Atheism, Theism, Science & Philosophy

[Love]

Love:

Just to make sure I'm understanding your position correctly: Your answer to my first question (asking what the basis is for your progressive Christianity) could be summarized as "the teachings of the historical Jesus according to scholars like Dr. McGrath, and your direct mystical experience of something malevolent (a Devil?), and of (what you consider to be) God." Your answer to my second question (why bother with the Bible?) is "Actually, I don't." Your answer to my third question (on what basis can you pick out the "nice" parts and discard the "mean" parts of the Bible/Jesus' teachings as portrayed therein) would be "I don't--because I don't follow the Bible in the first place" and/or "I take seriously the parts that NT scholars (Prof. McGrath, et. al.) think are what the historical Jesus taught." Is that a fairly accurate summation of your position?

Everything you have written here is absolutely correct. However, I do not particularly take seriously anything from the New Testament because as I have already explained, The Bible is a "theological" interpretation of Jesus' life and significance. I am only interested in the "historical" evidence related to Jesus. So it is not NT scholars, but rather historian scholars in which I am interested.

In the case of your god, you have defined it as "a panentheistic transcendent consciousness." If it is panentheistic and transcendent and conscious, it should have access to knowledge we do not have (yet)--unless it doesn't have memory or something. If such an entity exists and you or anyone else can communicate with it with any sort of reliability, you could, for example, ask it to tell you about something a space probe is likely to encounter fairly soon that we don't have lots of information about (such as what the Curiosity rover might find over the next rise or whatever). Then you could post its answer before the probe makes the observation. If by doing so you could predict a new scientific surprise, you would provide evidence that would increase the probability of your god's existence. Then we'd have to devise tests to rule out other alternatives (maybe you're just psychic ). Other ways to pursue this avenue of testing: ask your god to provide novel information about history that will be subject to future testing, such as information about the area/culture a new archaeological dig is investigating. Physics or mathematics could also work, if it knows more about these than we do. Post its answers in advance, then you and skeptical observers could test them.

These are all very good points. I am presently of the opinion that human beings are ultimately limited in terms of being able to comprehend extremely counter intuitive ideas. For example, even quantum physicists / theoretical physicists have trouble coming to terms with concepts such as "wave/particle duality" or even Everett's "many worlds interpretation" of quantum theory. As Dawkins has quoted Richard Feynman on a number of occasions: "if you think you understand quantum theory, you don't understand quantum theory". Although this will be seen as a "cowardly cop out" by some members, I truly believe that there are some things that are completely beyond our comprehension; call it intellectual humility. I think God is one of those areas that is completely beyond our grasp. Just like the idea that nothing existed before the emergence of time; it is beyond our intellectual grasp. What I sense, however, is that the "panentheistic transcendent consciousness" is the source of life, morality and love et cetera.

It is my contention that atheists demand far too much from science. Science is exceptional at answering a lot of questions, such as the behaviour of subatomic particles and the structure of water, for example. Of course, science has been immensely helpful in areas such as medicine and techology; we would not be sitting here having this interesting Internet discussion without the advent of physics.

Would you agree that this sort of test would falsify your belief in your god if the results came out negative? If not, can you think of some other kind of test whose results would come out one way if you're correct, and another way if we are?

I very much doubt that any kind of empircial observation could prove or disprove the existence of God. From this point of view, it is unfalsifiable, just like as Dawkins would put "pink unicorns" et cetera. As I have stated, I think you need a certain level of consiousness to be able to experience God, so that you can transcend beyond your five senses.

How could you know this, without some kind of total, infallible knowledge of what the scope of reason is?

This is an excellent and thought provoking question. I had a very interesting conversation with an individual who believed that empiricism and rationalism did not lead to "truth" (in epistemology), primarily because empiricism and rationalism rely on acquiring knowledge via the senses, and that all sense data is ultimately subjective to, as it were, the eye of the beholder. For example, if you and I had an interesting rational and logical conversation about a particular topic (and both you and I had an opinion about what we hold as true), how can you prove that your subjective opinion is actually true? Therefore, in this type of situation relativism trumps rationalsm and empiricism for the opinion held by the individual. I also find this with scientific evidence. If two people are viewing the same peer reviewed scientific document that presents evidence to disprove a theory, each person could be interpreting the evidence completely differently from each other. I think these are good examples that show the limits of reason.

I will address your other questions shortly.