What if there was no god?

[Etienne]

A.) This thread is not about apologetics. If it was, I might indulge you with some reasons- but most likely it wouldn't make a difference to you. Because it's true, you do still need faith. But don't you need faith to believe in anything? You believe (I would guess) in atomic structure because the scientists say it is accurate. You accept it on their authority. I believe in God on the authority of Scripture.

That's a bad comparison, as atomic structure brings concrete results and one can learn why and how and is an analytical knowledge, there is no (or should not be, at least) faith involved in analytic knowledge, which doesn't mean there is no mistake committed in this knowledge. The Holy Scriptures are synthetic "knowledge" but their "a priori" basis are themselves, which makes them completely irrational and completely dependent of faith. If I want to know "why the atomic structure", I can read and it will be explained, through "a priori" knowledge and I can observe what it has led as empirical results. If I want to know "why" referring to the Holy Scriptures, the reason will be: "Because", and nothing more.

B.) "Wild guesses?" No, because, if God exists, He must fundamentally be either different from creation and separate, or else the pantheistic "All." I personally find the "All" to be untrue, and the separate from creation to be true.

Well you tell me it's not wild guesses, but you end your rant with a wild guess... and saying God exist is itself a wild guess... and there's no reason why his ontology should be limited to these categories. Perhaps he has a physical place in the Universe? Why not? Because "you find it untrue?"

C.) How do I explain the differences in religion? Well, considering that God chooses the Israelites (a tiny, politically insignificant kingdom at the time) to be His chosen people, it seems clear that He is not interested in imposing uniformity on a large group of people. He does not, apparently, need or want to make the vast majority of people believe in Him as He reveals Himself in the Bible. How do I explain the "evolution of theology?" Well, being a Calvinist, my theology is actually based on the work of a 4th and 5th century writer named Augustine- there's not really a whole lot of change for us. And, to address the existence of other faiths: C.S. Lewis talks about "good dreams," echoes of God throughout the world. That is to say, when the Greeks conceived of the notion that Dionysus dies and rises again, and, through his death and rebirth gives life to the grain again, they were perceiving Christ as through a funhouse mirror. A slight echo, reaching them through a vast chasm. When the ancient Babylonians thought that a god of theirs had a child with a virgin, and that that son would fulfill a salvific role, they perceived Christ, though distorted.

Analogies between different religions are plentiful.There are analogies between Norse mythology and hinduism. What does that prove? Merely that some ideas might be recurring, but also that they are not independant creations and had common sources and often religions would mix between conquerors/conquered. Using your logic, I could use analogies to say that greek/roman pantheon was the real one as throughout Europe they had similar Gods, therefore those are the real Gods. Isn't it easy it prove anything this way? And of course, it never came to your mind that Christianity might have been inspired by different, older myths, right? That's a totally nonobjective theocentrist claim, and nothing more.

As for the Calvinist part, this closes this part of the discussion I guess, I have only read a few extracts of his Confessions so I cannot really speak about it, however my point is still valid for many others.

EDIT: Wow I checked Wikipedia for "Calvinists" and it's far from simply being based on St-Augustine! He is just one of the important figures, just like he is in pretty much every Christian system, and Calvinism itself was only created much later so my point STILL does stand and perhaps more, since you are Calvinist. As even if the doctrine is called augustinian, it is still subject to an evolution. And besides, 4th -5th century is still 350-400 years after the Bible - holy scripture that itself evolved from Old Testament to the New (not to mention the later books added).

I believe I can anticipate your reaction: I'm being arrogant, culturally superior, closed-minded, intolerant, etc. But... whatever.

What? I think you're just blinded by faith...

