I am not sure what you stance is. Whether or not you lack belief in God or whether you do believe there is No-God. That is an important difference, at least to me. Perhaps you see no difference. Is it atheism or agnosticism?
You often refer to logic for your reasoning and anti-logic for ours. We see more logic in what we believe than in what you believe and that seems to lead back to the beginning - Creation. I see no validity in assuming a Big Bang was the beginning because that leads inextricably to the beginning of the beginning - what banged? Yet, it is from that that the rest unfolds. So, I suppose that should be the starting point of these discussions and it often is.
The relevance of gravity, which metmom, brought up, is we know that gravity itself exists, but we don't yet know what it really is, and that is science, not religion. So, scientists and logicians do believe in things they can't see and can't fully explain. They can only observe it and make other calculations about it. The same is true of Christianity but on a different plane. Science deals with concreteness, with numbers and physical experiments, etc. Christianity deals with the abstracts like love, truth, life, beauty, etc. Yes, truth is an abstract. So, aren't we simply talking about in what we have faith? Is it science or is it religion?
Christians have the best of both worlds. We have faith in both. Non-believers are stuck with just science. Do you believe man has a spiritual nature? Do you believe there are recorded and observable phenomena that we cannot explain? I believe that for those who can make that "leap of faith" the Bible has explanations for it all. God is the Big Picture in which science is only a component. Science deals with things. Christianity deals with values.
Does that explain anything of importance?
Well, I'm not so sure about that dear Mind-numbed Robot. It seems to me that Truth apperceived by the human mind can be described, at the cognitive level, as an "abstraction." But an abstraction from what? Well, it seems all abstractions are finally prompted by Nature (Reality) itself. That is, they are descriptions or models of Nature, not Nature itself.
Yet as A. N. Whitehead has pointed out, what people often lose sight of (in my words, FWIW) is the distinction between source and image in Reality. Science — because it is unavoidably abstract, so much so that its business can largely be conveyed in the universal language of mathematics — falls into the image category. At the same time, science is supposed to be in the business of exploring the source category.
Of course, the immediately foregoing assumes the reader accepts the natural law tradition as "true." Not all people do, nowadays. :^)
In short, I do not believe that "truth is an abstract." I believe Truth is the very foundation of, and plan for Reality itself.
To my mind, Reality is an "abstraction" from Truth, and not the other way around.
Whitehead was addressing a problem which he identified as "the fallacy of misplaced concreteness." Scientific theories are "abstractions" from Reality, not Reality itself. The fallacy consists of "reducing" the latter to the former, to the point where the generating Reality is entirely eclipsed by its image, or abstraction.
Well, I'm sure that's just as clear as mud....
Anyhoot, other than that one tiny quibble, please let me congratulate you, dear Mind-numbed Robot, for your outstanding essay/post! Excellent insights!
Yes, it's an important difference to me too. That's why I keep saying, "It's not that I believe there is No God. It's that I do not believe there is God." It's a very important difference (at least when it comes to debate.)
You often refer to logic for your reasoning and anti-logic for ours. We see more logic in what we believe than in what you believe and that seems to lead back to the beginning - Creation. I see no validity in assuming a Big Bang was the beginning because that leads inextricably to the beginning of the beginning - what banged? Yet, it is from that that the rest unfolds. So, I suppose that should be the starting point of these discussions and it often is.
Are you sure I refer to logic often for my reasoning? Look back, because I don't think I do. I'm not particularly philosophical and I don't rely heavily on logic.
All I rely on is
1.) the fact that the world makes sense even without a God.
2.) I don't remember being conscious before I was born
3.) I was under anesthesia once and it was non-existence.
That's actually it. Oh... and I don't care how the universe began. I just don't. I don't know why people keep going back to that.
The relevance of gravity, which metmom, brought up, is we know that gravity itself exists,
My only point is that we don't have "faith" in gravity. We've found it to be reliable, so we take it for granted. That's not really the same as Faith in God. I think she brought it up to try and convince me that I'm "a believer" too, and we just differ in the details. But I'm not, and we don't.
Do you believe man has a spiritual nature?
No.
Do you believe there are recorded and observable phenomena that we cannot explain?
Well, there's Bigfoot.
I believe that for those who can make that "leap of faith" the Bible has explanations for it all.
Bible explains Bigfoot? Look, anything we can't explain yet simply means we need more information.