Careful Squeers, lest you be accused of being another 'glass half full' type of character.

Now, 'a great admirer of Enoch Powell', ah yes, I remember him well. He was admired by the Brum skin heads who wreaked havoc every time Aston Villa beat Brum City, and vice versa.

An early runner for that other great conservative, Joan of Hanson, and John of Howard but to be fair, also of that sad party of 'democratic conservatives' led by Rudd and Gillard.

Now I'm going off topic, so will stop, but yes, be careful of being 'half full' or you'll wear an earfull.

CJ Morgan,
Please look up in your dictionary the difference between “mental” and “verbal”: I used the latter when referring to the artificial REWORDING of my position in order to explicitly counterpose it to that of the Australian Atheists’, while arguing that the two positions can - or should be able to - tolerate each other. As I wrote, it was not my choice of words.

You are probably not the only one here who sees (philosophical) reasoning beyond the level of e.g. runner (and his counterparts on the atheist side) as sophistry or mental gymnastics that obfuscates the issue.

examinator,
Sorry if I upset you by addressing you with my comment/correction on what you wrote, while you were addressing a third party. I did the same with Foxy, and she did not seem to mind. We all should be “painfully aware of our limitations”, except for probably those I am referring to in the last paragraph addressed to CJ, and I do not see you as being one of them.

Foxy,
>>religion is a system of communally shared beliefs and rituals that are oriented toward some sacred, supernatural realm<<
What a beautiful (and concise) definition of religion, mentioning - without explicitly assuming its “objective existence“ - Reality (the Numinous, c.f. Rudolf Otto) that is not reducible to the physical, that I was referring to, and without a priori personalizing it into God. Thus it should be acceptable as a definition (not conviction) to those who share the belief expressed on Australian Atheists‘ webside as well as to those who don’t.

By this definition no atheist could be called religious, though in the light of the classical Geertz’s (anthropological) definition - see e.g. http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=7816#124645 - some might.

I think what you refer to as “traditional religion” is built much on outdated models of that Reality. Like there are also outdated models (theories) of physical reality, one difference being that people find it much more difficult to rid themselves of the former than of the latter, because they are more intrinsically connected with what we perceive ourselves to be.

I should start a new thread, I could call it "Shooting Baskets; the subtleties of faith and atheism".

George,
you rationalise (sorry, "formulate") your world-view beautifully, above and elsewhere, such that I think there's little difference between your rationale and mine--up to a point, that is up to your "first step". Like you, I suspect there's something rather than nothing, based on my own "experiences", which I can't explain--a source of endless speculation that I stop short of reifying. There's the first point of difference, you give your "religious" experience the form that you're comfortable with, giving due credit to, "the cultural environment I grew up in, so my communication with God depends on that, which in my case is Christianity"; further: "it is binding for me to accept the image of Him as He revealed Himself to the cultural tradition and environment that determines what I am, how I view existence". This sounds a lot like constructivism, whereas I'm prepared to entertain the notion that I "can" think critically about formative influences and institutions.
The "cultural tradition" you seem so eager to be subject to has a long history of unspeakable horrors behind it, manifest in the present; if it was initially inspired by God, it has been utterly corrupted by Man. To subscribe to such an institution by default--inevitably, uncritically--is, for me, pure selfishness, the essence of conservatism. A waste of intellect which could be a force for positive change in the world.
My archetypal atheist doesn't say no to the possibility of a God, she doesn't close her mind to any possibility, but she can think critically and is ever alert to the lure of her own predilections.

The Emerson quote above should, of course, have begun "whoso".

Squeers

Thank you for summarising my view on the subject of formal religion/atheism.

Have had the inexplicable experience or two or three or more myself. None of them indicated a god of any stripe, simply that there is a lot we have yet to learn.

Therefore, I pay close attention to identify the B/S (and will 'out' it it whenever I can) but am mentally and spiritually prepared for anything.

If the definition of "God" in atheism is a supervising spatial being in the universe somewhere, then unbelief in that view of God is valid.

However God is not the spirit of our angry father whom we rebelled against in our teenage years, who chided us constantly for our foolish decisions and behaviour. One's poor view of God mostly comes from one's childhood view of a controlling or negative father.

I have explained on other threads that God is the pure and wholesome spirit who expresses love, forgivness, mercy and justice. God is most expressed in character. That is why ancient religion is linked to laws and punishments of bad behaviour. Jesus taught true religion is the expression of positice and constructive attitudes in relationships. Foxy is right to express God as the purpose and unity of commonly held beliefs and the admiration of the supreme creative power of all reality and the purity of character that gives all things honourable being.
She said, "To me, religion is a system of communally shared beliefs and rituals that are oriented toward some sacred, supernatural realm".

Squeers,
You are reacting to http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=9389#150883 and the sequel. Please note that this was written to answer AJ Philips’s question asking me what I actually believed God to be. It was certainly not meant to persuade anybody or to use my world-view orientation to denigrade others. Obviously some understood or liked it, some did neither, and I am not surprised that you are among the latter.

I could not describe my model of the unknowable Numinous without referring to the cultural and intellectual environment that formed my mind or without using a language I am familiar with. As I said in a post to you, “man (his genes and memes ) created God” and “God created man” are two sides of the same coin, and warned that in the case of “scientific truths” - that my post to you was mostly about - observer-dependent and independent “truths” don’t play such symmetric roles. The constructivist approach to philosophy of science overemphasizes the cultural (observer-dependent) component. However I have never heard the use of a particular traditional religion to model the otherwise unapproachable Numinous called constructivism.

I accept that you do not like Christianity also because of its “long history of unspeakable horrors” as seen from a 21st century perspective (both by atheists and Christians). Pity that among their medieval contemporaries there was nobody with a mind of a 21st century atheist to enlighten them, so that it would not have to take them centuries of evolution before they figured it out for themselves, albeit through adversaries grown from their own cultural environment.

On the other hand, twentieth century atrocities perpetrated by Nazis and Communists (I personally experienced only the latter) were not done in the name of Christianity, and there were many contemporaries - Christians or others - who could have civilised them, and eventually did within decades.

I think not many people would agree that “pure selfishness (is) the essence of conservatism“. Otherwise I can only congratulate you to your ability to “think critically and be ever alert to the lure of your own predilections“.