Proof and evidence will always equal Science

[zwanzig]

Nice rant. I very much enjoyed it. Especially the cosmic horror bit. I think most colloquial conceptions of God are just people kind of going along with what their encompassing religious social group says. As you point out, it leads to absurdity pretty quick. Because people are just repeating a bunch of stuff they've never critically examined. It's nonsense.

Thoughtful theists, who scrutinize and question their own theologies, tend to be able to avoid some of this absurdity, although questions still remain. Leo Tolstoy, who I recently mentioned, has such a take on Christian theology. It's grounded and realistic... careful with its claims. You can't expect that from Baptists, Mormons, and others. Such people are members of a social institution first and believers second.

I think I would still challenge the idea of worship or awe for anything that can be materially defined and physically interacted with. Like, even if you define your god as a realistic being, the "daddy" of creation, I'm still stuck on the theism bit. Why is he god? He can be explained. It's still absurd.

Or maybe I'm just not catching on to what you mean by the oxymoron of "thoughtful theists" and what you mean by grounded and realistic. Theism itself by the definition "belief in a god" is escaping the physical and definable reality. What is god? The more concrete it is, the less it is god.

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Remember the "Do chairs exist?" thread? Whether you answer yes or no to that question, you accept some sort of metaphysical theory. As Bel points out, you can't prove a metaphysical theory with evidence... but you can make substantive logical arguments. So it's not dogmatic or anything.

Oh god...

I do remember it. I avoided it. Because it was an absurd and not very useful line of questioning. Where we are right now talking together with letters and typing and me sitting in my room and you sitting somewhere else; there's a certain level of idiocy "gotcha" in challenging the reality we both acknowledge and interact with on a practical basis.

So, this is what I've done. I've accidentally remade the "derp are things that I touch real?" thread. Great.