Oliver I guess that is where this journey was destined to lead to. Being accused of being ignorant of that which does not exist which sums up the spritual discourse of the last few hundred years and the discourse of sectarianism. My reaction to your second to last post was an odd thought as the rocket of god is effectively grounded by the engineering of politics, was Leonardo Da Vinci politically reflexive? See you on the next Casper the friendly ghost thread.

West,

I guess when it comes to spritulaity, rationality doesn't have a ghost of chance.

What narks me is, we have been using history and science and theology, to present our points of view; but, the idea of belief before understanding [imaginings before thinking], seems too strongly engrained in the thoughts of religionists.

The religionists on this thread will join a mud fight, but, generally wont engage in proper debate on matter of substance.

As above noted, one CAN look at the context of the religions, join dots and draw some pretty d*rn good propositions about the origin/need of/for these types of systems.

Might cross paths again on a future thread. Will think about Di Vinci.

Cheers,

O.

The substance the religionist holds is that god and spirituality is constructed from their preferences. Even within Christianity , this is where I cannot comment on Islam there is much shopping around for sects to suit the individuals perspectives and tastes.

There is no factual base for claiming god nor is there an ontology stemming from nature in theology. There are no diamonds of fact or truth in the theological mine. Instead the theological mine is a labyrinth of myth tunneled in the sands of time who's delicate walls are held up by faith always threatening to collapse by a wisp of doubt.

ha ha enjoyed writing that one.

Allow me to comment objectively on this.
It has really been an ad nauseum debate with people just repeating their side over and over again.
Unfortunately West, you are have committed numerous fallacies in your line of argument. To summarise some of your posts:

- Religion is bad cause look at all the bad things that have been done in the name of it - fallacy of suppressed evidence or "slanting", ie selecting the evidence to support your argument without also looking at all the good things that have been done in the name of religion, helping the sick, supporting the poor, repairing relationships, building communities, fostering peace and goodwill, understanding and cooperation, etc. etc.

- The soul does not exist because there is no proof, therefore it does not exist - fallacy of appeal to ignorance, just because something is unproven it does not follow that it is untrue. One possible reason is that technology has not yet advanced enough to provide sufficient evidence, eg. belief that the universe is actually made up of tiny particles was not proven until technology was capable of it.

- God does not exist, therefore a belief in such is a product of the ego which proves God does not exist - fallacy of circular reasoning, ie. presupposing what you are trying to argue. Not to mention the appeal to authority of Freudian theory which is scientifically paper thin in itself.

And another technique i have seen used often is straw man, in which all these silly names like goblins and ghosts and magicians and "teddy's" are thrown in to describe God, which then makes it easy to ridicule. When in actual fact this imagery has been added into the definition of God by you, not the opposition.

Oliver, from what i gather your posts are not really an argument as you are saying we should look at history and the development of man and his ideas which would give us a more solid basis to decide on the existance or non-existance of God. I don't see a problem with that, but i wouldn't conclude that it would a) lead to positive evidence either way, and b) lead to firm proof that there is no such thing as God.

Really, the problem with arguing about whether God exists is that the concept of "God" does not really have a solid definition. It is transient and varies, often from person to person, so is very difficult to know you are arguing about the same thing.

Donnie you misunderstand. The soul does not exist because the soul is made up. Just like all gods. When a soul is claimed nothing true or real is claimed other than a creation of fantasy.I put it to you that fairies and trolls do not exist for the very same reason why a soul does not exist.

The superstitious will believe a soul exists because they would like a soul to exist there is no reason other than self delusion or superstition that would evoke a person to claim a soul to exist.

My criticism of what religion does not only its history is simply because it is the nature of the beast. If religion was good then it would be impossible for it to cause harm.

Christianity as an example cannot escape its past for a number reasons. Unlike secular politics religion cannot change to prevent its darkside to manifesting. Christianity for example worships a man if he existed was dead by 2000 years ago making all homocide in the cause of Christianity (being millions of them) much fresher than the death of their deified idol. If the lives of the victims of Christianity have no worth because they died in the past then Jesus has even less value as he was the first in that trend if he did actually ever exist. Another reason is the crimes of religion carry on to this day ,it is not as if by any stretch of the imagination Christianity has stopped inflicting harm and stopped seeking to interfere with peoples lives.