If there was a loving God, would you accept him?

[SteelCurtain]

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Many of the comments from my last post have rejected the idea that there are limitations to empirical analysis of the God or said it does not matter. Some of you have pointed out that if there was a God, should there not by empirical evidence? My response is twofold:

1) Empirical studies fall short of being able to understand all of reality? How can you account for the existence of beauty and courage on only an empirical epistemology. It makes no sense why a fearful man will stand up in the field of battle and charge the enemy. This concept belongs to a realm beyond empirical science. Since some of you have doubted whether such a realm exists I would like to ask the following question.

2) What makes empirical rationalism the sole and first criteria for understanding the world?

I believe this question along with the limitations of empiricism present a serious challenge to what basis an atheist has for his view. It gets to the heart of what I believe are a series of assumptions that are made before the atheist even looks at the evidence. This question begins to touch what in a very technical sense is knows as a metaphysical dream. This dream explains why a theist comes to a different conclusion than an atheist.

Please let me know what you think. I am very interested in understand how atheist evaluate their primary basis for determining reality, empiricism. I look forward to hearing from everyone.

Nathan

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1) What makes you think that beauty and courage are constructs outside of the human mind? All indications are that they are human reactions to outside stimuli, and therefore are absolutely understandable by emprical observations. Neurologists are making progress every day in understanding the brain, which is one of the most complicated systems (if not the most complicated) on earth. If the architecture of the human brain can be understood, it stands to reason that brain response can be understood, even if not soon. But this quasi-god of the gaps argument doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

2) It happens to be the best known, most productive, and most successful method in making progress in knowledge. If you'd like to provide a substitute, then please, publish your paper and receive your Nobel. (Note: goddidit has failed in progressing the human spectrum of knowledge.)

You seem to spend quite a bit of time knocking down empiricism for what it currently cannot measure. I wonder if it were 50 years ago, would you be knocking the empirical method for not being able to model DNA and the human genome? Or 100 years ago, would you be knocking empiricism for not being able to measure the size or weight of an electron? The argument is that just because something is not currently measurable is not an excuse to say: "Thus God."