Give me magick any day…

It’s called logic and reason. You should try it sometime.
Or perhaps not.

Indeed? And yours are not? Isn’t that precisely why we are here; expressing our opinions?

(T)he Catholic Church, for one, just doesn’t sit on an article of faith.

Yes, they get around to it. 600 or so years later. Hey, did’ja hear they finally got around to forgiving Galileo for that whole heresy thing? What was that, 8 years ago?

Of course, SuperAtheist (secret identity - Mark Barton) dismissed that as “not checking”, anyway. Like most liberals, he thinks everyone who isn’t working on lining up with his beliefs is just wasting their time.

Could there be a connection between being a liberal and being antireligious?

Atheists and liberals sure think alike.

Yes, Frank, I am familiar with the concept, I just think it is a physical impossibility. At least in 1 B.C. Judea, it was. Maybe now, with the right science (!), a virgin could be fertilized in vitro. Back in the day? there must be a different explanation that is not based on “it’s a miracle.”

Sounds like, “Game, set and match” to me.

Ebon: The idea that power or money is a God is a foolish one. You’ve jut ruined two days of good old atheist rationalism.

Like I said, nothing gets checked. The above isn’t checking, it’s a juvenile tantrum: “Junior, have you cleaned your room?” Wave of greasy paw above grimy countertop. “Yes! (Try and make me.)”

“As for checking dogma, the only Church I know about is the Catholic Church, and they are discussing, questioning, and revising theology all the time (not with Bill Nye, science guy, of course). [//] Are you familiar with the concept of the Immaculate Conception? [//] It did not become official Church dogma until 1854, but it was discussed as far back as the fourth century.”

That’s not checking either. That’s deriving new consequences from axioms that have had no real-world checks and pushing out the result as literally infallible without any further real-world checks. It doesn’t matter if the mulling over has taken 16 centuries, a bunch of guys sitting around saying “That sounds right.” is not a meaningful check.

I really go back and forth about the “in your face” atheists. Most of the time they annoy the &$%# out of me. They just come across as arrogant jerks. I don’t like jerks in general and having them on “my side” is just embarrassing. But then there are times when the conservatives want to throw out the teaching of science, or deny people civil rights or discriminate against another faith. Then I’m glad the jerks are there. They are like the nasty pit fighters that you want working for you in tough political fight. As someone else noted, every side needs its bomb throwers.

My biggest complaint about “my side” is the lumping of all religion, all faith, all ideas of God into one, undifferentiated pile and proclaiming them all-bad. I know there are people with much more nuanced ideas about God and faith than the Falwells of the world (thank goodness). Quick example, Martin Gardner, great skeptic and promoter of science is a theist. I doubt many of the bomb throwers would consider him weak minded. Or maybe they would and that would prove my complaint about simplistic thinking. Even as someone without theist beliefs I recognize that a lot of people get value from their faith. It makes their lives richer, fuller, more compassionate. I think we should say, “good for you”.

I think Oliver is falling into the trap of a lot of people writing about out spoken atheists. You see this often in newspaper article. They just fall back into the “both sides are bad” simplicity that simulates neutrality. I disagree with some of the anti-religious stuff that Dawkins/Harris take for granted, but what they are often saying (the harm religion supposedly does,the dangers of faith, etc) IS testable. The claims can be approached objectively (with established tools of science). This is not the case for their supposed counterparts. And, worse, those counterparts want to make real world rules based on their untestable beliefs. Even the most strident atheists I’ve read are still strong believers in the separation of church and state. The counterparts believe that wall is a fiction. Given all that I just think it’s wrong to lump them together.

For note, not believing in the existence of something for which there is no credible evidence is not a faith based belief. It’s the right way to approach a new idea. And this is an idea that would REQUIRE us to add supernatural explanations to our model of the world. I won’t even go into the problem with “which God?” and “how do we test a supernatural explanation?” It really does add a lot more of a mess than simply saying, “Ok, God exists”.

As for checking dogma, the only Church I know about is the Catholic Church, and they are discussing, questioning, and revising theology all the time (not with Bill Nye, science guy, of course).

Are you familiar with the concept of the Immaculate Conception?

It did not become official Church dogma until 1854, but it was discussed as far back as the fourth century.

Well duh, yeah. And how do we know that some of them were wrong? Because scientists tested them, and kept testing them even after they’d had considerable success. By contrast, in theology, nobody ever checks anything. They take pride in not checking and/or floating ideas that can’t be checked. If believing that Jesus of Nazareth was the incarnate Son of God hadn’t gotten a single person to heaven as advertised, could any Christian say with a straight face they would have noticed? Not finding errors is not impressive if you’re not looking.

That’s just what we humans do. Can’t help it.

Yes, but science itself has often been wrong - spectacularly so. And then the new truth becomes the ’science’. What was once scientific law (the earth as center of the universe)becomes untrue legend.

Just because we can’t jump high enough to see over the fence, does not mean other stuff is not beyond the fence. Our science is as limited as we are - which is quite a bit. That doesn’t mean God is over there but we do know something over there some place is pretty damn awesome (universe, infinity) - so much more so than what we know and can comprehend that I don’t object to it being called a God. And maybe it wants to appear to a group of people as an old white beared man.

Certainly infinity is a big canvas for theorizing on. Science’s insight is that the vast majority of theories that you can dream up, including most theological theories, are wrong. Sadly that means that once you’ve reached the point where you can no longer test your theories (which includes pretty much all of theology) you might as well stop because you’re pretty much guaranteed to be wrong. It’s like doodling sea-monsters in the blank spaces on ancient maps - harmless fun as long as no one takes it too seriously. But people do take it seriously.

“And why can’t God be anthropomorphic.”

You have me backwards - I was saying that a God _must_ be at least a little bit anthropomorphic. A body is overkill but fine, a disembodied mind is also fine, but “that which no more perfect thing can be imagined” or “the first cause” or “the ground of all being” won’t do.

No, I meant to be rather more minimalist than that. By “goal” I meant to include things like “a universe with fiords, for no larger reason than to have some fiords”, and by “capacity” I mean to include the possibility that _this_ universe was a mere doodle but at at least _potentially_ could have been planned out. But if not even the capacity for forethought is there then I don’t see any interesting difference from a blind mechanistic process like evolution.

Or God could be, and I think may be, all of the above. Wearing different masks. God knows how to play to His audience.

“Prime Mover” is as good as anything else.”

I like “Optimus Prime” myself. Got a good ring to it.

“Are you saying that the shadowiness of the concept of infinity explains why there are theists?”

No, not quite; but that infinity or the universe provide a logical basis from which religions may theorize about their particular God - inasmuch as the best science man has been able to devise cannot rationally, fully explain either. And why can’t God be anthropomorphic. Why is that ruled out any moreso than him being a vacuum cleaner, a blob, or a spirit that appears to those he chooses to reveal himself to in a way they are comfortable with. His actual form, be there one, is insignificant. If he can create the uinverse, seems appearing as a man wouldn’t be a biggie.

I ocmpletely understand agnosticism and atheism. I don’t at all understand the raging anger (not you), stridency and close-mindedness of some atheists.
I can’t prove they’re wrong. Neither can you. Doubt we ever will be able to. Nor our grandchidlren. Nor theirs. Whatever the’answer’ is, it will ultimately be irrational according to oyr precepts.