trav, believe it or not, my questions to you were sincere. i honestly wasn't expecting your answers to be so vacuous.

BB, you're not giving me any credit here. I was being serious.

There is a philosophy called fideism, which some believers subscribe to. I've seen it described as such: "Fideism is the view that religious beliefs are not open to rational evaluation. The fundamental convictions of the christian belief must simply be accepted without question". The author went further by saying this: "The attitude of fideism was neatly summed up in a comment I once heard Jimmy Swaggart make: "Man can't use his mind to know the truth; if he uses his mind he just comes up with something stupid like the theory of evolution". I am not a fideist. It does actually matter to me whether my beliefs are incredibly irrational, or whether it is reasonable to believe them. So in that sense, I do test them out. And I do actually engage with people, including on websites such as this. Plenty of people don't do that.

I would align more closely with the idea of critical rationalism, which is described as follows: "Religious belief systems can and must be rationally criticised and evaluated, although conclusive proof of such a system is impossible"....."There is a person relative conception of proof that can be employed within a critical rationalist framework. There are arguments that, given one's own perspective, can provide good reason to believe that God exists or to believe that God does not exist". I don't believe they necessarily have to be "arguments" though. As in, I believe people can hold perfectly reasonable belief in God if there are reasons which make sense to them and their life's experience.

Above quotes from Victor Reppert's C.S Lewis's Dangerous Idea.

Trav,

A widespead belief neither "suggests" or "proves" or "shows" existence. One could substitute any major (thus widespead) god's name A-Z, Apollo to Zeus into the question, with Jesus' name somewhere in the middle.

Actually the researcher could ask all three verbs to fully test the scope of the latent variable(s). Many wouldn't because the research also needs to retain parsimony in the questionnaire.

Given the scale of history, most people would have been animists, not belivers in a high god; therefore, does it follow that spirits live in rocks, because most people believed it so?

Likewise, in the Classical Middle East, more people believed in the Roman pantheon, until after the fourth century. Therefeore, did those Roman gods once exist, because the Romans believed so, and then, they ceased to exit when Christianity became entrenched?

There is a universal language called, "mathematics" and it is regarded as such by psycholinguistics.

How do you know that Jesus' skeleton has not already been discovered? Say in 200 CE? The event lost to history.

Had we not discovered fire, would it follow Prometheus does not exist?

BB,

I think you have adopted a very amicable tone here.

trav, you're right, i'm not giving you any credit. why should i?

i asked you sincere questions, your answer was empty, the blogpost you linked to was self-evidently ridiculous, and you dismissed my questions as insincere. so where would you like to go?

you say your religious beliefs are open to rational evaluation. you might be right. in fact, the feeling that this was true was why i did initially give you credit, and why i asked you questions. however, i just don't see any real evidence of it.

writing back and forth with me or oliver or whoever doesn't prove that your beliefs are challengeable. it may be simply that you want to defend your beliefs, come hell or high water. fair enough. but if your defences lack reason and good faith, i'm simply not interested in them.

Oliver, you're still confusing the definitions of "suggest", "prove" and "show". Go grab a dictionary and look them up.

BB...

[I asked you sincere questions, your answer was empty, the blogpost you linked to was self-evidently ridiculous,]

What was ridiculous about it? So far, on here, Oliver and Pericles have both entirely missed the guy's whole point by missing the distinction between "suggests" and "proves". If you really think that blog post was ridiculous, you either need to read it again, or do the same as Oliver- actually look up the definitions. Do that, and you'll see Vox Day's point is very valid, based on the questions and the answers given by people of the two worldviews.

[and you dismissed my questions as insincere.]

Where'd I do this?

[writing back and forth with me or oliver or whoever doesn't prove that your beliefs are challengeable. it may be simply that you want to defend your beliefs, come hell or high water]

Absolutely right. I agree entirely. I can see how that "might" be the case. You are wrong, but of course I don't necessarily expect you to believe that.

[fair enough. but if your defences lack reason and good faith, i'm simply not interested in them.]

Again, absolutely fair enough. I wouldn't expect otherwise.

Quite clearly, you are right Trav.

>>So far, on here, Oliver and Pericles have both entirely missed the guy's whole point by missing the distinction between "suggests" and "proves"<<

So please explain in simple terms, why the existence of God is suggested by the belief of individuals.

Is the existence of fairies similarly suggested by the beliefs of four-year-old girls? If not, why not?

Is the existence of Brahma suggested by the beliefs of millions of Hindus? If not, why not.

But most importantly, in what way does the "suggestion" of a God imply its reality. If it doesn't, then what was the purpose of your introducing the concept?

While you're here, you might also like to clear up another point you make.

>>Vox Day's point is very valid, based on the questions and the answers given by people of the two worldviews.<<

Which questions and answers do you have in mind here?

It is certainly clear where Vox Day's head is at:

"It's true that science works. But then, there's no shortage of empirical and scientific evidence that religion works too, and in some cases, even better."

Having made such an assertion, it is normal to follow it up immediately with evidence, along the lines of, "for example..."

When none appears, we are tempted to assume that there is, in fact, none available.

Would you care to fill in the gaps, Trav, join the dots for us perhaps...?