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[Eric Dunbar]

On 06/12/06, Alexander Jacob Tsykin <stsykin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wednesday 06 December 2006 15:20, Senectus . wrote:
> Not at all. I have a deep seated belief that a God exists. I cannot understand
> any other thinking.

I'm so sorry. Take a few antibiotics and you'll be cured in the morning!

> I would contend that the absence of a God also cannot be proven. The onyl
> truly logical position is one of agnosticism.

You need to go back to epistemology 101. You're asking for a
*negative* proof: prove that I am not the Christian God. You can't
because it's an unprovable statement given the nice little escape
clauses Christians (and, any other relgious group) have built into
their definition of "God" (like, omnipotent, omniscient, etc.).

And, believe it or not, I agree with you that the position of the
strict atheist is not a logical one. Atheist merely describes belief
as it relates to gods -- a = without, theist = god believer. It says
nothing about the problem of (religious) belief. Some factions of the
Soviet Communist party were a complete religion with all the
requirements therefore (belief/faith, disconnect from reality, setting
up unprovable claims, etc.) and Buddism is also an atheist religion.

You need to go to the term areligious to get a little closer to a
useful definition of those who *reject* (religious) belief.

For the "atheist" you (as a theist) ask the question:
"Do you believe in God?"

And, you are expecting and/or only willing to accept the answers: "yes" or "no".

However, there is a third option and it provides us with the
appropriate answer to the question:

"Have you stopped beating your wife? Yes or No."[1]

If you say yes, you admit that you were beating your wife. If you say
no, you admit that you are still beating your wife.

[1]This question requires that either (a) you are not married or (b)
you have never beat your wife.

You must reject the question as invalid as it starts with invalid premises.

The same problem exists with the God question.

Do you believe in God? Yes or No.

By answering the question you start with the premise that God is real
for you can only reject a real object. By answering the question with
either yes or no you satisfy the requirement for the (religious)
believer since you validate God as being real.

> The atheist Soviet Union, commited
> much greater crimes than that of any religion, as did Nazi Germany. While it
> cna be contended that both Nazism adn Communism have been turned into
> religions, especially in those countries, the fact is that they denied the
> existance of a God, even attempting to prove that there isn't one.

Of course, the Soviet Communist party was a religious institution.
However, the Nazis on the other-hand were by-and-large good
church-going Christian.

PS I'm quite sure that Osama Bin Laden is a good solid believer in God.

> I can make the statements that:
> a) Neitzsche's understanding of Religion is inconsistent with those who are
> religious. As a result, I feel comfortable in rejecting his opinion.

That statement is quite true. There is a growing body of evidence that
"religious" experiences are real physiologically-based processes. If
he wasn't a believer he wouldn't have experienced the same
physiological responses.

This does absolutely nothing to provide evidence that the underlying
beliefs are real (no more than a child's belief in Santa or the tooth
fairy in Western cultures) but it does explain why people are able to
develop beliefs based on fictions. They lose the ability to separate
reality from fiction and make the fiction real -- this is why
(religious) belief (i.e. faith) is so incredible dangerous and
disgusting. Once a person is able to do the physiological
(psychological) legwork to make fiction "real" then it becomes much
easier to do it again and again and again.

> b) Neitzsche attempted to define faith without understanding it, having never
> truly experienced it. That si in my opinion simply incorrect.

Quite possibly he did. Maybe he didn't. But, you aren't exactly
Nitzsche so you're going to have a hard time stating what he did or
did not do ;-)

The tragedy in all of this is that religious belief permeates much of
society. It allows people to get away with intellectual laziness and
generates a whole lot of bigotry (put a whole bunch of good ol'
Muslim, a Jew and a Christian in a room together and what might you
get? a blood bath :-(.

Either way, most of this thread is boring (I love GMail, umpteen
e-mails in a row ended up being a single line in my Ubuntu folder).