I don't believe theists and reject their claims of theism.

[The Reality Salesman01]

You may be right but that's a lot more than I know. I have no more reason for believing this premise than I do for believing any of the claims made by theists.

Good point. Thank you. I guess I should really rephrase that one...

No claim of an unembodied mind or celestial agent can be posited from evidence that is made available to me.

The people that make the claims to me cannot present evidence for their claims either.

I have been left to assume, that there is no such evidence made to them, that is not made to me, and from that I conclude that they are in no better a position to invoke such an entity as the answer for the universe than I am for the answer to my crossword puzzle if the question doesn't match the answer I invoke.

Present me with any concept you suppose to be true, without having a reason grounded in reality to support it, and I will reject it outright as well.

I believe that reflection will often reveal more than any tabulation of what I know to be true can reveal.

I must ask,what you are reflecting on? Do such things correlate with reality, or are they simply figments? If such things are merely figmented products of reflection, what truth can be assigned to these otherwise unconjured thoughts? My contention is that such reflection is more imagination, and is no different than me creating a comic book, and creating a monsterous villain to fill pg. 13. The villian I created is not true in any other sense than it is now on paper when before, it was only in my imagination. Any other meaning cannot be rationally correlated to reality if the nature of its existance did not either.

I likewise find that my sense of composition is worth sharing even though I don't have any formal instruction in that.

Whatever you opinion of what is worth sharing is, cannot be refuted on the grounds of not having formal instruction of it. You are indeed right there, as such an argument would be fallicious.

I also attribute great value to flights of inspiration even though I do not build them up upon a solid footing of true belief.

This sounds poetic, I enjoyed it, and don't want to touch it.

In short, I find great value in that which originates in the unconscious rather than being assembled through reason with the conscious mind.

Inspiration is a beautiful thing. Both my fiancee and I are amateur painters. Mostly acrylic , but we've filled our house with our "works"..he he he. My point is that such things, beautiful as they may be as works of creativity, correlate with reality as imaginative depictions of my inspiration. They cannot be rationally justified as the cause of the universe. Motives, inspiration, creativity have merit. Depictions and representations of them can be displayed and correlate with reality as such. Postulating that they are answers to questions beyond their nature to be answers for... would require a great deal of rational justification, of the sort, I have not heard.

There is nothing available that could justify bridging the gap of my ignorance with imagination.
That is why I do not believe theists, and reject their claims of theism.

I hear you. I likewise acknowledge no god claims. However I am not in as big a hurry to proclaim them untrue or unworthy.

If the origin of a claim stems from the place in my head that I draw upon for the first place to put paint on canvas, I will assess the claims merit according to its applicability and nature. Such an origin could not explain to me why my light switch will not function to activate my lamp, any more than it can explain to me the early stages of the creation of the universe. While creativity and inspiration have merit, and the value placed in the object they create can stand fast in ones subjective perspective of them. We are discussing opinon over a valid claim. If an opinion is to be considered as a valid explanation, it has to be grounded in reality otherwise its no different than how special I may believe my painting is.

To do that might require that I cast out my own unsupportable beliefs, which I will not do.

I'm not so inclined to agree here. It almost feels like we're equivocating a bit on the word belief and the context we are using it in. There are things that you can believe are true, and recognize that they are souly true for no other reason than it is your opinion, an opinionated belief...such as in taste of food, art, music etc. But I don't think anybody would expect justification for preference be made for such things as the subjects of such beliefs, are at least grounded in experience and reality, in at least some sense, even if small.

Then there are claims that one believes are true, and are true for everybody, the universe included. The subject of this belief shares the same properties as the subject in my comic book, and none of the rationally grounded properties assigned to the subject of such beliefs can be logically correlated to it by any other means aside from individual insistance.

A believer either admits a certain level of agnostism by holding it as an opinion, or the believer suggests gnostism by holding it as a conviction and regard it as true above any other opinion of it. In every instance that the latter has been suggested, I have not heard good reason to accept it as anything other than the former, and without good reason for invoking such claims that do not correlate with reality it is unclear to me why anybody holding such a belief would expect anyone opposed to it to concede its validity. That is the point I was hoping to make, but my brain sometimes gets overloaded and things come out firing on too many cylenders. Thanks for indulging my thoughts.

---

On what grounds is anyone able to assert claim of a God and then stamp it as rational?

I for one am of the opinion that a rational understanding of the physical universe depends on presupposing forces and principles that operate parallel to, in tandem with, and above those of the physical universe.

From one bold word to another, how do you justify bridging the gaps between an opinion (unsupported by argument) to it being rational (having good reason) to making claims about a physical universe at its empirical laws on the grounds of a mere presupposition that has not yet been justified itself? I appreciate your perspective Chad, and do enjoy reading your opinions, I just don't see how you logically connect those dots.

That was certainly one of the implications of Godel, Escher, Bach. My point is that reason itself depends on something over and above what can be known purely by empirical observations.

Pure speculation, and while this may be true, there is no example of it being true. There is no example of a mind existing outside of a body, and so there is no reason to entertain the idea of an unembodied mind. These are valuable as nothing more than imaginative possibilities serving as creative entertainment, and have not warranted any merit other than that.