Choosing a faith

No, GDR, that is a statement of fact. It is a binary problem. It is either real or it is fantasy. And since, for the most part, we can easily tell the difference, the distinctions are not difficult to make.In the case you were presenting deist/theist is acknowledged fantasy since they lack any evidence of efficacy. So the choice you offered was religious fantasy vs not.
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I missed this. I see a world where we struggle between often choosing between our own good at the expense of another as opposed to loving others at the expense of the self. I believe by common good that we are compelled to choose the latter.We could get matching shirts saying "I'm a Humanist". Don't need the twisted illogical baggage of some fantasy religion.

You keep saying that what you believe is evidenced based. What is that evidence? I'd suggest that there is considerable evidence but nothing that constitutes proof.There is the fine tuning of the universe required to facilitate life as outlined in the anthropic principle. There is a fact that not only does our world support life but it also supports conscious life and even sentient life that can choose between good and evil, can understand and even create beauty, humour and be able to love.Yes, you can believe in a mindless root cause for all that and evidence that you can, and do, reject it as being evidence for an intelligent cause for it all. It can be accepted or rejected as evidence for such an intelligence.What is the evidence you have for a mindless root cause for our existence?

Again, that is a statement of belief, and even if we accept it as fact it does not in any way eliminate the possibility that we are that way because we are designed that way.

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I agree and apologise. I felt that I was responding in kind and that is not justification

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It was not even responding in kind. Be glad that I chose not to continue the escalation that you had started.

That's one of the better philosophical points you have made. I know that you are an atheist (a materialist IIRC) and you do often get me to think without insulting me. I appreciate it.Tangle thinks it's all madness, but I think that he wishes that the Bronze Age Goat Herder belief system would "grow up" or something. And as far as choosing a faith, not to choose is to choose. All is well with the world and we will always need each other.

I would think that you yourself should be glad. It proves that an atheist can be self-correcting and take the high road. We would suggest that a Higher Intelligence works behind the scenes in all of us (believer and unbeliever alike) but it is totally rational and acceptable to believe that you are self-correcting and becoming better each day without the need of a Deity. We all should be glad for each other getting a bit calmer and more rational day by day. And we should forgive each other for having snippy days where we appear to regress. That's being human.

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I would think that you yourself should be glad. It proves that an atheist can be self-correcting and take the high road.

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That would be better directed at GDR since he made a partial self-correction, while I simply stayed (relatively) civil instead of retaliating.

Physics. All of it. We may not know where it all came from but we know what it all has, and has not, done since the first second of creation. There is nothing in the universe that indicates even a hint of the kinds of super intellect or devine universal Grand Poobah you posit. And since we know the physics so well, we can tell no god has interfered with this universe because there is no trail of causality/effect where there damn well should be if your fantasies were real and some god intervened. Ahh, the Dredge syndrome.That’s ok, GDR. This is science and we don’t deal in proof. We deal in the preponderance of the evidence and the processes they reveal. There is nothing else.Again, there is nothing else … that anyone can show. I site the same laundry list to evidence a natural world sans your fine tuning. We know how many of these, especially the emotions, manifest in our heads, causing good boys to be bad and bad boys to be good by messing with their brains chemically and physically. We know how these things work and how they work by, what appears to be, only natural processes. No gods necessary or evident.Fine tuning is a human artifact created to give the gods a hand in the universe. It is a bogus concept and, based upon discussions this forum has had in the past, appears to fine tune the universe, not for life, but for stars. Life = 1. Stars = 10²⁴. What this universe is showing us is it prodigiously creates stars from this supposed fine tuning. Without a reason grounded in physical evidence, there is no reason to entertain fantasy. Without such, your conjecture is useless. Such can never be accepted. There is nothing there. The fact that, in all the universe, there is no other viable option.Ok, plus a trillion, trillion or so items from literally all the sciences showing, as a clear preponderance of the evidence, that all processes ever observed, either directly or indirectly, are natural in origin and operation. There has never been any hint of evidence of the majik you seek to believe to spark such a speculation.Now, please understand, you are into items we have exceptional confidence in. To challenge the science saying this majik occurred is to lose the argument instantly, unless you can provide more and stronger evidence than we have for our side. I don’t think you can do that.I don’t think you can ever provide the kinds and numbers of evidences of your fantasies that could challenge the reality as our sciences have revealed it. And remember, please, we are talking about a total zip on direct evidence you could point to that could only be done by a god but also the marks on the universe that should be there scratched in the heavens if the stories of your gods were real. In this universe even your god must obey Mother Nature.

Edited by AZPaul3, .

Yes it was a statement of humanist belief. It mirrored your statement quite precisely. This society does not need religious structure to invoke humanist actions. There is reason enough just in being human.What eliminates the possibility of us being designed is the total lack of any evidence (yeah, that old mantra) to suppose this is even possible. You have to first show a designer, then the method, then the ...It goes on. You provide nothing to support such a notion. Why do you bring it up? You provide no reason for anyone to entertain such a thing as viable.

This is a Faith & Belief Forum. No evidence is required, at least of the objective variety.And in the realm of Faith and imagination, your words (coated with hatred for all things theistic) are powerless. You have less power to eliminate God than God has to oversee your eventual death and future existence. At that time, you will finally see the evidence that your desperate mind wants to avoid. Of course, you won't believe me. Largely because it is the last thing you would ever want.

Perhaps not, but it needs more than humanist actions to survive much past the next hundred years. You know the data. Tell me I'm wrong!

Well, Phat man, when you are right, you are right. I am not a fan of theisms of any kind and like snakes and wasps, when ya see one ya gotta kill it.I do feel I've hijacked GDR's thread. He wanted to talk about selection criteria for gods and I storm in here demanding reality from a fantasy thread.I think I'll bow out here and let you all entertain us with your imaginings.Thanks, again, Phat.

That's your takeaway from what I said? Interesting. I think you may be interpreting what people say about their own beliefs through a lens of your own beliefs. I am not seeking spiritual answers. That's your gig. In my world the spiritual realm has no more reality than hobbits.But clearly you don't believe us when we say we literally give it no thought. You instead see us as in a state of conscious and effortful denial and rejection of the Lord of the universe whose proof lies in every blade of grass. How does what I really said about my beliefs impact my life? Other than influencing what I say in religious discussions like this, not one whit. Why would I ever spend any time thinking about things I have no evidence are real, like griffins and gods, let alone let them influence my life? Let me paraphrase this back to you, but with a different subject of focus:

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Yes I do have reasons for believing the ether exists, which isn't to say that some of the reasons aren't simply personal or from other scientists I find influential. I joke that I am the only one who has their science 100% correct but I know full well that isn't the case. Even one of my favorite scientists often says in his lectures that about 1/3 of what he is going to say will be wrong with the problem being that he doesn't know which 1/3 it is. I'm probably more in the 3/4 bracket.

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If after saying this I state that I still believe the ether exists then I am obviously just believing what I want to believe. And that's how we see you. In our view, your writings do not support what you believe. They're just the mental meanderings of someone who despite all the evidence to the contrary believes that information leading him to what he should truly believe is out there somewhere.--Percy

In the real world, which includes science, there's no such thing as proof. That's the realm of mathematics. If you have "considerable evidence" for your beliefs then we would like an opportunity to examine it. This is just mental masturbation. There's no evidence in any of this. You're asking the wrong question. We accept what the evidence supports. Currently there is no evidence of a cosmic intelligence.You might be heading down the same path that led you to abandon EvC in the first place. Will we soon see a claim that your evidence satisfies different criteria than those of science but that it is just as valid anyway? If so, this will expose you to the kind of treatment you object to.--Percy