Dear AJ

You may find the following article of interest. Doubtless, it won't give MJPB et al pause for thought, but it is reassuring to know that there are plenty of folk who raise the same questions regarding the existence or not of a supernatural deity.

http://www.alternet.org/belief/147623/why_does_god_reveal_himself_to_some_people_and_not_to_others/?page=entire

"I've said it before, and I'll say it again: If God existed, we wouldn't even be having this conversation. If God existed, it would just be obvious. If God existed, there'd be no reason for him to keep his existence a secret. There'd be no reason for him to create life, and yet somehow make that life look exactly like it would have if it had evolved naturally… right down to the inefficiencies, jury-rigs, superfluities, mind-numbing brutality, and other glaring flaws in life's supposed "design." There'd be no reason for him to animate conscious beings with immaterial souls, and yet somehow make those souls look exactly like they would have if they were biological products of the brain…. right down to the radical changes in people's consciousness and character that happen when our brains change.

There'd be no reason for him to hide."

So why don't we see him?

Doesn't it seem likely that the reason we don't see him is that he doesn't exist?"

Severin... 'God moves in mysterious ways', or, as He may say it.... in that jarringly inane manner of 'the ordinary Australian', 'that's for me to know and you to find out'.

So, we'll all have to 'build a bridge and get over it'.

mjpb... you'd have to define 'dogma'.

I do not have a faith tradition or belief system that requires dogma, so that angle is out.

Do I pursue my point 'dogmatically'? If that is what you mean by it?

I think not.

I am a small voice of one, against the hegemonic forces of 2000 Christian years, plus all those that came before, that have bred an inability into so many to see just a little more clearly, take Severin's post above as an example of clear thinking if you will.

Of course, being a small voice of one does not discount the other small voices of one, but we tend not to organise, having no need to organise around a central 'belief' theme like your lot have to to handle the same world we all live in.

It could be that I am wrong, which will be of little moment to me or anyone else, but I do concede it at least.

Believers like you, see no doubt at all, which is why we have disaster after disaster rain down upon us all, be it within religion, politics or, say, economics, the subject matters not.

Except, that religion is so corrosive, toxic, and cancerous... but then, so too is economics, and politics, I suppose.

AJ Philips:>> Unfortunately though, I’m not too confident that you can provide me with any solid reasoning. Over many years I’ve heard it all - many times over - and even used them all when trying to convince others of the existence of god.<<

AJ, when we consider what we can prove in regard to existence we know that a big bang created matter and the energy from that millisecond is still expanding the universe in directions away from a focal point.

Consider the premise "how could there be no god" and use it in the context of the big bang, the reality we exist by. My mind puzzled over the concept of "matter" from nothing,. The "matter" was here, I grew up with it, I am a part of it, but what was before the bang. Why did the bang occur, if there was one big bang why not another in the 13 billion years since the last, or is it one bang per universe?

What motivated the bang is the quandary? Is it an atomic physical imperative that happens when who knows what interacts with another who knows what, perhaps? Was it generated by a "will" for who knows what reason, perhaps? What was there before the bang, nothing, and what is nothing? We have been listening to the universe in a competent way for sixty years now and not a single willfully produced anomaly, why are we alone? Was the universe produced to keep humans entertained. Why do only humans have consciousness from all the creatures that live?

That is my stumbling block when it comes to a definitive atheist view, the bloody perhaps’. I find more reason in a willful act rather than an atomic reaction, I don't know why but what was there before the bang concerns me. That is why my flag is firmly planted in the "how would I know camp".

sonofgloin... maybe it really does not matter?

You will never know for certain what was there 'in the beginning', any more than I will.

Maybe though, there was no 'beginning' at all, it just all 'is'?

That way, we could escape the agony of knowing precisely when the beginning was, and without a beginning, there could be no end either.

Surely the prospect of no end for all life, is almost as good as eternal personal life, isn't it?

It makes no difference, except that some are fixated on the question, and construct total nonsense around their own fears, and powerful ambitions, riding over others in their desperate rush for certitude and sense of being.... not to mention the total corruption of the otherwise harmless but interesting past time of wondering about 'the meaning of life' as it is harnessed by silly old goats into declarations that 'in the beginning' women were not favoured, so will never ever be in the future....or that to ordain a woman is on a par with having sex with a child and other such total, absolute, garbage.

The Blue Cross,
The armed forces are serving in Afganistan to establish social order which includes establishing unisex schools and conditions where women are now educated and can mix in public places without fear of violating extremist laws. Education of women and women mixing in public places was and is denied by the Taliban.

Your imagination that the armed forces just shoot weapons is not their primary purpose. Ask Julia Gillard what programmes our service men have assisted the Afgani people with. Good society also need police to maintain social order, but they are not the be all of good social order. It comes by education and cooperation to work together as a society.

Your world view is coloured by hearsay propagander in the Media and not facts.

The Blue Cross:>> sonofgloin... maybe it really does not matter?<<

Perhaps.