HelenM

Originally posted by David Mathews:

Helen: It's scary to think of humans having power over other humans because they might abuse it in terrible ways.

David: Perhaps so, but even humans without power abuse each other in terrible ways.

Actually, I was thinking of power in a very wide sense of, if you can abuse someone then you do have power over them. You must have been thinking of it more narrowly than me.

Helen: Is it ok to think of God having that power since it's impossible for Him to 'abuse it' if you will? Because His character limits how He can exercise it - as it were?

David: I think it is impossible for God to abuse His power because God's decisions are inherently just. Given that God is the ultimate and only authority over the Universe and humankind, God's will is not subject to appeal or contradiction.

Ok, that's what I was thinking you'd say - that (if I'm understanding you right) God's character/nature makes it impossible for Him to be abusive despite having so much power.

love
Helen

wordsmyth

Perhaps I'm missing something, but your logic appears flagrantly circular.

please correct me where I'm mistaken...

In your opinion, the xian texts are more valid in answering questions about the nature of God and origins of the universe because you are an xian?

You are an xian because, in your opinion, the xian texts are more valid in answering questions about the nature of God and origins of the universe? Or... would you admit that your claim to xianity as being the most valid explanation is based solely on nationality and culture (diversity of humans) rather than any empirical evidences and/or logical reasoning.

Am I missing something? <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

rainbow walking

Hello Rainbow Walking,

Hi David,

rw: When you appeal to this tactic you are, in effect, playing god.

David: I don't know what you mean in saying this. Exactly how am I playing God?

Rw: When you have no evidence or argument, capable of convincing a normal average human brain such as my own, that your god is anything more than a conglomeration of mankind’s historical penchant for inventiveness and imagination, and you claim advancements, purchased entirely by human scientific methods, as falling within his jurisdiction, you are standing in for your god to make these claims, in effect, playing a role he should, if he actually existed, play himself. If your god actually is real why not stand aside and let him defend his domain himself?

Rw: Exactly. Your “self” and the claims embraced by your “self” are the Magna Carta of your intentions, the evidence or lack of any, be damned. This exposes your intentions for what they are: A blind stubborn desire to believe in something regardless of the evidence against it, the illogic, irrationality, irresponsibility, and unreasonableness of the intent. You may claim that your intentions “engulf” my arguments but in the final analysis, unless you present superior arguments, all you accomplish is a monumental big fat zero with a negative balance.

David: You have a way with words. Nonetheless, I have every right to agree with everything that I agree with.

Rw: Of course David, no one is disputing your right to agree with yourself. But until you make a better effort to support your self in these claims you’ve made, don’t be surprised to find that you stand alone in this agreement with yourself.

David: You do have a way with words. In all of the above you have said that God is incomprehensible, something which I have already stated a number of times.
As to the nature of reality and man's imagination, I really don't know what you mean. Would you describe reality so that I can determine if it has any imaginary components?

Rw: What particular aspect of reality would you like me to describe?


Rw: Are we to take this to mean then that you have rejected Genesis chapters 1 and 2 in favor of science? How do you sustain your wishes and intentions with this salad bar methodology in relation to the manual you appeal to concerning such figures as Paul and Jesus? How far are you willing to go to cling to both worlds?

David: Jews and Christians have interpreted Genesis 1-2 in many different ways over the last two thousand years.

Rw: And how do you interpret it?

David: The conflict between theism and science that you are presupposing is resolved when the Bible's account is recognized as not written to serve as a scientific description of the beginning.

Rw: Actually it will never be resolved until men learn to distinguish between reality and fantasy. It reads as an explanation of the origins of the natural world, something particular to specific scientific disciplines also. It is represented by many factions of your cult as true and proof that god is the originator. Just because you seem willing to dismiss it as myth, (if in fact you are), doesn’t render the conflict a moot issue. I couldn’t help but notice you’ve avoided the main thrust of my question; that being your personal opinion of these verses of scripture and how you rectify their rendering of the origins of the universe with your claim to embrace the validity of methodological naturalism.

Rw: Singularity of time/existence into big expansion to cosmological evolution to the present.

David: You call this the naturalistic scenario?

Rw: One possibility…yes.

David: If that is the case, why is that there are Christians who do accept the Big Bang as an accurate description of how God originated the Universe?

Rw: Because there are people who cannot completely live with a lobotomized view of reality so they attempt to reconcile the real with the imagined in many unconvincing ways.