[rosa]

If there were no God man would find something else, probably similar to keep hope going.
After all absolute certainty in religion does not exist.That is the beauty of religion you can carry on believing in it even when you are "almost" sure it does not exist.Religion is independent from reality is the essence of hope for a better life.The more hopeless life seems the more grip religion has on man.Is it important to decide if there is a god or not? Why do we need to decide.
It is the symbol that counts ,If anyone would tell me that God does not exist I would say" so what?" After all how would they convince me if I do not want to be convinced.That is the beauty of religion ,nobody can take it away from you.That is why it is important.It is the one thing that nobody can take away from you.You can be poor and miserable or slaved but that possession is yours forever.
And how convinceable would I be.What would it take to convince me? and who on earth could say the final word that decides on God existence?
You see nobody can prove anything.That is amazing. Nothing else but religion has such a powerful effect on man.
As a consequence my behaviour would not change just because some people would say that God does not exists. After all who are they to take away hope from me.
I can go on forever on this one!

[RichardHresko]

That's a bad comparison, as atomic structure brings concrete results and one can learn why and how and is an analytical knowledge, there is no (or should not be, at least) faith involved in analytic knowledge, which doesn't mean there is no mistake committed in this knowledge. The Holy Scriptures are synthetic "knowledge" but their "a priori" basis are themselves, which makes them completely irrational and completely dependent of faith. If I want to know "why the atomic structure", I can read and it will be explained, through "a priori" knowledge and I can observe what it has led as empirical results. If I want to know "why" referring to the Holy Scriptures, the reason will be: "Because", and nothing more.


As for the Calvinist part, this closes this part of the discussion I guess, I have only read a few extracts of his Confessions so I cannot really speak about it, however my point is still valid for many others.

EDIT: Wow I checked Wikipedia for "Calvinists" and it's far from simply being based on St-Augustine! He is just one of the important figures, just like he is in pretty much every Christian system, and Calvinism itself was only created much later so my point STILL does stand and perhaps more, since you are Calvinist. As even if the doctrine is called augustinian, it is still subject to an evolution. And besides, 4th -5th century is still 350-400 years after the Bible - holy scripture that itself evolved from Old Testament to the New (not to mention the later books added).

...

The question of what is based on "concrete results" and what is "completely dependent on faith" is not as obvious as it may appear at first glance.

Skeptics from antiquity through Hume and beyond have pointed out that the evidence from both reason and the senses can be misleading.

Further, evidence for atomic structure does require faith that there is a connection between the interaction of the system and the instrumentation and between the instrumentation and our conceptualization bear a reasonable relation to what we think we are observing. This is beyond the interference due to observation (Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle -- can not probe without interacting) and goes to the heart of how stuff "out there" relates to our conception "in our heads".

An attempt to deal with these problems is the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, created by Niels Bohr, who argued that any picture we develop is wrong, and that all we should do is look at the math and check predictions.

This has a strength and a weakness. The strength is that we do not create myths that are hindrances to our understanding.

The weakness is that what we allow ourselves to "understand" is narrowed.

The difficulty in the case of the current discussion is that the questions of interest here can not be answered by scientific experiment, since they are ontological in nature. Science can deal exceedingly well with questions of how nature works. It is not designed to answer questions of what the ultimate nature of reality is, nor what our relation to that reality should be. This is NOT a failure of science, any more than it is a failure of car to be unable to make a cup of coffee (though I should perhaps check to see the latest features on the new luxury models before making the claim).

I do not see the necessary connection between something being derived from human thought and "irrational" as presented in the post. Especially given what I have just written.

You are right that Calvin did more than merely re-hash Augustine. However what many consider the most important features of Calvinism, such as reliance on grace and faith, and the doctrine of predestination, are all Augustinian in origin. Some of this was still a reaction to Scholasticism. But that is somewhat of a simplification, since Aquinas himself quoted Augustine frequently (in fact, only the Bible is cited more frequently by Aquinas).

[Pendragon]

With everyone understanding that I have not change my own stance on the existence of God, I consider it beyond any doubt, I find a law here:

If does not believe in God, meeting Him face to face before Judgment Day and having Him do what ever they asked for proof would still not convince them.

And for those like myself who believe in God, no amount of proof to the contrary is going to convince us that He does not exist.

