Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 2:12 pm
Stephen, I'll add your book to our http://www.booktalk.org/book-suggestions.php page soon.
Quality books. Great conversations.
https://www.booktalk.org/
The cause of my 'delusions' ?You cannot help a delusional person if you don't understand the nature and cause of their delusions.
Then what is he? What PRECISELY is your God? Define, describe, locate, and explain your God. Philosophy is often used as a smoke screen to confuse issues, detract attention, draw false analogies and otherwise make simple matters appear complicated.How can you honestly say that philosophy is irrelevant? You're stuck on one, single-minded conception of a Big Man In The Sky, Chris. He's not a little elf that drops clues so we can go on an Easter Egg hunt for them.
Then why in the hell would you believe in something that there is no evidence for? This literally blows my mind. If I didn't know you were serious I'd probably find this amusing.You're never going to get evidence for him.
As I've said repeatedly in my posts, you're not going to get NATURAL evidence of the SUPERNATURAL.
Completely and utterly irrational. Just the fact that you are arguing that the metaphysical exists shows me that the metaphysical MUST interact with the physical. How else would you know or detect or sense the existence of the metaphysical? Aren't you an element of the physical world? The metaphysical must somehow cause effects on the physical world or you wouldn't be so sure it exists.You're not going to get PHYSICAL evidence of the METAPHYSICAL.
There is nothing interesting or sophisticated about the claim that a supernatural being created this or that. This is the negation of reason or a step back into the past. When you can't understand a mystery why not attribute the origin of the mystery to an even greater mystery? If you don't know how the universe came to be why not say, "God did it," and when asked what created God quickly cover your ears and repeat over and over again, "I can't hear you." Or even worse, "God is the first cause."But some people have moved on to more interesting, sophisticated interpretations of what divinity might be, and how to incorporate it into our lives.
Common sense, education, deductive and inductive reasoning, experience and intelligence. Name 3 things that exist without leaving behind some sort of evidence for their existence. Please, this should be a simple task. Heck, name just one.What, precisely, makes you think that there would be evidence of god's existance if there was a god?
I'm not 100% sure. I'm not 100% sure that there isn't a planet dominated by giant purple starfish. Since when is science about absolute certainty?What makes you 100% sure that science would leave something behind to tell us?
This is where we disagree. To me the existence of deities is subjective, they exist in the minds, souls, etc... of the believers.Whether or not a deity exists is NOT subjective. Either a deity does indeed exist or does not exist. These are mutually exclusive events. Both cannot be true at the same time. God cannot exist and not exist at the same time.
So God only exists in our minds? I agree.To me the existence of deities is subjective, they exist in the minds, souls, etc... of the believers.