David: It is your noble goal, not my noble goal. I have no interest in prolonging my life beyond the normal human life expectancy. I don't want to live for two hundred fifty years.

Rw: Do you want to support those who would prefer that people not live more than a hundred years, just to preserve the appearance that your god is sovereign in this area?

David: God told Paul that His strength was sufficient for Him, therefore refusing to heal Paul's physical problem.

Rw: In that same verse god declares his strength is made perfect in Paul’s weakness. Isn’t that precisely what I argue below in that god could not have known himself as perfect until he created less than perfect man? Thus he is not omniscient.

David: I don't believe that God needs to know that He is Perfect, nor does God need man to tell him that He is perfect.

Rw: You are entitled to your beliefs even if you have no way to verify their accuracy, just as I am entitled to reject your beliefs for the same reason. What you are not entitled to is the right or privilege of forcing those beliefs, via governmental authority, upon those who do not share them, especially when such force would constitute murder of thousands, perhaps millions, depending on how long it takes for people to awaken to the realization that man has a right to pursue every avenue of science in search of a cure to death by aging. If your cult has its way in exorcising its unwarranted influence upon the government, much time will be wasted in unnecessary beaurocratic interference to satisfy the dictates of religious scruples.

David: I believe that God did not want Paul or the Christians to be so dependent upon God that they would appeal to Him to solve all of their physical problems.

Rw: That isn’t the message conveyed by Jesus as he went about healing the multitudes.

David: Jesus did not promise to heal everybody, He made no such promise to the apostles.

Rw: I don’t recall saying he did.

David: If He had done so, the apostles would never die. Yet the apostles did die:

Rw: All the more reason why a rational person, when faced with the choice between appealing to the arbitrary whims of an incomprehensible deity or men of science, will choose men of science, especially when science establishes things in a consistency that supercedes arbitrariness of any kind. I find it odd that you are touting the virtues of a loving deity who doesn’t appear capable of attending to the barest physical needs of the poorest human yet, in the same breath and out of the other side of your face, you attempt to persuade us that this deity created the universe. I wonder what type of immoral and irrational mental acrobatics you’ll incur to apologize for this contradictory hodgepodge of assertions?

Rw: Then why create humans? What created the “want to” in your god?

David: You will have to address these questions to God directly.

Rw: So you finally admit there are facts you have yet to collect from beyond reality?

Rw: Can anything be said to exist without attributes defining its existence? Theologists always depict their labors as attempts to discover new data about god. In reality, what they accomplish is to paint new faces on an ancient tribal warrior deity invented by the Habiru (Hebrews) sometime during the iron age or just after.

David: Philosophers were talking about God in Greece, Egypt, Babylon and India. The concept of God is by no means limited to the ancient Hebrew conception of God.

Rw: I’m glad to see you acknowledge this. How do you imagine philosophers as far away as Greece, Egypt, Babylon and India all had some form of a deity to philosophize over? Couldn’t be that these deities all had their origination in much more primitive settings and found their expression among the peddlers and mercenaries as they sought their profits in international arenas, could it? Isn’t it peculiar that many of modern Christianity’s descriptions of your incomprehensible deity all share some common denominators with these various other deities as philosophized about among these nations, as well as others? Attributes common to Greek mythologies and Zoroastrianism, astrology, stoicism, gnosticism, etc. and so forth? You don’t see the common thread of men painting a picture with words culminating in the three great religions of the world all revolving around various poses and backgrounds from the same common ancestor, from Shamanism, to pantheism, to polytheism to monotheism, to Judaism, to Christianity, to Islam?

Religious men have a way with words…yes? Then there is Buddhism, Hinduism and an endless stream of other isms to be accounted for. You really can’t visualize the journey, in conjunction with mankind’s journey, from associating inexplicable natural phenomena to larger-than-life creatures, to baals, to tribal deities, to gods, to your God, can you? That it was a common practice among almost all people of the world who arrived at different attributes and descriptions should be a clue as clear as an opaque stone. But the modern mind, surrounded by modern conveniences and facing the same monster of death as primitive minds, can’t seem to get beyond the myth to press forward into reality. That, to me, is incomprehensible.

