Okay, I'll take a stab.

1. The existence of a deity taking special interest in Earth is proven by the gaps in the fossil record. The lack of transitional fossils shows that the deity regularly intervenes in natural history by introducing new species. Since the deity clearly has omnipotent powers, it could also adjust the speed of light through time and make other modifications in nature to make it all work.

2. Humans are limited, not infinite, in their understanding of the deity and in access to information. We understand the nature of God as best we can. The Trinity is a best estimate -- the human representation of something beyond our ken. But it is certain the deity is there because of the fossil record.

3. There are other prophetic traditions attempting to divine the divine. They are all approximations, with various degrees of truth.

Here's where I get lost. If the proof of God is the impossibility of the fossil record without the godhead, and all religions are mortals' best attempt at understanding the ineffable, how do we conclude that one, like the Trinity, is more accurate than another?

Lagtight, we need you.

Not only that but the DNA record is proof of evolution, and the so-called holes on the fossil record are not disproof. Genes can turn on and off, be recessive and dominant, producing radical changes that are not incremental to the naked eye.

All of the apologetics when you hit them with, "Yeah, but why your god instead of the thousands of others?" go silent because they realize their indoctrination has just been completely exposed.

"When we perceive the violent demise of the Nazarene as a blood sacrifice to an angry God, we have fallen into the deadly quicksands of archaic religion.

A payment required to pacify Divine justice and keep the adversarial 'Satan' contagion at bay has a long history, one that reaches back into the very origins of human violence.

Rather, the brutal execution deconstructs the old sacrificial concepts by fleshing out the Divine refusal to get involved in our propensity for violence, no matter how sacred the cause.

In declaring the death of Yeshua bar Yosef as the fullfillment and end of past blood sacrifices, substitutionary atonement believers only continues to paint a picture of a violent, albeit now appeased God.

Thankfully the truth is much more liberating & radical than that." -- Dylan M.

also, it doesnt show that logic can exist only if the trinitarian christian god exists

^^^You know we're never getting that, and probably not even why Jesus.

Religion tells you what to see and think. Gnostic spirituality takes the blindfold off and encourages a search and individual path.

"Desire creates self-deception. The quickest way to satisfy desire is to engage in wishful thinking and to arrange your ideas according to what you desire. The dominant thought is always self-deceptive." -- David Bohm.


I wonder what that means for the dominant religion? But why listen to dudes like Bohm when we have illiterate, magic believing peasants from 2000 years ago and their murderous, superstitious story book to listen to?????

Also, let's say we accept lagtight's statement that the laws of logic are transcendental. They are an example of a transcendental truth. I don't think that's necessarily true, but I also don't think that's a terrible position. There's a sense in which he is right- in some sense we do invoke the laws of logic to justify the use of logic.

Granting that some truths might be transcendental, e.g., logic, the laws of mathematics, etc., doesn't get you anywhere near theism. Because the religious claims that believers want to prove aren't claims about the rules of closed systems of thought, like logic or mathematics. The religious claims they want to prove are garden variety claims about history and empirical reality. Claims that aren't transcendental at all.

The claim that Jesus was a real person who existed and who died and was resurrected after his death? That's a standard issue claim about history. Nothing transcendental about it. Establishing the probability that it happened or didn't happen is no different a process than establishing whether Caesar crossed the Rubicon, or whether Atlantis actually existed.

Even more spiritual claims, such as the claim that there is a personal God who acts upon our lives and our world, are not transcendental. You can evaluate those claims in the same way you can evaluate a claim that a house is haunted, or that the position of the planets acts upon our lives as astrologers claim.

"There are some transcendental truths" isn't the get out of jail free card religious people think it is.

When real parental love and involvement is lacking, the lure of divinely loving parents is a natural response. This is why the heavenly father, never mind if he’s murderous and vengeful too, is the most popular religion.

The unfulfilled need of parental love is a huge hole that can be filled with spirituality, which is a good thing, but is also a hole that can be filled by predatory, corrupt religion.

Take Jesus. Unloved, unwanted, illegitimate … he was a ripe candidate to need a heavenly father. And his spiritual impulse in that direction, apart from the religious gerrymandering that came after, can be seen as a noble thing. In this way the religious impulse is not unnatural or supernatural even, and certainly not immoral.

They are going to another town to have the child born. There is a problem. They are having a late pregnancy woman ride across the desert. Nice, huh? You know, for the fake census. Jesus the adult, having no legitimate father, claimed and was claimed for him a supernatural one. I always thought his “Son of Man” moniker was about this orphanhood … I have no parents, I am a child of the human race, and of God. I’m the Son of Man (as in "mankind"). I'd even bet there is a vague translation there between "man" and "mankind."

