What do we need a deity for? (Introduction)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Monday, August 08, 2011, 21:30 (4856 days ago) @ broken_cynic

Well, so long as you insist on a (false) dichotomy of being unable to judge anything in the absence of complete knowledge, you will die on that fence. I'm sure that prospect doesn't bother you, but I'm not at all sure I see the value in it, for you or anyone else. 
> -Kind of a common-sense "Practicality" approach. "How do we move forward?" I ask the question, "Why move at all?" In my own case, I agree to a large extent that if life didn't arrive by a creator, than the only recourse is by chance, but belief in such a staggering lottery is precisely why dhw calls this "faith in chance." It is precisely this fence that is one of several that I sit on--however prickly the post is. We need more of the story before I accept the result. -> > However, you cannot expect even those who occupy the middle ground simply to cave in when you claim that although we don't know and may never know the answers to the big questions, you yourself believe that they will prove to be material.
> 
> I have neither expected, nor claimed anything of the sort. I realize I'm going about answering your posts from today a bit backwards, but eventually I'm going to get tired of answering to this damn straw man. I can see why atheists might not stick around here if you insist on arguing not with them, but a set of beliefs you assign to them.
> 
> >I have not said that the story of Yahweh is untouchable. Yahweh, as you say, is simply the Jewish name for God (call him/her/it Jehovah, or Allah, or a UI, or whatever you like), and although I do not believe in him/her/it, unlike yourself I do not KNOW whether some such God exists or not. 
> 
> Why are you comfortable saying you know that about Thor and FSM, but not Yahweh/Jehovah/Allah/etc...? What is the difference you see? 
> 
> > And since I have no answers of my own to the big questions, I respect those who think they have, so long as they show the same respect to others who do not share their beliefs.
> 
> Agreed, but I don't necessarily extend that respect to their beliefs.-
Here is one place where we part: it matters not to me if someone still believes in Thor or Yaweh; at the end of the day each of us chooses some kind of mythology to fill our answers, whether its agreed upon by experiment or by personal experience alone. (The two extremes.) I'm enough of a materialist to subject my views to strict criteria, but enough of a mystic to realize that emotive responses are as real as physical responses. Because I can't reproduce a feeling, doesn't mean that there isn't a reality there. We're as hard-wired for religion as we are for vision. It makes no difference to me, what form a person chooses. To quote from Sextus Empiricus, "Moreover, we cannot even give preference on the basis of the power of reason, i.e., by treating the rational animal as a carrier of greater knowledge than the irrational animal. For the irrational animal is still adept at navigating their environment, which presupposes the ability to know about some aspects of the environment." That which was good for "primitive" man is just as valid now.

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"