pelican,
I certainly did not mean to include you among those who need "emotional baggage" to defend their position on matters religion. Otherwise I would not have reacted with such a long post. I am not going to list the OLO contributors on both sides of the theist-atheist divide who do, as you are certainly aware. However, I can see now the passage (hastily included to replace a longer one to fit within 350 words) can be thus interpreted, for which I sincerely apologise.

All I was after, in response to your challenge, was the clarification of what in principle distinguishes all theists (to include e.g. Hindu and some Buddhists) from all atheists, so that we can understand each other‘s philosophical presuppositions (on psychological level the difference is between faith and “unfaith“).

I maintained that in 21st century what physicists and cosmologists study is more widely understood than what metaphysicians and theologians study. That is why I preferred Sagan‘s formulation to the more common that you used. I certainly did not want to discuss the way we understand this world (bosons-fermions, gravity and space-time, strings, multiverse, etc) the same as I did not want to specify all the ways a theist can see the extension of the material world that he/she believes exists (supreme being or beings, personal-impersonal, transcendent-immanent, God as Father or Mother, etc).

Grim,
I really think this sentence by Sagan is a statement (of what he believes) not a definition, accepting the usual understanding of Cosmos as the Universe he as a physicist studied. As an avowed atheist he would not have included God in whatever sense (although for anscient Greeks the word really meant “everything”).

I once offered here my definition of the physical world as all that is observable: directly by senses or instruments based on them, as well as indirectly based on physical theories based on mathematics. This, of course, would include the multiverse or Everett’s many-world that you seem to hint at. I would say this is identical with what Sagan calls Cosmos: he believes nobody created Cosmos, Christians believe nobody created God.

Dear eAnt,

You assume a lot from my post. You call names (‘cultural arrogance’). You reject things I didn’t claim (Your cultural arrogance makes you assume that your way is better.) You argue against a notion I don’t have. (I reject your notion that longer lifespan etc. is indivisible with non indigenous culture.)

I pointed out an instance where missionaries actually helped the physical survival of Aborigines and explained that it was due to their literal belief in the Bible.

FYI I am an atheist who does not believe in any sacred text. I merely cited an instance where missionaries did some good and their motivation.

I am also aware that indigenous people living under tribal conditions can have a life span equal to people living in an industrial society with an equitable distribution of wealth.

My anthropologist son lived with the Xikrin, a Brazilian tribal people under tribal conditions for some time. His wife is a doctor who surveyed the health of the Xikrin and found they have a reasonable life span.

However, most Australian Aborigines do not live under tribal conditions. Diseases that they had no immunity against or murder wiped many out in a short time after the first fleet. Under current conditions they have a life expectancy 17 years less than that of non-Aboriginal Australians.

Their culture has been destroyed to a great extent. In the late 18th century, there were between 350 and 750 distinct Aboriginal social groupings, and a similar number of languages or dialects. At the start of the 21st century, fewer than 150 indigenous languages remain and all except roughly 20 are highly endangered. They do not have the option of continuing a ‘spirit’ culture.

I belong to Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation (ANTaR), a group under Aboriginal leadership which is trying to recover stolen wages, assert land rights and remedy the inequities that Aboriginal people are subject to. I will continue to work in ANTaR with Christians to further those goals. I do not restrict my cooperation to those who think as I do.

George
No problems at all. I've done it myself after editing a too wordy post to make it fit and try to keep the meaning intact.

What motivates atheists and agnostics to comment on the divine repertoires of the theists?

1. More often comments made act to quash ignorance and superstition: Replacing arcane notions concerning our relationship with life and the universe with what is objectively known.

In this way, the Earth is not flat and was not created 6,000 years. There are no crystal spheres allowing celestial bodies to trek their paths. Evolution is for real. The COBE photograph of the predicted early universe is genuine. Wishful thinking, by Christians to, the contrary, is just that; wishful thinking.

2. The fundamental structure of Christianity is shared with other religions. Christianity is essentially undifferentiated. Anthropology and history reveal the development and course of the religions in general. Understanding is achieved by standing back from our ancestors confabulations and seeing how things truly are.

3. Many Christians have the concept of God, Jesus, the institutionalised Church too overtly intertwined. God is a broad concept which needs to be addressed before deciding upon a specific God. There are at least three Gods in the OT. First century writings are not unanimous about the divinity of Jesus in a time when even Emperors could be divine. Christianity had three or incarnations before Nicaea. All these accounts are known to history.

Christians need to know the above findings. Discovery of the same shall not be found by indwelling in religious ceremonies, because the Christian Churches have to big a stake in perpetuating the lies.

As Carl Sagan claimed, theists live in “daemon haunted worlds”. Sagan’s revelation exists in knowing, rather than in superstition. Knowing and knowledge are qualities the Christian Church has always suppressed. Alternatively, atheists and agnostics see wisdom in leveraging knowledge to understand our place more fully and more truthfully.

While Richard Dawkins of this World crusade against religion, as does James Randi against other frauds; many others wish theists to see, the face of the mountain from the outside (Confucius).

Oly.

Graham, I suspect that the reason Myers hasn't addressed the question of atrocities in the name of religion is because they are indefensible. A response to Daniel Dennett's argument (Breaking the Spell, pages 300 - 301) that moderate believers share the blame for their radical co-religionists' atrocities is also conspicuously absent.

Still, the call to treat skeptics and atheists with respect is a refreshing change, and on a stomach stuffed with Easter goodies, the book was an agreeably undemanding read.

To me, an answer to the question of whether religion is malevolent or benevolent would have been a worthy conclusion to Myers' book, but knowing he hadn't provided the answer, he ducked it: "If religion is, on balance, adaptive rather than toxic - if it bends us toward happiness, health and helpfulness - that is worth knowing. But it still leaves truth up for grabs. And truth is what matters." (page 128). The conflict between revealed religious truth and researched scientific truth can never be reconciled, except perhaps in the kind of armed truce suggested by the late Stephen Jay Gould: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Jay_Gould#Non-Overlapping_Magisteria_.28NOMA.29

Anyone wishing to explore these issues further, while avoiding the pungency of the 'new atheists' and the prevarication of the apologists, could do worse than reading "Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast" by Lewis Wolpert.

OUG,

I doubt Pilate, as the Prefect of Judea, would allow 5,000 people congregate to listen to a Jew. Likewise, the management of the Jewish cleansing/purity rites would have been awkward, were Jews and Gentiles eating together.

One cannot claim with certainty, there was no such event. Yet, even a crowd of a few score Jews and godfearers (Judaised Gentiles)would be pushing the reasonably limit, given the Roman occupation,zealot insurrections, the time and the place.

Even Joh, when Queensland Premier, would have stopped Jesus.

O.