THE RELIGION IS APOCRYPHAL. It’s 100% believable as that, and virtually zero% believable as literally true.

The brutally primitive superego chants "I am bad, I am bad, I am bad." I'll even invent a god that says I'm bad and babies are bad too. But the ego, when it isn't weak, can supersede this prejudice and achieve a self-perception that isn't guilt-ridden and that of a worthless wretch.

Without personal sovereignty, an individual will be consumed by fear, anxiety, and insecurity, and their faith will lack strength. Western culture has done well to promote personal sovereignty.

Because of that, I would say that currently “I am bad” is not as much of a complacency point as “I am good and the world is bad” or “I am good and they are bad”. For the individual with a developed personal sovereignty, “I am bad” is better than “I am good” in terms of progress and truth. That is because there is indeed an underlying problem that needs to be confronted and integrated.

However, for someone who lacks personal sovereignty, I agree with you that “I am bad” is not a good place to be.

I forget where I read this.... it might be Steven J Gould or Dawkins but let's say there is a "gap" of 10,000 between two fossil records. Now all the biblical literalists get to point at the gap and say "See! Look at that! A gap!" Then a paleontologist dates a newly discovered fossil to exactly in the middle of the 10,000 year gap. Now the evolution deniers can point and say "Look! Now there are TWO gaps!" ;-)

How did faith get smuggled in to that psychological equation? "Without personal sovereignty an individual will be consumed by fear, anxiety and insecurity ...." I agree. The only way you can get to faith in the next clause is by presupping for some religion.

The result of that insecurity you mention is low self-confidence and self-worth, not weak faith, in fact faith is inversely proportional because it is a function of anxiety and insecurity to create a phony, compensatory unshakable faith. This is how faith is the opposite of the good, and is a devious religious ploy which you just used yourself, apparently, by even presuming it belonged in a formulation about sovereignty and individuation ... as if you cant even imagine a world in which faith is not a given as a virtue. Go tell a psychologist that you think "I am bad" is better than "I am good," and you should hear: "There is only one paradigm under the sun that holds such belief ... brutal, ignorant, primitive religion."

You got burned by religion, we get it. It’s time to stop bringing your trauma into every discussion though. It makes discussion impossible when you do and it’s a bad look in general. I’m not even a religious person. I’ve been secular my entire life.

Just popping in. Promise to read the entire thread.

Is faith a bad thing? Isn't faith just really a hope in the unknown? I mean, we don't know everything, right?

Truth is what we know. Faith is something we believe that can't be known.

I thought I remembered that about you. Then how in hell do you go from a statement about individuation straight to faith as some kind of logical step? That's a purely religious tack.

Hope in the unknown is not a reliable or useful way to build a reliable and useful world view.

Yeah, right, which means "Gods, no matter what 'type', could have never existed, could not exist right now and could never exist"

Is individuation simple and easy or is it difficult? If you agree that it’s difficult, then why do it at all? Why not listen to the feel good psychologist that you referred to earlier that will give you positive affirmations and then go about resuming your life?

We individuate because we become at least somewhat aware of a deep, underlying problem, a problem that persists beyond the situation that revealed it to us. It is not logic or reason or the intellect that engages this underlying problem. The intellect does the opposite and tries to captivate us with the situational or with surface level truth.

Engaging the underlying problem is acting out the idea that our current life is not worth living without our intervention. Persisting beyond the idea that life as we know it is not worth living, through conscious intervention, is a faith move. To only associate the usage of ‘faith’ with organized religion is an error, but if it’s too triggering, then by all means use a word that is more to your liking.

Well you definitely get it in a way the faith hawkers don't, so I don't know why you use the word "faith" in that connection instead of "trust" or "hope," like almost all psych literature does when not of a Christian orientation.

Not sure what "feel good" psychologist I referred to. Someone specifically or just generically?

Every human has a spiritual instinct, whether or not you've tapped into it. Hope and faith are the things some humans rely on to get through their otherwise mundane and useless lives.

If that's what they need, (as long as it doesn't affect me) then I'll let them hang on to it. I won't be their judge.

If your belief in the unknown (faith) is that there is no God -- go for it.

I’m guessing the meaning I associate with ‘hope’ is similar to the meaning you associate with ‘faith’. I see faith in the same way Jesus used it when he talked about moving mountains. There is a defiance that I connect to faith that allows it to persist even when hope and trust are lost.

There is also an element of audacity that I associate with faith that I don’t with hope or trust.

I dont know what this means.

None of this addresses what I said, and in fact seems to conflict with your original post that I was responding to.

Not at all surprised that you haven't tapped in to your spiritual instinct.

I addressed that some need faith and hope just to survive everyday life. You, obviously, and I are not them. It doesn't mean that faith and hope aren't useful for developing a reliable and personal life view.

Whatever works.