aqvarivs, I'd love to know what you are on. Whatever it is, it certainly spaces you out.

>>For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Every man that has ever battled to lift his thoughts off the ground...<<

Purple stuff.

But to more serious matters.

>>This is what they [the Dawkins of the world] fear more than life. Actually being held culpable for the direction of human kind<<

Culpable. An interesting word.

Why not "responsible"? It has the same effect, but is not freighted with the idea that somehow, someone needs to feel guilty about what we have done.

But whichever word you want to use, I have not yet met an empiricist who fears being held responsible (or culpable) for anything.

On the other hand, I have met many, many religious people who firmly believe that we are all headed for hell in a handbasket, and blame everyone except their own specific religion for the problems of the world. In addition, they evince a genuine fear of being found guilty (culpable) of a myriad of sins, and being therefore prevented from "going to heaven".

All in all, your argument smacks of transference.

>>every person of faith has experienced God<<

I would certainly hope they have. Putting your faith in something just because someone tells you that you must, has to be the worst of all possible worlds.

>>That is the point, and why some empiricist can not contribute other than by false acclaim<<

But are you saying that an empiricist has nothing to offer the discussion? That smells of fear to me.

Fear that you might just hear something that dents your faith a little bit, creating a seed of doubt that slowly festers inside your head. One of those fears must be that your "experience" of God (or G-d, as Boaz has taken to calling him - what's that about?) was somehow, shall we say, less than convincing?

I suppose in these circumstances, talking to yourself is definitely the safest option.

Pericles,

It’s only presumptuous knowledge that I’m deconstructing – knowledge that isn’t accounted for, that pretends to be self-sustaining. I’m not tearing empirical knowledge down, I’m just identifying its starting position and pointing it out. I’m not criticising you guys for getting your thinking started by means of an assumption, but just pointing out that that’s what you’re doing. I do the same: “Fear of God is the beginning of knowledge” is a biblical thingo you might have heard before.

I have experienced God, but it might not be the kind of experience I can exhibit to your satisfaction. The scientist might not consider it “experience” at all.

We might be at cross purposes. I’m talking about things and facts more than knowledge. Things can exist without anyone knowing them, and even without being the kinds of thing we’re capable of apprehending via the rigours and strictures of science. I believe God exists whether experienced or not. If you look back at my post you’ll see that my reliance on experience is secondary. I am not an empiricist and it would require more than a few clever posts from you to turn me into one.

Still, so long as we theists can claim experience on our side, can I take it that you will no longer call us deluded?

TR,

Regarding Aqvariv’s "puerility", I've noticed that he doesn’t always write prosaically, as you and I always do. Perhaps you think all poetry is puerile. A tragedy of being an empiricist is that you live entirely via your left hemisphere. That just isn’t living.

This might be why Dawkinsian atheists have trouble with Scripture: it too is largely poetic, and not intended for literal consumption.

(Did you catch Dawkins on Compass on the ABC last night – here in Melbourne, anyway? For all his big brain, his emotional intelligence and ability to engage with people need a little work, I think. I mentioned this to an atheist friend today, and he became quite heated, as if I’d uttered a blasphemy: how would you account for this?)

Pax,

I would like to ask aqvarivs and goodthief the following :
If God created us (assuming God exists of course) then he/she/it must be aware of our physical limitations. If that is so, then why does God make "him/her/itself" so difficult (in fact impossible) to communicate with? Why does one have to "just have faith" and believe?
What is wrong with just coming out and actually talking to us in the way that we hear things? What is wrong with just giving us some real evidence of his/her/its existence? After all, if God designed us, he must be aware of the way our bodies work.
Does he need intermediaries like your good-selves to communicate with us?
If so, why?
The only evidence you have is books written by men who may or may not have been under the influence of this "God". They may have been under the influence of some drug or other.This is not evidence at all in my view.
Maybe the writers were under the influence of the Devil, if he/she/it exists. Considering a lot of the sheer nastiness that religion causes, that seems to be, for me, a much more convincing hypothesis.

It is obvious from this lengthy thread that religious people wrongly assume that their worldview is far more expansive and invigorating than the worldview of the ‘poor old’ empiricist. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is religious people who have impoverished themselves.

Indeed, the stories and ‘myths’ revealed by the natural sciences are far more elegant and grand than any comparable story or myth found in the Bible or the Koran. Personally, I find the creation accounts found in Christian and Islamic literature tedious and boring. On the other hand, the cosmic history of our Universe as told by astrophysicists, and the gripping story of human evolution as told by anthropologists, makes my mind spin. Their expert accounts are just beautiful, as in poetically beautiful.

I groan at aqvarivs comments about astrology not just because they are untruthful but because real astronomy is just so much more inspiring and exciting. After all, comparing astrology to astronomy is like comparing a child’s finger painting with Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’.

TR,
“Personally, I find the creation accounts found in Christian and Islamic literature tedious and boring. On the other hand, the cosmic history of our Universe as told by astrophysicists, and the gripping story of human evolution as told by anthropologists, makes my mind spin. Their expert accounts are just beautiful, as in poetically beautiful.”

I completely agree with you as far as cosmology is concerned. I find the story told by astrophysicists not only more acceptable to a grown-up 21st century mind but also poetically more beautiful than both the “cosmology” of Genesis and the stories about people, animals, stars etc told primary school children. Nevertheless I understand that not only we as individuals but also humanity as such had to pass through its childhood with all its innocence and naiveness.

Froggie,
“What is wrong with just coming out and actually talking to us in the way that we hear things?”

I am sure aqvarivs and goodthief can answer that question for themselves, but let me try my own go at it. First of all, if God came and talked to you, how would you convince others that it was Him who talked to you? According to the Bible, when Jesus was born the angels announced the news directly to the simple shepherds, whereas the three wise men had to find it out for themselves by following a sign in the sky. As a Christian I think the same can be said about God’s self-revelation to us: He speaks directly to children and those who have an innocent mind of a child (or a shepherd), whereas the rest of us have to follow signs of him “in the sky” that is becoming more and more complicated, but also revealing, as our scientific and philosophical knowledge of the world progresses.

(ctd) Perhaps one of my earlier postings might illuminate this:
Those who use words like quest discovery etc. when looking for God are moving strictly within the realm of science, using scientific methods. However, you cannot find God - whatever understanding you have of Him - this way, otherwise all atheists would have to be seen as ignorant (like those who deny the existence of electrons, bacteria or Alpha Centauri). They are not, they just look - if they look at all - in the wrong places. “Do not go afar: seek within thyself. Truth resides inside of man.” (St. Augustine) or more explicitly “Truth (about God) descends only on him who tries for it, who yearns for it, who carries within himself, preformed, a mental space where the truth my eventually lodge” (Ortega y Gasset). As concerns such basic beliefs as are part of religious faith, a science can only illuminate what you have found, be it a belief in (the Christian model of) God or a belief in something else or a belief in nothing untouchable. Science (or history, or philosophy, etc.) can give your faith a new quality, a new dimension but it can neither prove nor disprove something as basic as that, the ground of all existence. Like you cannot prove or disprove axioms: you accept them (within a given system) or reject them.