Sells,

"Drivel"

The critiques of religions often have a sound socio-anthropological and historical foundation, to which, we can add scientific discoveries and societal advancement since the Enlightenment.

Peter, no matter which side of the fence one sits, it is logical to retain a hull hypothesis. For you,that is, testing that god does not exist. Moreover, is it not sequentially more apt to first test for the exsistence of god, before nominating a particular entity as a/the god?

Oliver you pointed out "there is no tolerance for there being two suns in the sky."

I reckon the ancients had it right by worshipping Sol. We shoulda stuck with that.

Those with faith don't need proof, and those that need proof by definition don't have faith.

Dawkins and his ilk fail to grasp the deep need for further meaning. The concept of nothing after death is as incomprehensible to the human mind as infinity.

Challenging someone's faith is like challenging their need to have children. There is no logical justification, but will surely get a visceral response.

Runner cannot convince anyone of his convictions as he has no proof, and spouting scripture is his visceral response to a perceived attack on his emotional security.

As proof is neither available or required, this thread is simply a chance to sling mud, and no one is likely to leave with their opinions altered in the slightest.

Athiests 0
Zealots 0

Shadow Minister's last post is overly cynical i think, though with a grain of truth. I recall Milan Kundera writing that most conversations are about one person just waiting for the other to finish putting her boring views so that he can get a chance to put his own, much more interesting ones. Yet we need to express ourselves all the same, and we like to hear what others think...
So now I'll get stuck in. Peter Sellick, who really is one of the most tedious of contributers to these issues, starts his first comment with a remark about the drivel of the new atheists. After such a shallow beginning, is there any point to reading any more of him?
Having read the bible recently, I can find no coherent ethical system there, in either the old or the new testaments, and much that is grotesque, vicious or simply assinine, with the bulk of the crimes perpetrated by a deity who makes Saddam Hussein look like a kindergarten teacher.
Homo Sapiens has been wandering this planet as a social being for 150,000 to 200,000 years, making ethical/survival decisions throughout this period. Christianity is less than 2000 years old. If we want to know what comes after, we might do well to study what came before.
Much recent work in evolutionary psychology and cognitive psychology has shown that our morality is less related to our religion than to visceral experiences of disgust which we rationalize after the fact, but usually not in a very sophisticated way - e.g. 'that behaviour is just wrong, or 'ít's against god's will', etc etc.
The impact of Christianity is grossly, even ridiculously, exaggerated.

Shadow Minister,

Both fixed absolute religionism and absolute atheism claim infallibility. A nonsense concept, for human ability.

Alternatively, testing the evidence based on probability of the evidence is rationale. One needs to have a null hypothesis and alternative hypothesis, regardless of belief or disbelief. I do read religious material and said material, wanting.

At least, one should say on the balance of proability on one hand; yet, on the other hand ... .

Sells believes in Jesus, which is a refined idea, before he has tested for the existence of god or, why it might have benefitted the ancients to invent/assume gods. Here, facts are held to be proven, a priori, before there accuracy,and the constructs, is shown.

Luigi,

Eighty billion people have lived and died under the genus, "Homo". What would be the relationship between a person living 300,000 years ago to the alledged "substitionary ransom" of the son of a god?

If said sacrafice was perfect and had absolute conformance (engineering term) for all time, why are the churches necessary? Our churches should not needed to perform in a less perfect way that which an alledged son of a god had acheived, absolutely.

If a the Jesus event were true, why do we need churches

I find this a little hard to swallow.

>>The concept of nothing after death is as incomprehensible to the human mind as infinity.<<

The concept of "nothing after death" is as easy to understand as that of "nothing before birth".

Think about where you were before you were born, and understand that you will be in the same place after you are dead.

Whether we like the idea, or feel comfortable with the idea, or rebel against the idea, or wish the idea were not so self-evident, is completely beside the point. It is certainly comprehensible, in the sense that we have already had the experience.

I'm not suggesting for a moment that it is a pleasant thought. Which is of course why there appears to be, in some people, a need for "deeper meaning".

Others - Dawkins included, probably - certainly recognize this as a human trait, but suggest that the "deeper meaning" should not suddenly veer away from the facts of our existence - we are born, we live, we die - into the realms of wishful thinking.

Deeper meaning is uncovered each time we see further into space, and further back in time, or when beams of protons collide.

To assume that we somehow deserve an existence outside the universe, outside time and space, is a touch arrogant, as well as a figment of our imaginations, fed by a vague feeling that "I deserve something more than this short span", plus a little bit of the fear of the unknown.

>>Challenging someone's faith is like challenging their need to have children. There is no logical justification, but will surely get a visceral response.<<

That's fair comment.

But most of the "yes it is, no it isn't" disputes on this thread arise from that use to which religion/atheism is put, rather than its existence per se.