I call this law the power of belief. One believes in the existence the other in the non-existence. This is an equal and opposite reaction. Newton's law.

It should surprise none of us that someone believes the opposite. For balance, they have to. Yin Yang.

God Bless

Pen

[blazeofglory]

What if you found out with absolute certainty, that there was no god? No god, and no heaven or hell. (really think about this!) Would the knowledge that there was nothing after this life awaiting us, change the way you lived your life?

This is something that puts my nerves on end! At least there will be no wars in the name of Gods!

[Etienne]

The question of what is based on "concrete results" and what is "completely dependent on faith" is not as obvious as it may appear at first glance.

Skeptics from antiquity through Hume and beyond have pointed out that the evidence from both reason and the senses can be misleading.

Further, evidence for atomic structure does require faith that there is a connection between the interaction of the system and the instrumentation and between the instrumentation and our conceptualization bear a reasonable relation to what we think we are observing. This is beyond the interference due to observation (Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle -- can not probe without interacting) and goes to the heart of how stuff "out there" relates to our conception "in our heads".

You do, however, realize that science is not a dogma? If we want to be minimalistic, we could say it is only accepting conditionally an explanation that seem to be the right one. Next, this argument that reason and senses can be misleading, is not an argument, it's merely the end of any discussion, as senses and reason are our only link to the exterior world (some might argue that there is some connection to God as well, but whatever... and even then it seems that it would be the most misleading!).

Saying "I believe because I can" like the person a few posts above or "I believe because I want" is very nice and romantic, but I'm sorry I can't force myself to believe.

The weakness is that what we allow ourselves to "understand" is narrowed.

I don't think so, absolutely not. You can "understand" anything, however you don't have to believe in it, or to take it as dogma, at least. And that is a big difference.

The difficulty in the case of the current discussion is that the questions of interest here can not be answered by scientific experiment, since they are ontological in nature. Science can deal exceedingly well with questions of how nature works. It is not designed to answer questions of what the ultimate nature of reality is, nor what our relation to that reality should be. This is NOT a failure of science, any more than it is a failure of car to be unable to make a cup of coffee (though I should perhaps check to see the latest features on the new luxury models before making the claim).

That these questions are outside the reach of science, now that's one leitmotiv of religion. Yes, yes, it's been told over and over, and science has proved a good part of it wrong over and over until the point of today. That some of these questions are outside the reach of science, if these questions mean anything on a logical level, yes, I agree. But do these questions mean anything? "The ontology of God"... is there an ontology outside the biological body, for example? Does God exist? For this question to make sense you first have to agree with both of these, and there is no way we can outside of extrapolation. I'm not saying we cannot extrapolate, but the answer cannot be taken as dogma, and that is the whole point.

I do not see the necessary connection between something being derived from human thought and "irrational" as presented in the post. Especially given what I have just written.

I'm not sure to exactly what part of my post you are referring to? I don't see in my post anywhere where I said that, at least not taken out of their precise context.

If does not believe in God, meeting Him face to face before Judgment Day and having Him do what ever they asked for proof would still not convince them.

I'm sorry but I would. My belief in God s not negative, it's just empty. It's not that I "don't" believe in him, it's that I have no reason to believe in him. Same result, but very important difference. I only wish you would stop putting words in my and other's mouth.

[Lote-Tree]

I'm sorry but I would. My belief in God s not negative, it's just empty. It's not that I "don't" believe in him, it's that I have no reason to believe in him. Same result, but very important difference. I only wish you would stop putting words in my and other's mouth.

When God ceases to become a subjective experience - it no longer matters if he exists or not...

[Etienne]

When God ceases to become a subjective experience - it no longer matters if he exists or not...

Yes it does, and for many reasons.

[RichardHresko]

1) You do, however, realize that science is not a dogma? If we want to be minimalistic, we could say it is only accepting conditionally an explanation that seem to be the right one.

2) Next, this argument that reason and senses can be misleading, is not an argument, it's merely the end of any discussion, as senses and reason are our only link to the exterior world (some might argue that there is some connection to God as well, but whatever... and even then it seems that it would be the most misleading!).