You honestly don’t see that the inflection of sectarianism in Western religion is nothing more than a continuation of this process and folly of individual men re-defining and emphasizing some unique attribute of your deity to create a new denomination, do you? You can’t imagine that in a thousand years or so, while men are flitting about the universe in interstellar travel, some cult will be assembling on Sunday morning for service in a church with the seat of a ’57 chevy as its alter because one of your progeny licked one too many toads and had a vision telling him that god invented the first fossil fuel engine, can you?

It’s all incomprehensible yet, in your mind, it points inexorably to the conclusion that god just has to exist…he just has to!

Rw: Yet when these definitions are critically examined they fail to communicate anything meaningful, leaving god as incomprehensible as always.

David: Yes, this result is expected.

Rw: And the result being, as long as god remains incomprehensible, the door stands ajar for anyone who so desires to insert another unique attribute and build a church.

God, and the associative doctrines, are humanities explanation of the phenomenon in a way designed to assuage our fears. That is its major selling ticket. Eternal life.

David: You are not accurate in saying that belief in God was meant to assuage the fears of the early humans by offering eternal life. The Law of Moses did not make any promises of eternal life to the ancient Hebrews, either explicitly or implicitly.

Rw: Perhaps I wasn’t as clear as I could have been. God, and the associative doctrines, are MODERN man’s explanation designed to assuage our fears. It didn’t begin with eternal life but simply mental comfort from an inexplicable experience. Eternal life was a later inclusion as men discovered natural explanations for the phenomena that were once inexplicable otherwise. 99 models of fear on the wall, 99 models of fear…take one down, pass it around, 98 models of fear on the wall.

Rw: Is it consistent with your understanding of the god concept? Do you see how easy it is to create a god? All one needs is to find areas of human experience or curiosity that have no conclusive explanation and insert a superhuman being as the cause or purpose of the experience. Origins of life and existence are just one. Human behavior is another. Death is the most profound. Answers to the “why” question are also fertile ground for inventing a deity and a religion. Once a thing like that gets a toehold by appealing to enough people’s imaginations it becomes a cult. Once it is allowed to languish in the minds of more and more people for many generations they pass it on to their children and it gets further refined and retrofitted to each successive generations view of their world. It becomes the sieve through which their every experience is interpreted until it reaches a point where it actually has a life of its own…like Bill Gate’s money.

David: Perhaps so, but not necessarily so.

Rw: ?

David: I enjoyed reading this but must point out that atheistic naturalism cannot explain why humans are inclined to contemplate Supreme Beings.

Rw: Sure it can.

David: In a Universe which formed consistently with atheistic naturalism, how is it possible that humans would imagine a God?

Rw: The same way humans imagined flight. It didn’t start out as a God but it ended up as the longest recorded flight of fancy in mankind’s history. And it ain’t landed yet.

David: Unless humans originated with the instinctive urge to search for the Divine, I do not know how religion became the predominant cultural trait within your Universe without God. Perhaps you could explain why humans would want to think about God in the first place.

Rw: The instinctive urge is man’s need to explain his experiences. When no better explanation will suffice, imagination takes the helm.

David: Even supposing that the God idea was invented by some human within a Universe without God, it seems a great mystery to me that the God concept became so popular as to characterize thought on six continents over many thousands of years. How does atheistic naturalism explain the popularity and utility of the God concept?

Rw: Men are ever busy about the business of life. It takes them on many a journey and equips them with many a tale to fill in the hours just before nap time as they gather ‘round the fire beneath the starlit skies.

David: If you could explain the origin and population of the God concept naturalistically, that would be very informative.

Rw: And very long…

David Mathews

Hello wordsmyth,

David: The Christian scriptures are most relevant to the Christian. I believe that this is not a circular argument, it is a logical consequence of religious identity.

David: I would not be a Christian if I did not view the Christian text as the most valid in answering these sorts of questions. That does not mean that I view these other Scriptures as useless, futile, false and void of benefit to their adherents.

I have read and continue to read the scriptures of all the world religions, as much as are available to me.

Sincerely,

David Mathews

David Mathews

Hello Rainbow Walking,

David: You don't want to God to defend Himself before you. You would not enjoy the experience.

Incidentally, your request that God defend Himself reminded me of a passage in Judges in which Joash made such a demand on Baal: "Would you plead for Baal? Would you save him? ... If he is a god, let him plead for himself, because his altar has been torn down!" (Judges 6:31)

If you want to argue with God, go ahead and argue with God. I certainly won't prevent you from doing so.


David: If I must stand alone, I will stand alone.

