Well to be fair, you really don't know. the inability to prove doesn't disprove. a dog cannot do differential calculus. why should we believe that humans, with or without science, are capable of proving the existence of a greater being?

having said that, agnosticism seems better (to me at least) than pure atheism. you really don't know. one philosophy is that god is merely the universe (literally everything). if there is an everything, you can call it whatever you want - universe, "the essence", god, whatever. anthropomorphizing merely makes it more palatable to the relatively simple collective human conscience.

the concept of desire affecting outcome has some scientific merit and on a very large (planetary?) scale it could be seen as conjuring. that is to say, the moment someone believes in something (like the spaghetti monster) it is. the more belief there is in an entity, the more existant that entity becomes. following that logic, during norse times, Thor existed. if anyone still believes in Thor, he still exists. Since many many people believe in God, God exists. To say "only in the imagination of the believers" is actually to discredit science which supports the assertion of will to affect random outcomes.

the ability of this entity to have any volition outside the collective conscience is hogwash. $.02

Hey Norm, have your heard about Kent Hovind's tax fraud conviction yesterday?

Mr. Creationism faces 288 years in prison.

The Full tory can be found here.

It's hell week for Jesus freaks, no doubt about it!

Themba-I too felt the way you did, that I "didn't" know one way or the other, and therefore would refuse to outright say "God doesn't exist?" Yet, this still brings in the issue of faith, or some kind idea that humans are not fully responsible for what they do, that "something" exists to blame/thank. It's really clear cut, God exists or he doesn't. Even with the idea of the "collective imagination" [sic] how come we as men haven't created into existence a woman who loves footbal, sharing nachos, walking around in neglige, and doesn't mind when you burp or fart (in fact, she thinks its cute).

Or World Peace? Or what seems to be chaos? I know you don't fully believe this, but I think the minute we stop looking at ourselves, we lose sight of who is truly responsible.

I see your $.02. I'll fold.

How can a reasoning person create a category "liberally religious", and then relate to that category as if you can make reasoned generalizations like "they" do this or "they" think that? Your lack of doubt about your own understanding of liberal religious thinking is mind-boggling. Like Bush, never in doubt?

How a reasoning person can ignore the context is mind-mindboggling. A thinking person doesn't jump to conclusions but rather asks for clarification if he has questions . Gerald you have both ignored the context and failed to ask for clarification, both signs of the worst kind of arrogance and evidence of a lack of critical thinking skills. Never in doubt, an excellent self-description.

Themba, it sounds very much as if you are referencing the likes of Brenda Dunne's "PEAR" lab at Princeton, which is an alleged investigation into the effects of gestalt consciousness on tangible events. They claim results which they refuse to publish, and which seem to be arrived at only through a studious process of abandoning all scientific controls against confirmation bias. There is no evidence of any replicable nature to suggest that individual consciousness, on any scale, influences physical outcomes. Don't even start preaching the observer effect in quantum mechanics, either, because that effect does not have the metaphysical implications most folks at first blush tend to think it does. As soon as you've concluded in some way that your conscious mind makes or shapes reality, you can be certain you've misunderstood something along the way. It doesn't happen, and it certainly doesn't permit human beings to literally create the gods they worship.

Furthermore, the argument from strata of intelligence seems theoretically interesting, but is at best not useful. Religious types frequently make the argument that bacteria or mice or some other "lower" form of life couldn't understand human mental constructs, and therefore that there may be "higher" kinds of mental constructs that humans are incapable of comprehending, such a perfectly good explanation why an all-powerful, all-loving God allows babies to contract AIDS. While I don't deny the abstract possibility of such superhuman intellection, by definition we can have no idea what that might be. The best you could draw from this would be a kind of generalized humility, certainly not positive support for as complex a construct as a god, much less any specific god.

I recently saw a theist proudly (but inspecifically) wielding Wittgenstein in defense of his position. I wish I could remember where (I thought it was Eagleton's review of Dawkins' book, but I seem to be mistaken about that). I thought it was odd at the time for a reason that's now relevant: The most well-known conclusion of Wittgenstein's Tractatus is, "whereof one cannot speak, one must therefore remain silent." One cannot invent meaning out of meaninglessness, and this is exactly what the argument from strata of intelligence attempts to do. It hypothesizes the existence of "intelligence beyond humans," which by definition humans cannot discuss meaningfully, and then attempts to use that epistemically empty hypothesis, in assertion form, as the premise to an argument. While by definition we cannot claim definitively that such is not the case, it isn't something we can talk about and hope to make any sense. Attempting to do so is not enlightened but merely muddled, particularly when undertaken ad hoc in support of statements with tangible implications which are difficult to support by other means.