3) I don't think so, absolutely not. You can "understand" anything, however you don't have to believe in it, or to take it as dogma, at least. And that is a big difference.



4) That these questions are outside the reach of science, now that's one leitmotiv of religion. Yes, yes, it's been told over and over, and science has proved a good part of it wrong over and over until the point of today. That some of these questions are outside the reach of science, if these questions mean anything on a logical level, yes, I agree. But do these questions mean anything? "The ontology of God"... is there an ontology outside the biological body, for example? Does God exist? For this question to make sense you first have to agree with both of these, and there is no way we can outside of extrapolation. I'm not saying we cannot extrapolate, but the answer cannot be taken as dogma, and that is the whole point.



5) I'm not sure to exactly what part of my post you are referring to? I don't see in my post anywhere where I said that, at least not taken out of their precise context.



6) I'm sorry but I would. My belief in God s not negative, it's just empty. It's not that I "don't" believe in him, it's that I have no reason to believe in him. Same result, but very important difference. I only wish you would stop putting words in my and other's mouth.

For ease of reference I have numbered the points in the post above that I have dealt with and numbered the corresponding response below.

1) On the portion about the nature of science: You are right that science is not dogma. But then, that was neither stated nor implied in my post. The point is that science is concerned with describing how things occur, not what things are in and of themselves. Consider for a moment the electron. Science can and does give a wave function that describes how such particles interact with their surroundings within the limits of the model. And does so extremely well. But what science is not designed to do is to tell us about the nature of electron-ness apart from its interactions.

One might argue that there is nothing else but the interactions, but that requires an assumption, or a leap of faith, that science describes everything that exists and is worth knowing. Now that may be true, but it is an act of faith exterior to the science itself.

2) No, it does not end the argument at all. It merely points out that we do have to make assumptions/take on faith certain things in order to have any possibility of knowing anything at all. This is true regardless of one's position. As you rightly point out, if we do not trust that we can make contact with the world "out there" then knowledge is not possible. But to allow for the possibility of knowledge does not require us to assume that all our observations can be trusted. Thus, an element of discernment and faith are required, even in a materialist point of view.

3) you are conflating belief/faith and dogma. One has to have certain beliefs/faith/axioms in order to build ANY understanding.

4) The question of ontology is one of philosophy, not religion. So the remarks on religion being wrong on science are off-point. We are concerned here with the nature of reality, which may or may not include God. Science is not designed to ask or answer these types of questions. That one can reason about the nature of something that is not known to exist is something that even science does on some levels. Consider the cases of eka-silicon, the neutrino, and Pluto. In all of these cases the particle was not known to exist when its properties were worked out. The difference in the question here is one of the ultimate nature of reality and not the interactions of physical bodies.

Also consider that the decision to exclude immaterial beings is every bit as much a matter of belief as to include them, since there is no evidence of a scientific nature that can decide the point.

5) The specific line in your post was, "The Holy Scriptures are synthetic "knowledge" but their "a priori" basis are themselves, which makes them completely irrational and completely dependent of faith." Please explain what irrational means in this context if it is not as I stated earlier.

6) Once again, there is a matter of implicit faith here. That implicit faith is that unless there is a physical basis for belief then there is nothing that should prompt belief. I do NOT believe that you are necessarily wrong for this stand, but it should be recognized that this stance comes extra-scientifically, and is neither more nor less rational than the opposite.

[Etienne]

On the portion about the nature of science: You are right that science is not dogma. But then, that was neither stated nor implied in my post. The point is that science is concerned with describing how things occur, not what things are in and of themselves. Consider for a moment the electron. Science can and does give a wave function that describes how such particles interact with their surroundings within the limits of the model. And does so extremely well. But what science is not designed to do is to tell us about the nature of electron-ness apart from its interactions.

It depends, when talking about "nature" are you referring to an "essence", if you are familiar with philosophical terms...