David: I want a description of the whole thing, everything that constitutes reality. Once you provide such a description I will determine how much of your own imagination is present in your description of it.

David: I interpret Genesis 1-2 allegorically. I don't consider the account scientific in any respect, nor do I imagine that the original audience of the text would have interpreted it in a scientific manner either.

David: Give unto science what belongs to science, Give unto God what belongs to God -- to revise a principle first stated by Jesus in regard to taxes.

David: You are taking far too many things for granted. If the Theists were really lobotomized, you wouldn't need to make such a great effort at refuting them.

David: People who want to live more than a hundred years may do whatever they wish without my support or approval. I just hope that they don't get into an auto accident or suffer some other catastrophe which will bring their dreams to an end much earlier than they had hoped.

David: The United States government is investing billions of dollars in medical research and spending billions of dollars on medical care, and you are going to accuse theists of killing millions of people just because this little problem of death which has existed for four billion years continues for another hundred, thousand or million years?

David: I find it astonishing that your entire argument rest upon your unhappiness with reality. Perhaps God made the universe difficult so that you might have this great cause of defeating death?

David: I did not "finally admit" that, I have been saying it all along.

David: I suspect that all of these philosphers were talking about God because they recognized that there was a transcendent, spiritual component of the Universe which was beyond the reach of their senses and yet testified internally by their souls.

David: The concept of God did have a primitive origin. Would you like to explain the origin of the concept of God?

David: Not in the least. Religious people have noticed commonalities in religion and religious thought for thousands of years.

David: The commonality among these different religious traditions is testimony on behalf of Theism. Either theism originated extraordinarily early in the history of humanity, or human thought about God inevitably leads to common symbols of the Deity.

David: I do see the common thread. I alluded to it in the thread titled "The Ineffable Mystery."

David: I know Buddhism and Hinduism. I have met both religions and appreciate their wisdom very much.

David: What is this reality that you are speaking about? I want to know about it.

David: I know this, very well.

David: Now you are being humorous.

David: The names of God are infinite, the attributes of God are common to all religions.

David: Would you be so kind as to provide this explanation?

David: So you think that God is only and exclusively an invention of human imagination?

David: According to atheistic naturalism, what is the explanations for humankind's instinctive urge to explain his experiences? The animals don't seem to have this obsession.

David: The concept of God did not merely entertain all of these peope, it provided them with a sense of meaning to their lives, defined and enforces a moral and ethical code, and it supported to creation of great civilizations by providing a unifying worldview and a reason for collective action & individual sacrifice.

Sincerely,

David Mathews

Jobar

David, we once had a regular poster here named Albert Cipriani. I wish he were still about; I would be extremely interested to watch the two of you interact. Albert styled himself a 'Traditional Catholic' and was a master at using mysticism to argue for God- but when we would point this out to him, he would then deny he was a mystic!

You also constantly use arguments based on the ineffability of God- and then when we ask what sort of mystic you are, you deny it. David, you simply can't have an ineffable deity with any known qualities. (That would be effing the ineffable! )

David Mathews

Hello Jobar,

David: I am not opposed to calling myself a mystic. I have read the writings of the mystics from many different religions and I find their approach to religion beautiful and edifying. I believe that among all of the religious people in the world, the mystics have the most in common across all religious barriers. The reason for this is because the mystics are willing to explore the boundaries and destroy those boundaries when necessary.

For example, a rigidly religious person might find atheism terrifying and therefore avoid atheistic materials as much as possible. A mystic will find the atheistic materials fascinating and will therefore plunder all of the treasures of the atheists.

The mystics are bold, for you have to be bold in order to appreciate the wisdom of people whose beliefs differ radically from your own. The mystics are bold for another reason as well: They redefine their religious ideas as often as they wish, entertain radical new ideas and are willing to offend the sensibilities of their more conservative brethren.

That is why all religions have a love/hate relationship with the mystics. The truly radical people are a threat to the status quo, that is why Socrates and Jesus were put on trial and killed. That is why Israel rejected the prophets, and the Romans made of custom out of killing Christians.

I love the mystics. I appreciate the mystics from among all of the religions and that is why I would appreciate it very much if people considered me a mystic.

Sincerely,

David Mathews

99Percent

Yeah I was curiously reminded of Albert Cipriani too.

