you think.
I have enough problems of my own staying on top of what I think today never mind how or what I might think tomorrow.
If you can not extend your thinking to imagine a God. No amount of words will ever be sufficient to illustrate the concept of a monotheistic approach to God vs. a polytheistic approach.
If your a good teacher and are well versed in the atomic sciences you may be able to educate someone to the intricacies of that behavior. They may or may not believe. Science has a history of failing. People have become skeptics. People choose not to believe. People choose to have or exercise faith. It isn't always a matter of evidence.
What ever that choice, to believe or not to believe, it doesn't include ridicule. If nothing else try to understand that.
Now, have I given you enough lookitme lookitme time.

For atheists that look for a physical being of god - sorry to dissapoint. There isn't one. As I have stated before "God is spirit" not a spirit as a localised being. God is revealed in character, actions, attitudes, wisdom, virtues, creativity, purpose, design, purity, sacrifice etc.

Take love for instance - the most perfect expression of love is self sacrifice - a parents love for a helpless infant. We can explan what is happening chemically in the body - that is science. Can we explain why the parent gives sacrifically to help an infant reach full potential, while depleting their own potential?

Again it is the act that displays the character and the spirit of the person - this is the nature of God. It is in the purity of this act we perceive the character of God in whose image we were designed to function. It is in the meditation of this purity we find God - it is this purity we admire (worship).

Define for us your character and attitudes and you will discover who you are; you will define your spirit. Now place it all in terms of science - physical reality. To do so places you in the death of your spirit you are not more than a living organism without purpose, direction, hope.

The human need is greater than just the body need, we have needs that are not fulfilled by science, to merely measure chemical reactions does not fulfil needs. There is a spirit world, but not spirit beings as the ancients immagined.

The discovery by the Christian Louis Pastuer cast out demons and uncovered bacteria that the ancients believed were present in unclean places. The ancients believed there was somthing there that was evil spirits and attributed them to all things they could not explain.

The evil spirits that ought to be exorcised still remain in the character, attitudes, actions and lack of wisdom that some display. But since they fail to worship the pure spirit (holy) will they ever find God? Do they ever worship another more more pure than themselves?

aqvarivs all I ask is where do you get your intimate knowledge of God from? Why is that such contempuous question? You know gods thoughts , his preferences , his personality, his being because you know he exists and what he does.

From experience a lot of people speak from the ego or from the heart as they politically correctly call the ego. Maybe you are the first ever honest god believer and actually do know everything you claim to know about god , enough at least to speak of a real live god. All I ask is where did you get such information from? Because everybody else just makes god up.

Before you get all depressed and hide your fetishised shadow with a torch from discovery like I keep saying I dont care if you believe in Jehova , Mickey Mouse or the Wolfman. It is the public realm of worship which is a danger to society because of the heights those who "have God" look down upon the world.

Peter,

What do you have to say about the contributions of Greece, Judaism and Islam to scientific endeavour?
If my memory serves me rightly the revived impetus to scientific endeavour in the west in the renaissance was due to the 'rediscovery' of Greek and Islamic works which inspired a few courageous rational thinkers to explore the world with new eyes and that the Trinitarian Church has consistently persecuted those who pursued the scientific endeavour from Gallileo through Darwin to the current batch of stem cell researchers.

Judaism and Islam are monotheistic in the sense you suggest but are hardly 'anti-scientific' religions. One might also point out that Judaism has remained strong for over two and a half thousand years without any need to postulate trinitarianism, or any other esoteric abstractions.

Peter,

You said
"The liberalism of Protestant Churches, so like the Latitude men of the 18th century, who thought that such theological niceties were not important, is not an option. They may feel that they can more easily communicate to the man in the street, but who would be excited about that communication?"

Kevin Rudds article "Faith in Politics" is a typical piece of Protestant Liberalism and his political popularity suggests to me that he has tapped into a very large group within our society who like what they heard from him. It seems there ARE people who respond to the 'communicative' power of Liberal Protestantism.... and plenty of them.

West, Ego, one of the three divisions of the psyche in psychoanalytic theory that is completely unconscious and is the source of psychic energy derived from instinctual needs and drives.
Now please, if it's about ego then it is subconscious and not an active intent and the individual is unaware of the on going battle of the psychic trinity. Id , Ego and Superego. What your saying is that belief in a God is an instinctual need, an instinctual drive. You answer your own questions over and over again. So I must assume that while you "believe" instinctually that God exist. You want a visual exercise to cement what you feel naturally. It isn't that you don't believe. It is that you don't personally trust what you believe. Your afraid of your lack of faith in your instinctive knowledge and unable to reconcile that with everyday learning. Your comfortable with the three R's because they don't demand any thing from you. It's a simple matter of rote.
You want a hug from God so you'll know that in the end you'll be safe from the big bad world. And since there is no physical hug forthcoming you demand contact like a petulant child whinging for it's mothers attention. It's not the God Head your searching for but, the God Teat.
Oh my, Freud would love my analysis. I even worked in the Oedipus complex. A couple more sessions and we'll have you fixed up as new.