One might argue that there is nothing else but the interactions, but that requires an assumption, or a leap of faith, that science describes everything that exists and is worth knowing. Now that may be true, but it is an act of faith exterior to the science itself.

Herein lies a mistake. The lack of belief into something "else" is not necessarily an act of faith, but a lack of data that would lead to think there is something. Which is the same as the lack of belief in God for example. You might say, but it's agnosticisms and it means that you merely "don't know". But I think agnosticism taken in that sense has an underlying belief in God that is not admitted, or at least a tendency to believe. As I could very well say that I'm "don't know" whether there are giant apes living on the dark side of the moon, but I have no reason to believe there is therefore I don't believe there is. If I find a clue, but something vague, then I might say that i just "don't know".

No, it does not end the argument at all. It merely points out that we do have to make assumptions/take on faith certain things in order to have any possibility of knowing anything at all. This is true regardless of one's position. As you rightly point out, if we do not trust that we can make contact with the world "out there" then knowledge is not possible. But to allow for the possibility of knowledge does not require us to assume that all our observations can be trusted. Thus, an element of discernment and faith are required, even in a materialist point of view.

Saying you cannot trust your senses or reason, means that you cannot trust anything because it's the only things that link us with the external world. So by admitting this, you admit that anything we say here is basically useless and might very well all be bunk and unrelated to reality. Every time such a topic is discussed this argument comes back, but drop it, it's the only things we can hold to, and they give practical result. If your point is that our senses and reason do not give us a good link to reality because we only hav access to the "mental images" of these things, or that you say that our senses and reason are cheating us (as in an optical illusion), or that our senses and reason are completely fooling us, are three different matters, but neither of them brings us anywhere. The only thing it might do is make one not take anything as dogma and leave that small proportion of doubt (that you don't consider but is still there in case), but which is already present in the scientific method under the form of perpetual doubt and that everyone should do with their own beliefs (not meaning that you have to consider those doubts all the time, but leave the possibility of a mistake). This basically only means not to take anything as dogma, which is also precisely my point.

you are conflating belief/faith and dogma. One has to have certain beliefs/faith/axioms in order to build ANY understanding.

No, not at all. I do understand Aristotle's Physic, although I do not believe in it. I do understand the ontological proof of God, even though I do not believe in God.

The question of ontology is one of philosophy, not religion. So the remarks on religion being wrong on science are off-point. We are concerned here with the nature of reality, which may or may not include God. Science is not designed to ask or answer these types of questions. That one can reason about the nature of something that is not known to exist is something that even science does on some levels. Consider the cases of eka-silicon, the neutrino, and Pluto. In all of these cases the particle was not known to exist when its properties were worked out. The difference in the question here is one of the ultimate nature of reality and not the interactions of physical bodies.

The question of ontology is a question only of philosophy? Not at all, friend, not at all. Now to debate this on the conventional side of the question, we would have to get into the maze of the history of the concept of philosophy. But let's not get into this. Philosophy and theology have both been very much confused and mixed together and the conceptions a very debated subject, but saying that theology doesn't work with the ontology of God is rather strange... especially in modern times where the separation between theology (science of God) and philosophy is becoming more distinct, compared to the Middles-Ages where it was pretty much a melting pot.

I'm not sure I understand the part where you say "the particle was not known to exist when it's properties were worked out." What do you mean by this?

I do understand the whole though, and yes, science offers conceptual views of reality by working on the interactions, but what is NOT known by it's interactions? Is there anything we do not know only by it's interactions? Do I known my hand otherwise than by it's interactions with my brain? You want to know the essence of things, but that there "is" (note the "") a particular essence. This was born from the ancients who thought with the view of an immortal soul, but to talk about synthetic ontology, is going into suppositions, mostly.

Also consider that the decision to exclude immaterial beings is every bit as much a matter of belief as to include them, since there is no evidence of a scientific nature that can decide the point.