The exact same argument I had with Albert Cipriani. I told him that unfortunately for his belief in God, reality has a logical consistency and is logically persistent - it continously reaffirms our memory and our knowledge over it.

In other words, reality makes sense. God does not.

Answerer

Well guys, obviously that since God is incomprehensible to humankind in general, why should we believe in whatever He had to say. In daily life, most of us will never trust a uncomprehensible person without any doubts as we don't know what he or she will act or do to us. So, to put all our faiths in such incomprehensible being like God is not only risky but foolish.

rainbow walking

Hello Rainbow Walking,

Hi David,

David: You don't want God to defend Himself before you. You would not enjoy the experience.

Rw: Sure I would. Since I am challenging his literal existence all that would be required for him to answer the challenge is to show himself. He needn’t resort to any kind of violence to do this, as you seem to be implying. Where’s the love in that? Where’s the love in hiding? Imaginary deities always seem to struggle with that so they enlist the aid of those in whose imaginations they exist. That’s why we have had so many religious wars, martyrs and victims. No real literal deity ever did squat, only the men whose imaginations became more real to them than reality did the doing, just as you are doing all the arguing now to justify your mystical belief system.

David: Incidentally, your request that God defend Himself reminded me of a passage in Judges in which Joash made such a demand on Baal: "Would you plead for Baal? Would you save him? ... If he is a god, let him plead for himself, because his altar has been torn down!" (Judges 6:31)

Rw: Exactly, and this deity failed miserably to show itself real just as your god has failed. I’m hammering away at the alters you’ve erected in your imagination. I challenge your imaginary god to silence me. Surely it’s intelligent enough to read common English. Now you stand aside and let your imaginary deity come and defend his imaginary alter in your imagination.

David: If you want to argue with God, go ahead and argue with God. I certainly won't prevent you from doing so.

Rw: Well David, actually you are. If you would go and fetch him here I’ll be pleased to debate his existence in person. In reality I am debating his existence in YOUR person because that is all that literally exists: your imagination and willingness to entertain its contents as though they were more real than reality.

Don’t make the mistake of imagining your position as a mystic will prevent me from impaling your imaginary deities upon the horns of the dilemma created by their exposure to the bright clear light of reason. Just because you’re clever enough not to drop your anchor into any particular mystical belief system, reserving the privilege of running among them, doesn’t mean I won’t be able to hem you up in your holy garments and expose the tattered rags of men’s imagination from which they’ve been constructed.


David: If I must stand alone, I will stand alone.

Rw: Divide and conquer David. It’s tried and true. Standing alone alienates you from all mystical belief systems even as you try to appeal to each of them respectively to hide you from the dawning of human reason, none of them will know you or provide you with the imaginary protection you will seek. Why should they? As a mystic you pledge allegiance to none of them, only seeking to loot their reserve of mystical claims for your own selfish ends. Valid mystical claims are in short supply these days, David, and come with a higher price than you’re willing to pay. Each one requires you to commit to its dogma, something you can’t afford with my sharp, incisively surgical criticisms hot on your trail. Yes, alone you stand but not for long. The Potter’s Field is full of mystics like yourself who stood alone and fell under the heavy blows of reason as they came crashing in upon their imaginations stripping away their every argument. In the end you will hang yourself. Let us hope you use a better quality of rope than Judas did.

Rw: What particular aspect of reality would you like me to describe?

David: I want a description of the whole thing, everything that constitutes reality. Once you provide such a description I will determine how much of your own imagination is present in your description of it.

Rw: Reality is an abstract concept that stands on the foundation of concrete existence. It is buttressed by all things that have actual being. Its boundaries are established by science and reason. It does not extend beyond the knowable. Only man’s imagination is capable of climbing the fence and pretending that its borders are not so clearly defined.

That which is unknowable and incomprehensible has no citizenship rights or claims to reality and must show some form of identity to legitimize its business here. It is an illegal alien and stands in jeopardy of being deported. Men are always trying to smuggle aliens across the border because of their utility in alleviating a man from the exacting standards of rationality.

David: I interpret Genesis 1-2 allegorically.

Rw: Unfortunately, Genesis 1 & 2 does not parallel the actuality. It has been proven to be erroneous and thus invalidated as a legitimate allegorical tool.

David: I don't consider the account scientific in any respect, nor do I imagine that the original audience of the text would have interpreted it in a scientific manner either.

Rw: And how do you propose to validate what your imagination allows you to presume about its original audience’s interpretation?

