Naruto

That's it, you're getting your EAC membership revoked.

I find it funny that your username is Answerer, given the title of this thread.

trendkill

Good question. I suspect that, as Kaiser_Soze suggested, the answer is beauty. Mystery is (or can be) a subset of beauty, because its indeterminacy allows us to fill in the blanks with our imaginations, which can defy logic, e.g. by positing simultaneous mutually exclusive "keys" or missing pieces to what we perceive, and thus exceed reality which would be limited to only one key. Surprise might also be a factor--something that "blows you away" usually does so because it is unfamiliar. Something that you are used to may evoke less awe.

The opposite emotion to awe might be disgust. What is disgust "about"? Ugliness. Something that was surprisingly revolting would evoke more disgust.

mike_decock

I'm not angry at God. It's His followers who irritate me.

-Mike...

Corona688

I don't think emotions can be decomposed quite THAT simply. We have no divine creator, so there's no need for there to be some underlying rational order. They correspond to reality, very roughly, but it could well be happening in some complex and roundabout way. Evolution produces behaviors and forms that work, it doesn't matter HOW they do as long as they do.

As for what awe is... I would say it's an intense combination of curiosity and respect/fear for unfamiliar things. That's what I feel, anyway - we want to experience more of these things, until they become familiar.

This could have profound implications; did our ancestor's awe of fire allow them to tame it instead of fearing it like any other animal? I'd say, probably, but that's just conjecture.

Garnet

Question that often stymies me:

Why can't you just have faith?

This usually asked after I've given many, many, many reasons for not believing.

Shadowy Man

It's funny you should ask that. Because Sherlock Holmes and I were discussing that exact topic last week when we were playing poker with Tarzan.

Albert Cipriani

Your experience is just the layman's term for empirical phenomena. If the only knowledge you are willing to entertain as such comes from your experience, you've clothed yourself in a limitation more profound than that of a straitjacket on a crazy man. (NB, I am not calling you a crazy man. To the contrary, I find your humility positively fetching!) -- Cheers, Albert the Traditional Catholic

King Rat

LMFAO!

Was that before or after you drew your third royal flush?

King Rat

I didn't see where Trendkill said that he wasn't "willing to entertain" anything else, he said he hasn't experienced anything else.

I love fiction.

Back to the OP, in the past I have found it hard to answer the "where is god? Just look around..." Not because it is hard to answer, but because it is baffling. Look around at what? Cars, computers, the space shuttle, science, electronics, glasses, inoculation, etc?

Uni

surely someone has stated what it is that i am about to...(i didn't read through) but on the slight chance that it was not mentioned i will carry on...

if you asked an atheist what happens to a soul after death...they would laugh at you and tell you that they don't believe in souls....
i had a girl ask me what happened to a clone? does it have a soul? i proceeded, after laughing uncontrollably, to tell her that the majority of atheists do not believe in souls and i questioned her as to whether or not he had heard of my favorite razor.