Oh! That is bad logic! And it is bad scientific method by extension. Before using the negative proof (or lack of) you have to first build a solid empirical theory. Using the lack of negative proof to "prove" something which hasn't already been demonstrated empirically is sophism at best.

The specific line in your post was, "The Holy Scriptures are synthetic "knowledge" but their "a priori" basis are themselves, which makes them completely irrational and completely dependent of faith." Please explain what irrational means in this context if it is not as I stated earlier.

Synthetic knowledge, you understand, is "building" knowledge from a certain point, but if this this basic point, this premise is the same thing as the synthetic knowledge, it means that it's built from nothing, from no basis, let alone rational basis.

Once again, there is a matter of implicit faith here. That implicit faith is that unless there is a physical basis for belief then there is nothing that should prompt belief. I do NOT believe that you are necessarily wrong for this stand, but it should be recognized that this stance comes extra-scientifically, and is neither more nor less rational than the opposite.

There is a mistake in your understanding of my statement. I am not saying that "unless there is a physical basis for belief then there is nothing that should prompt belief", I am saying that "there is nothing that prompts my belief [in God]".

[RichardHresko]

1) It depends, when talking about "nature" are you referring to an "essence", if you are familiar with philosophical terms...


2) Herein lies a mistake. The lack of belief into something "else" is not necessarily an act of faith, but a lack of data that would lead to think there is something. Which is the same as the lack of belief in God for example. You might say, but it's agnosticisms and it means that you merely "don't know". But I think agnosticism taken in that sense has an underlying belief in God that is not admitted, or at least a tendency to believe. As I could very well say that I'm "don't know" whether there are giant apes living on the dark side of the moon, but I have no reason to believe there is therefore I don't believe there is. If I find a clue, but something vague, then I might say that i just "don't know".

3) Saying you cannot trust your senses or reason, means that you cannot trust anything because it's the only things that link us with the external world. So by admitting this, you admit that anything we say here is basically useless and might very well all be bunk and unrelated to reality. Every time such a topic is discussed this argument comes back, but drop it, it's the only things we can hold to, and they give practical result. If your point is that our senses and reason do not give us a good link to reality because we only have access to the "mental images" of these things, or that you say that our senses and reason are cheating us (as in an optical illusion), or that our senses and reason are completely fooling us, are three different matters, but neither of them brings us anywhere. The only thing it might do is make one not take anything as dogma and leave that small proportion of doubt (that you don't consider but is still there in case), but which is already present in the scientific method under the form of perpetual doubt and that everyone should do with their own beliefs (not meaning that you have to consider those doubts all the time, but leave the possibility of a mistake). This basically only means not to take anything as dogma, which is also precisely my point.

4) No, not at all. I do understand Aristotle's Physic, although I do not believe in it. I do understand the ontological proof of God, even though I do not believe in God.


5) The question of ontology is a question only of philosophy? Not at all, friend, not at all. Now to debate this on the conventional side of the question, we would have to get into the maze of the history of the concept of philosophy. But let's not get into this. Philosophy and theology have both been very much confused and mixed together and the conceptions a very debated subject, but saying that theology doesn't work with the ontology of God is rather strange... especially in modern times where the separation between theology (science of God) and philosophy is becoming more distinct, compared to the Middles-Ages where it was pretty much a melting pot.

6) I'm not sure I understand the part where you say "the particle was not known to exist when it's properties were worked out." What do you mean by this?

7) I do understand the whole though, and yes, science offers conceptual views of reality by working on the interactions, but what is NOT known by it's interactions? Is there anything we do not know only by it's interactions? Do I known my hand otherwise than by it's interactions with my brain? You want to know the essence of things, but that there "is" (note the "") a particular essence. This was born from the ancients who thought with the view of an immortal soul, but to talk about synthetic ontology, is going into suppositions, mostly.

8) Oh! That is bad logic! And it is bad scientific method by extension. Before using the negative proof (or lack of) you have to first build a solid empirical theory. Using the lack of negative proof to "prove" something which hasn't already been demonstrated empirically is sophism at best.