David: Give unto science what belongs to science, Give unto God what belongs to God -- to revise a principle first stated by Jesus in regard to taxes.

Rw: This quaint little escape mechanism implies that science and god are separate entities. When you launch a claim that your imaginary god “engulfs” the domain of science they each lose their distinction of separateness. You cannot have my cake and eat yours too, except in your imagination. So long as you live in your imagination you have nothing to give unto science. Science has nothing to give unto god except the boot.

Rw: Because there are people who cannot completely live with a lobotomized view of reality so they attempt to reconcile the real with the imagined in many unconvincing ways.

David: You are taking far too many things for granted. If the Theists were really lobotomized, you wouldn't need to make such a great effort at refuting them.

Rw: It takes great effort to define the borders of reality. It takes even greater effort to protect those borders from the moths and rust of theism as it tries to infiltrate and expropriate the products of the labors of reason. I am the strongman who will not suffer his house to be broken up by theism’s thieves in the night who creep about in the twilight of imagination to loot from my reality the elements it requires to create an identity necessary to legitimate citizenship in the land of reality. Men of reason are building a city for man. As theism creeps about on the fringe of your imagination seeking by stealth to steal the keys to our city to make it a city of God, I stand among many brethren as a Guardian with a spotlight of reason in one hand and the compass of science in the other ever extending the borders of my domain into the jungles of your imagination. Theism is running out of room and time.

Rw: Do you want to support those who would prefer that people not live more than a hundred years, just to preserve the appearance that your god is sovereign in this area?

David: People who want to live more than a hundred years may do whatever they wish without my support or approval.

Rw: I wish that were true in all cases David but theism has produced an army of advocates who constantly mill about the halls of Congress seeking an injunction against the advances of science to protect their interests, such as they imagine them to be.

David: I just hope that they don't get into an auto accident or suffer some other catastrophe which will bring their dreams to an end much earlier than they had hoped.

Rw: Most auto accidents are caused by haste. When men are free from the pressures inculcated by their biological clocks they will have no reason to speed. They will also have no financial pressures to hinder them from developing modes of transportation that are not so accident-prone. A man with a thousand years in his biological bank can purchase a house on a 250 year note dropping his payments well below a hundred dollars a month thereby extending his credit to income ratio and giving him more purchasing leverage. More purchasing leverage means more consumption means more demand means more production means more wealth created. The interest that would accrue over a 250 year note will produce more capital for investments that were once cost prohibitive. Investments into research and development necessary to manipulate, rather than just predict, the natural forces that produce catastrophes like tornadoes, hurricanes, earth quakes, drought, floods, and volcanic activity. Social security would become a problem of the past providing additional real income in the paycheck and funding for public projects would be more available as governments could plan on taxpayers contributions for many more than the average fifty years that current lifespans allow. With careful planning and the proper mindset mankind could prevent himself from falling into the financial quagmire that now exists due to the cycles of inflation/un-employment caused by the limited resource of human life expectancy.

Rw: You are entitled to your beliefs even if you have no way to verify their accuracy, just as I am entitled to reject your beliefs for the same reason. What you are not entitled to is the right or privilege of forcing those beliefs, via governmental authority, upon those who do not share them, especially when such force would constitute murder of thousands, perhaps millions, depending on how long it takes for people to awaken to the realization that man has a right to pursue every avenue of science in search of a cure to death by aging.

David: The United States government is investing billions of dollars in medical research and spending billions of dollars on medical care,

Rw: And it gets its funding from who…? And medical care in relation to what major problem…?

David: and you are going to accuse theists of killing millions of people just because this little problem of death which has existed for four billion years continues for another hundred, thousand or million years?

Rw: The historical duration of the problem is irrelevant. The solution is not. That theistic objections are now threatening to derail the solution makes those responsible for the derailment accomplices whether you like it or not.

What are the theist’s practical objections? That success in manipulating our biological clock would produce genetic mutations that could lead to…what? No answer. What’s the alternative; to continue to allow our genetics free reign in dictating our lifespans rather than our lives and minds being invested in dictating our genetics?

That increased lifespans would cause over-population? How about a Planned Parenthood with teeth? A pregnancy detection within 24 hours of sexual intercourse? Is a fertilized egg that has barely had time to divide once or twice a human being?

How about space travel to other planets to begin new colonies? Would the distance be such an impediment to men whose lives were extended indefinitely?