I should also have mentioned above the absurdity of suggesting in the same post both that gods are a literal product of human consciouness and that they represent an intelligence so great as to be beyond human ken. I'm pretty certain you can't have that both ways, but of course that's only by petty human reasoning.

How many times must we go over this, people.

Gnosticism is about knowing.

Theism is about believing.

It certainly is the case that some atheists hold to a belief. The belief that God does not exist (an absolute). There simply is no need for such a belief, because we can simply be agnostic atheists when it comes to such thinking.

If there is insufficient evidence to show that a God or gods exist, then we reject the notion. Period. It's that simple, we just don't "know" because no knowledge of such a notion exists. Believing that there may or may not be does not provide any insight as to how the world funtions much less answer any questions such as "why". May I also say that there is a difference between mere speculation and crossing the threshold into a belief.

On another note, did anyone catch (assuming all of you read through the entire article) that bit of "Canaanite High God El (often translated simply as “God” in modern Bibles)"? Funny how that is brought up. Very few people actually know that the Hebrew word Elohim found in Genesis actually is the plural for of El which means God. Therefore, in Genesis we have a reference to multiple gods not just one, yet translated as God. Hmm. Genesis 1:26 says, "And God said, Let us make man in our image." The "us" and "our" imply multiple agents. This idea actually came from the different polytheistic religions around the area. Some apologetics have tried to say that this is merely referencing the Trinity, yet if this is true, then why oh why not use then the proper plural translation? Although as the Hebrew belief system grew, and the word Elohim came to mean the singular God, the fact still remains: The original meaning meant the plural form. Any honest translation of Elohim, therefore should reflect this plurality.

How many times must we go over this, people.

Gnosticism is about knowing.

Theism is about believing.

It certainly is the case that some atheists hold to a belief. The belief that God does not exist (an absolute). There simply is no need for such a belief, because we can simply be agnostic atheists when it comes to such thinking.

If there is insufficient evidence to show that a God or gods exist, then we reject the notion. Period. It's that simple, we just don't "know" because no knowledge of such a notion exists. Believing that there may or may not be does not provide any insight as to how the world funtions much less answer any questions such as "why". May I also say that there is a difference between mere speculation and crossing the threshold into a belief.

On another note, did anyone catch (assuming all of you read through the entire article) that bit of "Canaanite High God El (often translated simply as “God” in modern Bibles)"? Funny how that is brought up. Very few people actually know that the Hebrew word Elohim found in Genesis actually is the plural for of El which means God. Therefore, in Genesis we have a reference to multiple gods not just one, yet translated as God. Hmm. Genesis 1:26 says, "And God said, Let us make man in our image." The "us" and "our" imply multiple agents. This idea actually came from the different polytheistic religions around the area. Some apologetics have tried to say that this is merely referencing the Trinity, yet if this is true, then why oh why not use then the proper plural translation? Although as the Hebrew belief system grew, and the word Elohim came to mean the singular God, the fact still remains: The original meaning meant the plural form. Any honest translation of Elohim, therefore should reflect this plurality.

Okay. this is not a conversation that can be held in a comment forum - it merits more bandwidth. mat, i see you've met my wife.

suffice to say i acknowledge the difference between gnosticism and theism, thanks for pointing that out.

"in the same post both that gods are a literal product of human consciouness and that they represent an intelligence so great as to be beyond human ken." that is a circular argument which i do not make. the example (which i didn't say i believed in - i merely cited as an example as to why noone knows) did not say that god is a literal product of human conscience - that would imply that humans thought "if i think of god, god will be." the sequence of causality is off. what i stated is that *because a collective conscience believes in Xenu, there is a resultant change in probability, which would be attributed to Xenu.

It's somewhat analogous to psychosomatic pain. No, it may not be real nerve activations, but yes the pain is very real at the synaptic level.

Coffee? NYC? anyone?