Synthetic knowledge, you understand, is "building" knowledge from a certain point, but if this this basic point, this premise is the same thing as the synthetic knowledge, it means that it's built from nothing, from no basis, let alone rational basis.

There is a mistake in your understanding of my statement. I am not saying that "unless there is a physical basis for belief then there is nothing that should prompt belief", I am saying that "there is nothing that prompts my belief [in God]".

1) Yes, I am referring to what is referred to as essence or substance.

2) Then the difficulty here is merely one of semantics. Your position is truly one of agnosticism, a "non-knowledge." This would be one where you would neither affirm nor deny because you have not received information. Of course that opens the whole question of what constitutes valid information...

3) You misunderstood my position. I did NOT claim that ALL observations are to be doubted, but the reasonable position that not all observations are true. Therefore we must always take a position that all knowledge is provisional, since we are never precisely sure where error will creep in. I am no fan of dogmatic religion of any stripe, either. I firmly believe that much, if not all, of the trouble that religious belief has caused in the world is precisely because people act as though there is no doubt as to what the truth is. My position is we should always leave room for doubt in recognition of our inability to know anything perfectly. This does not deny that we can know things, merely that we know them as well as we think we do.

4) You are missing my point. You could not understand what Aristotelian physics is without having faith that what you were told Aristotelian physics constitutes really was the physics of Aristotle. You had to have faith people weren't pulling your leg and that there was really an Aristotelian physics to understand at all. In other words, this is the same position that you argued correctly above, that one must have faith in something in order to have any possibility of knowledge. Considering the limits of time, space and humans, we must inevitably come to understand some things through faith (not necessarily religious). For example, I have faith in my senses that New York City exists (I am in New York City) but I have to trust other people that Oakland, California exists (though Gertrude Stein famously remarked of the city, "There is no there, there.")

5) No, I said that SCIENCE is not equipped to answer ontological questions. Clearly theology is an attempt to deal with ontological issues.
Philosophy and theology were not so much confused as that philosophy grew out of religious beliefs.

6) Mendeleev predicted the existence of an element he labelled eka-silicon that was unknown to science. It subsequently was discovered and found to have the properties Mendeleev predicted. In a touch of historical irony, it was named Germanium. The neutrino was postulated to exist before it was actually detected. Pluto was predicted to exist based on perturbations of orbits of the planets. In all these cases there was good theoretical work even without direct observational proof that the particles existed.

7) The question here appears, at least on one level, of what we are to take as our axioms and which to exclude. Nothing at all wrong with that as the utility of Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometries shows. My point here is not to say that one set of axioms has any privileged position, in fact I hold the contrary position. What I am arguing for is merely a recognition that a scientific, or a materialistic, or a religious, or a (fill in the blank) conception involves a selection of axioms. This selection determines what kind of questions can be fruitfully asked within the conceptual model. The basis of judgment on the particular model should be how well it answers the questions that belong to the set of well-formed questions that can be posed within the model.

8) Spoken like an Aristotelian! Unfortunately it does not always work like that. As shown above for germanium and neutrinos, there was no empirical demonstration of the existence of the particles before they were postulated.

[Pendragon]

I'm sorry but I would. My belief in God s not negative, it's just empty. It's not that I "don't" believe in him, it's that I have no reason to believe in him. Same result, but very important difference. I only wish you would stop putting words in my and other's mouth.

I don't know why this would bother you as you have an excellent facility for doing it yourself. I have seen you take my statements many times and try to explain to me what you believed I meant. I can speak for myself, I've done it for 47 years.

[mazHur]

I don't know why this would bother you as you have an excellent facility for doing it yourself. I have seen you take my statements many times and try to explain to me what you believed I meant. I can speak for myself, I've done it for 47 years.

I think one has to be 74 to be young !

[RichardHresko]

I think one has to be 74 to be young !

The problem for me is that in dog years I'm already dead.

I just wanted to see what writing a short post would be like...

[one_raven]

Wow. I didn't know any Calvinists existed anymore.