Thoughts and questions from God Delusion

[jacklegger]

While I suspect that this is a large amount of hyperbole ( I appreciate good hyperbole btw),

Yes, and glad to hear it. A good sense of humor goes a long way in this context I think. And not taking oneself too seriously.

[quote]
it isn't really relevant to atheism. Atheists just don't believe in gods, that's all there is to it.

I get it. I was making the point that most of the atheists (or apparent atheists) I've met didn't seem like the type who were capable of or interested in a serious, civil conversation on the topic of the existence of god(s).

and frankly I wouldn't argue that point. I would ask though, what experience one has had with elves, not as a way to prove or disprove anything, but to understand the basis for such a belief. And as such I don't think that all beliefs are equally reasonable to hold. For example, if one's experience of elves is limited to reading Tolkien and imagining them - which I love to do - I would posit that this is a less reasonable basis for believing they exist in our universe than say, praying to God for healing from uterine cancer and having an apple-sized tumor "spontaneously disappear" overnight, confirmed by medical imaging by a non-religious physician (which happened to my mother, FWIW) is a basis for believing in God.

Sorry, gonna have to call bullshit on that. Don't take it personally.

Not at all, but which part are you calling bullshit? Basing belief on experience or the claim that my mother's tumor disappeared after prayer? That of course is something that could be "scientifically" verified. You may not believe me just because I said it happened; frankly I would be skeptical of someone else who said the same thing and I'm a believer in God and prayer. However, I assume you would agree that this is something that one could have evidence for. Like if you were the physician (who understood the ultrasound or whatever imaging technique was used), recognized the unmistakeable image of the tumor, and then re-imaged the patient a day or week or whatever later, and found no trace of the tumor. I'm not saying this would convince anyone that her prayer "worked" or that God exists, only that there was a tumor, and now there isn't. My point is that for my mom and others who have such experiences, the experience is strong (subjective) evidence for the existence of God.

BTW, this spontaneous regression is so common that it now has a name and people are seriously studying it. See the Wikipedia article. Here's a quote from it: " In a carefully designed study on mammography it was found that 22% of all breast cancer cases underwent spontaneous regression." (There is a reference for that stat, which refers to a peer-reviewed medical journal.)

Again, to be clear, I'm not saying this is evidence for anything other than that this kind of thing happens sometimes (not usually, but often enough to be recognized as "real".) I suspect most doctors and scientists don't try to hypothesize how or why, since there is likely no known physical mechanism by which it could be explained. Of course ignorance is no threat to science or naturalism, etc. Quite the contrary, it is its raison d'etre.

So maybe I'm misinterpreting you, but if you say, "bullshit that could never happen", I would reply, "sure it can, and does".

But of course that is the question in the first place (does God exist)

Not yours, no.

Actually it is. I'm here because TGD challenged my thinking sufficiently to reexamine the question. I am coming at it from the theist side (as opposed to the first time I came at it, which was from the atheist side), but I am coming at it, and taking it seriously.

[qoute]

, and without settling it with certainty (not just some vague probability - how is the probability of God's existence calculated, exactly?), forcing children to be raised by an atheist state is no different than the (apparently powerful and poised to take over the country) American Christian fundamentalists forcing their religion on the kids of atheist parents.

Except in that tiny little detail of peddling superstition as fact capable of influencing public policy....no...no different.

Well, atheism is not superstition, I guess technically it's not anything positive at all, only the denial of theism. But atheists generally do have positive philosophies (naturalism, materialism, humanism, pick-an-ism.; "get your -isms here!" ) about the nature of the universe and our place in it, and they certainly influence public policy. Your statement is assuming that atheism is true and theism is false. If that is the case, I agree with you. However, for those who consider this an open question and a personal decision, then I don't see the difference. It's forcing one's personal views on others either way.

And though this is really a side issue, it elicits the further question of who is going to decide what is best for children, if not their parents?

A tough issue, we have many cases where parents are not deemed fit to decide in the best interests of their children. Is religion one of those? In my honest opinion, depends on the religion.

Agreed. Some parents certainly are not fit. As a parent though, I would want my government to err on the side of giving parents the benefit of the doubt when the call is close, which I think the U.S. government currently does, more or less. I think the logical implications of Dawkins' suggestion of somehow prohibiting parents from raising children in a religious context go way past that though, into tyranny. I mean why not just go the whole way and do the Brave New World thing? Would be more efficient to just take reproduction out of the hands of people altogether. Just harvest some eggs from willing (or not) women and genetically engineer the citizens needed for the ideal society. Screw the parents. (More hyperbole there. )

Dawkins' greatest and most passionate objection to this (rightly so, IMO) was that the boy was taken from his parents, which was a cause of great trauma and suffering to them all. (He of course had no sympathy for the religious freedom of the Jewish parents, who were just as stupid and superstitious as their Catholic counterparts). And, finally, if (a utopian, atheistic) society is not willing to "kidnap" (as Dawkins put it of the Jewish boy) the children of theists of all stripes in order to spare them the abuse of being raised in religious families, why even raise the point that it is an injustice in the first place?

So that said religious shit-wits might reconsider whether or not it;'s a good idea to indoctrinate their children.

Roight. That's what I meant by saying it was a rhetorical device. But that also opens the door for atheist shit-wits to storm the houses of religious families (at least metaphorically/politically, if not literally) and demand the kids be liberated. I can imagine that some of them think The Brave New World sounds pretty good, and wouldn't consider it hyperbole.

... the severe cruelty of such a thing, especially in the eyes of a young child who knows nothing of philosophy or theology and just wants his or her mommy and daddy.)

Unfortunately Mommy and Daddy aren't always good people.

True, but who is going to be the judge? You? I sure wouldn't want that job, and as I said, if someone's going to judge me as a father, they better have a damn good reason to take my babies away from me if they try. Really, even if God is a terrible evil forced on weak-minded children, is it worse than taking kids away from their parents? Certainly and in every case?

What do you teach?

Math. e^i*pi + 1 = 0, therefore God exists. Q.E.Dizzle! (Joking of course!!!)