Search for Causes

[The Grand Nudger]

It's neither ( though, for max cynicism..you don't have to choose).  

Modern christian belief has become what Crosby or Polanyi would call naturalistic theism.  Where belief in god rests on items of personal experience and natural observation rather than sacred revelation.  Lek finds himself at the crux of this change, where naturalism™ in opposition - to him..atheism...makes it hard for him to recognize god...when he considers it.  Whereas naturalism™ in content is the ground from which he searches for god as well as the ground from which he makes appeals to us, his fellow naturalists, but not his fellow believers.

If you read my posts, you'll realize I've stated numerous times that I believe because God has revealed it to me.  Is God revealing it to me not sacred revelation?

Unfortunately for your relapse into christianese, no.  That's not how it would be categorized.  You tell us that you've had an experience, and implore us to consider those experiences of others, as well.  You observe the world, life specifically in the human context and life broadly as well...and see god very much in it.  This is naturalistic theism, where belief in god rests on items of personal experience and natural observation...rather than sacred revelation.  Which, for you, would be magic book.  

The ego it must take to imagine that your personal experience amounted to sacred revelation is mind boggling. Call me back in a few thousand years when everyone is worshiping at your altar. Jesus fucking christ......

Some of my fellow believers, whoever they are, agree with me and some don't.  Who do you think are my fellow believers?

I don't make it a habit to go around polling nutters as to which specific christian cult they belong.  It would be pointless in context, since naturalism has crept into every facet of christian belief. It's entirely certain, however, that we are not your fellow believers.  We do not share in your existential faith...and so, when we both look at the same world with the same equipment and apply the same process to the same results in the same overriding functional ideology...we end up with different conclusions. There is a variable present in your calculus of divinity that is simply not present in ours.

Can't even throw you a lifeline to rationality without you arguing against it, huh?  

I'm over here suggesting that you're neither disabled, nor fundamentally dishonest. Rather, that you are using the deepest values you indwell as an indicator of truth.  This is all that distinguishes you from a religious humanist, minimalist religious naturalist, and a literal religion of nature.  The final product of all four of your beliefs is functionally identical precisely because of their shared ideological content regardless of whatever profession a person might make about the linguistic disparities.  This is why you expect others (and us, specifically) to have this experience upon which you predicate your own beliefs - why you can't take the alternative seriously, as you put it...and why you invent hilariously inept reasons for us not to see, or hear...why we don't experience this thing you're talking about.

It's worth remembering, at this point, that I've suggested that we do. WEhy do you think that you and I, experiencing the same things in the same world, would come to different conclusions about it? Just imagine, for a moment - that whatever experience you've had which leads you to rationally conclude that a god exists, is an experience I've also had, which does not lead me to that same conclusion. We are both approaching the experience in question with equal ability to observe and equal measures of rational faculty. We both trust that our experiences tell us about some true thing "out there". What could account for the difference?