Aside philo that spirituality is egotism , spirituality depends on self obsession, science exists wether a person percieves a personal benifit from science or not. It is no more than self adulation to talk about god or the spirit without first proving the existence of such. Philo just because as you have pointed out a lot of people are superstitious , live in a fantasy world and directly operationalise self delusion to look out for number one still does not make god , Jesus , the Jolly green giant, Casper the friendly Ghost or what ever anybody calls their self stalking fetish to physically manifest.

Whatever you or donnie or arqarvis say abvout god is about your self worship about your love of yourself ,your desire to become immortal, your belief in your central position and importance in the universe. You are only angry with me because I wont share in that delusion and it is proven delusion because you base your hostility on a god you have no proof of which means every claim you make of god is made up , an untruth , a willful deception, a fantasy. You are also angry with me because you moralise ego , because for god believers life is a moral panic and everything must be judged and condemned or blessed on grounds of arbitrary constructs of sin. Although spirituality is fanatical egotism ego has an important function to the person when well balanced. As skyhooks once recognised ego is not a dirty word.

Aqvarvis post modernist drivel that nothing is real also does not make god exist. Those views gained momentum with the hippies in order to embrace a diversity of culture within political decision making. Now religion has hijacked it to make lies sound justified. The post modernist mantra that there is no such thing as absolutes is as hollow as rhetoric gets, if you dont believe me , next time instead of taking the stairs ,try and fly.

Precisely Aqvarivs, what is easy to imagine is that you are a common seeker and believer, which simply means that you haven't found anything. The proof is that you have read my posting and have not comprehended, believing it is superficially something to do with tricky word gaming or such. Far from it in fact but how does one please explain this to an endless supply of suckers that can only be sold the thizzle and not the sausage. Belief addicts are easy pickings for big business and for teddy too. I suppose when you have a virtual globe of belief addicts it is easy to feed the addict's habit by playing on their weaknesses that stem from the two baser instincts of humans ........ fear of death and desire for power.

The WILL to believe is easy and the exacto opposite to the WILL to find out.

The WILL to believe plays on fears, myths, superstitions, irrationality, bigotry, fantasy, fictions, illusions, veneration of faddism and power structures, etc .

The WILL to believe is a drug but there are no solutions in pure selfishness, ignorance and lack of imagination.

The WILL to believe is simply saying believe in belief with no connection between thought and action considered.

The WILL to believe is nothing more than a cultural codification of ancient magical thinking, a solipsistic dream often simply leading to self fullfilling prophesies of destruction.

e.g.
How can people in all seriousness continue to want for the end of the world? We even have our Australian Parliament begin proceedings with an absurd religious playpen ritual known as a prayer to a fantasy teddy which goes something like this ... "Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation." Which is then invariably followed by the most filthy, hypocritical behaviour. It's abysmal, nobody is listening and for myself here, this WILL to believe is just a big vomit.

Philo,
Kevin Rudd is Roman Catholic but currently practices his faith within the Anglican Church (his wifes denomination). I guess he is pretty ecumenical given that his theological hero, Bonhoeffer, was a German Lutheran. I would not say he was 'characteristically' Roman Catholic.

Philo,

Welcome back. Who is your alternative authority to Woodhouse [1910], regarding the meaning of "Demon"? Please don't let that slip.

I have access to resources and would like to check. As fair as I can see, so far, the Greeks "did" believe possession by evil spirits [people and statues] and that there was no Greek god called, "Demon". There was a god called Deimos, as any amateur astronomer knows [one of Mars' moons].

I find that Theological Schools too often work from Koine Greek translations from the Vulgar Latin [as mentioned]. The educated Attic court Greek would be a better source, I posit.

I have also read [I.F. Stone], that the Roman mistakenly read Greek satires as historical accounts! Also, who made the [Ancient Greek] might have relevance. On esoteric matter Plato would speak for himself. On vulgar matters the same Plato would speak through a proxy [Gore Vidal].

It is important to place linguistic matters into context. The Christian Church is wrong about Moses having horns, based on the real words in religious text. These guys are the masters of spin and superficial interpretation. Unlike a good Science, the Churches don't the difference between "accuracy" and "precision". Being precise [hundreds of years of scholarship] using the wrong language is inaccurate.

O.

Keiran, The whole point is man and by extension his conceptual thinking is limited by his biology. Mans life experiences are all false. Your personal belief is no more valid than the next persons. That you THINK your superior is all fallacy. A misconception resulting from incorrect reasoning. Man can just barely cope with his biochemical and genetic reality, yet his ego is such that he has no difficulty using scientific hypotheses for playing at God while using the same hypotheses to denounce God. You have no concept of the true reality and are dependent on falsehood from conception to death.
Both science and religion play important roles in providing grounding for mankind. That as institution they fail us from time to time is no "reason" to do away with either.

God is dead. Science is dead. Humanity is dead. All is dead.

Science is alive. God is alive. Humanity is alive. All is life.

One or the other.

With either or concepts there is no picking or choosing. It's one or it's the other.

Open your mind. Allow for many possibilities. And many become possible.

Aqvarvis your last post was fallacy based on fallacy. I think you internalise everything then it relates back to you. Yep again thats the ego at work. With science man can do clever things , create glass windows, design door knobs, drink through a straw, build straw shelter , pick termites out of nests with a stick.Science is learning based. Science then allows a species to imagine internally the possibilities the external world contains. Here is the crux , those possibilities are soley dependent on the realities of the external world where as religion or spirituality is a deep dwelling within the mind. Dangerously close to a delusional mental disorder. Superstition including god belief holds many of the hall marks of obsessive compulsive disorders. What you said above is complete rubbish. You are expressing your preference for superstition you are not articulating reality in any form or shape.