(November 8, 2013 at 6:09 pm)John V Wrote:
Ah, yes, my apologies. I wasn't attempting to build straw men. My circuits got crossed as I was having two conversations here. The other one was about starving children in Africa, and I suddenly thought we were talking about bare necessities. So, apologies for my last post and disregard it.
No, when I say that it's hard for me to swallow that a deity would be concerned with such desires, it isn't due to personal credulity, just like my inability to swallow someone's claim that they were golfing on Mars with Elvis Presley. The human need for praise is due our emotional needs and desire to be accepted by our peers. It's the human attempt to find a place and a purpose in this universe. A god has no such needs and limitations. That is why it is hard to believe.
Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own - Bertrand Russell