Each of these practical objections fall by the wayside in comparison to a lifespan of a thousand years or more. Residing beneath the surface of these alleged practical objections is the theistic concern that humans with no death to fear would have no incentive to embrace theism. So yeah, there will be some casualties. Preachers will have to go back to work.

rw: I find it odd that you are touting the virtues of a loving deity who doesn’t appear capable of attending to the barest physical needs of the poorest human yet, in the same breath and out of the other side of your face, you attempt to persuade us that this deity created the universe. I wonder what type of immoral and irrational mental acrobatics you’ll incur to apologize for this contradictory hodgepodge of assertions?

David: I find it astonishing that your entire argument rest upon your unhappiness with reality. Perhaps God made the universe difficult so that you might have this great cause of defeating death?

Rw: Perhaps man’s imagination of a god, excusing his laxity in addressing death, has plopped this problem in my lap when it should have been resolved centuries ago. Had man not been chained to fiction so effectively for such a long time you and I would likely not be having this discussion.

David: You will have to address these questions to God directly.

Rw: So you finally admit there are facts you have yet to collect from beyond reality?

David: I did not "finally admit" that, I have been saying it all along.

Rw: Really? One would never know, the way you’ve been shoveling out these unsupported assertions from your imagination the last few pages I was beginning to think it was a bottomless pit. Now that we’ve finally reached the bottom let’s explore it, shall we?

What possible incentive would an omni-max deity have for inventing us? No answer? Don’t know? Silence? Then perhaps some other theist hereabouts has rescued the answer to this question from the murky depths of his or her imaginary land beyond reality and would care to hoist upon us another unsupported assertion. Or maybe there is a limit to the imagination beyond which even incomprehensibility dares not tread…yes?

Or perhaps your sense of the ineffable smelled the trap and shied you away before you got caught?

rw: I’m glad to see you acknowledge this. How do you imagine philosophers as far away as Greece, Egypt, Babylon and India all had some form of a deity to philosophize over?

David: I suspect that all of these philosphers were talking about God because they recognized that there was a transcendent, spiritual component of the Universe which was beyond the reach of their senses and yet testified internally by their souls.

Rw: Beyond their senses, or beyond their scientific capability to make sense of them? Since the imagination affords us the opportunity to create any explanation we please I see no good reason to suspect a god literally exists just because men have found the notion so amiable when reason is not equipped to offer an accurate explanation.

rw: Couldn’t be that these deities all had their origination in much more primitive settings and found their expression among the peddlers and mercenaries as they sought their profits in international arenas, could it?

David: The concept of God did have a primitive origin. Would you like to explain the origin of the concept of God?

Rw: I already have but apparently you weren’t paying attention.

rw: Isn’t it peculiar that many of modern Christianity’s descriptions of your incomprehensible deity all share some common denominators with these various other deities as philosophized about among these nations, as well as others?

David: Not in the least. Religious people have noticed commonalities in religion and religious thought for thousands of years.

Rw: Yeah, and like you, brushed it aside as evidence that their imagination has a legitimate foundation. Or, on occasion, sought to establish the supremacy of their version over all others, to the point of brutality. If I had to choose between the religious expression that focuses on the commonality or the religious expression that focuses on the differences I would choose the former. Fortunately I don’t have to choose either. I can choose to embrace human reason and science and sweep it all under the flood of progress.

rw: Attributes common to Greek mythologies and Zoroastrianism, astrology, stoicism, gnosticism, etc. and so forth?

David: The commonality among these different religious traditions is testimony on behalf of Theism.

Rw: Only in the imagination of the theist. It is more accurately seen as testimony that men will find a way to explain the inexplicable, will share their explanations, compare them, discard what they don’t like or need, re-define them as they are challenged by facts of reality and carry on with business as usual.

David: Either theism originated extraordinarily early in the history of humanity, or human thought about God inevitably leads to common symbols of the Deity.

Rw: Both and neither are true reflections of the human condition because they were derived from human imagination that does not have the power to alter the universe unless the ideas imagined comply with the forces that regulate the material from which the universe derives its consistency.

rw: You don’t see the common thread of men painting a picture with words culminating in the three great religions of the world all revolving around various poses and backgrounds from the same common ancestor, from Shamanism, to pantheism, to polytheism to monotheism, to Judaism, to Christianity, to Islam?

David: I do see the common thread. I alluded to it in the thread titled "The Ineffable Mystery."

Rw: Then you should rename that thread “The Ineffable Imagination”


rw: But the modern mind, surrounded by modern conveniences and facing the same monster of death as primitive minds, can’t seem to get beyond the myth to press forward into reality.

David: What is this reality that you are speaking about? I want to know about it.

Rw: No you don’t. You want to loot it and divide your spoils among the imaginary gods that comprise the essence of your reality.

rw: You honestly don’t see that the inflection of sectarianism in Western religion is nothing more than a continuation of this process and folly of individual men re-defining and emphasizing some unique attribute of your deity to create a new denomination, do you?

David: I know this, very well.

Rw: Do you now, and you see no correlation between that phenomenon and the natural explanation for the invention of theism?

rw: You can’t imagine that in a thousand years or so, while men are flitting about the universe in interstellar travel, some cult will be assembling on Sunday morning for service in a church with the seat of a ’57 chevy as its alter because one of your progeny licked one too many toads and had a vision telling him that god invented the first fossil fuel engine, can you?

David: Now you are being humorous.

Rw: Laugh if you must but that is how ridiculous it can get when men try to elevate their imagination to a level of respectability. It happens all the time.

Rw: And the result being, as long as god remains incomprehensible, the door stands ajar for anyone who so desires to insert another unique attribute and build a church.

David: The names of God are infinite,

Rw: Yeah, like the cumulative effect of a trillion imaginations all focused on a common paradigm that demands no evidence to support its claims.

David: the attributes of God are common to all religions.

Rw: I’m sorry, I must have missed something here. Which attributes would that be again?

David: I enjoyed reading this but must point out that atheistic naturalism cannot explain why humans are inclined to contemplate Supreme Beings.

Rw: Sure it can.

David: Would you be so kind as to provide this explanation?

Rw: Again?

David: In a Universe which formed consistently with atheistic naturalism, how is it possible that humans would imagine a God?

Rw: The same way humans imagined flight. It didn’t start out as a God but it ended up as the longest recorded flight of fancy in mankind’s history. And it ain’t landed yet.

David: So you think that God is only and exclusively an invention of human imagination?

Rw: Can you prove or even offer some evidence that it isn’t?

David: Unless humans originated with the instinctive urge to search for the Divine, I do not know how religion became the predominant cultural trait within your Universe without God. Perhaps you could explain why humans would want to think about God in the first place.

Rw: The instinctive urge is man’s need to explain his experiences. When no better explanation will suffice, imagination takes the helm.

David: According to atheistic naturalism, what is the explanations for humankind's instinctive urge to explain his experiences?

Rw: Survival and replication.

David: The animals don't seem to have this obsession.

Rw: That’s why they’re not at the top of the food chain.

David: Even supposing that the God idea was invented by some human within a Universe without God, it seems a great mystery to me that the God concept became so popular as to characterize thought on six continents over many thousands of years. How does atheistic naturalism explain the popularity and utility of the God concept?

Rw: Men are ever busy about the business of life. It takes them on many a journey and equips them with many a tale to fill in the hours just before nap time as they gather ‘round the fire beneath the starlit skies.

David: The concept of God did not merely entertain all of these people,

Rw: I didn’t say it merely did. The above was a response to your question of how the concept became an almost universal human social attribute.

David: it provided them with a sense of meaning to their lives,

Rw: Thus allowing them to sleep through the ever nagging pulsation of their biological clock.

David: defined and enforces a moral and ethical code,

Rw: You mean like the early Christian one that never raised a whimper against slavery? Or the modern Islamic one that compels its youth to murder innocent people as infidels? Or the ever efficacious Judaistic one that claims god-given squatters rights on lands it has drenched in Palestinian blood?

David: and it supported to creation of great civilizations by providing a unifying worldview and a reason for collective action & individual sacrifice.

Rw: And what has become of those great civilizations? Care to inform me of the major contributions made by the Iraqi of today, (which was the Babylon of yersteryear), the Egypt of today or the Isreal of today or the India or Italy or Greece of today? Do their current religious expressions, or lack of any, still impress you as evidence that theism has something constructive to contribute to mankind? Care to examine the major trouble spots of our world today and consider the religious foundations upon which those troublesome peoples depend for their unity, collective action and individual sacrifice? Care to consider how those virtues have been expressed lately? Well, nevermind, I can get that info from CNN.