OK, Articulett's post I wanted to respond to first.
The vast majority of religions claim to have divine truths or special knowledge... often this knowledge involves invisible immeasurable entities like gods or demons or thetans or souls... since these things are invisible and immeasurable they are indistinguishable from delusions or such things or imaginary entities. As such the vast majority of religions claim to know something about which no one can know. We have no evidence that there are any divine truths or that any kind of consciousness can exist without a living brain. To posit otherwise is to make a claim of knowledge that is not verifiable.
Yes, religions make claims from Special Revelation - that is they make claims which are not (currently) scientifically verifiable. I could of course give many examples where Religions turned out to have got it right (the universe had a start, time does not exist before but is somehow part of time/space that, etc, etc) and traditional atheism was wrong (atheism historically was often linked to Steady State theories) -- but that would involve massive cherry picking, and i could just as easily point out a goodly list of religious claims which were absolutely false in the light of modern science. Most (but not all) religions do accomodate themselves to modern scientific discoveries - there were far more Christian books published in the latter half of the 19th century supporting Evolution than attacking it for instance -- but there are still areas of conflict, usually over ethical issues rather than actual scientific ones (stem cell research for one: I recall the immense joy on Christian forums when artificially grown stem cells were announced - they weren't against science, but some of them were against abortion.) There are a few hold outs - since the 1960's Young Earth Creationism, which has great hold in America and parts of the Islamic World - but generally I think the "War of Science & Religion" idea tells us more about 19th century European Thought than it reflects any reality.
I like to quote St.Augustine
"It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that he [the non-Christian] should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are. In view of this and in keeping it in mind constantly while dealing with the book of Genesis, I have, insofar as I was able, explained in detail and set forth for consideration the meanings of obscure passages, taking care not to affirm rashly some one meaning to the prejudice of another and perhaps better explanation." (The Literal Interpretation of Genesis 1:19–20, Chapt. 19 [408 CE])
Still, faced with a mass of conflicting Special Revelations from World Religions, healthy scepticism is clearly required, especially when those revelations are so often proven wrong.
Religions usually claim to have access to divine truths but they all only have "stories" that are indistinguishable from myths, known delusions, and the known ways people have been fooled.
Maybe that's not idiocy... but there is no reason to believe that there is even such a thing as "higher truths"... much less that any person has access to such. Anyone claiming to "know" of such truths is lying to you, if not themselves. Thus, there is no means by which anyone could obtain this special knowledge that isn't measurable or verifiable or testable by any objective means.
And here Articulett stresses the real problem - how can we know? A theological claim may be logical and rational - and still untrue. We are used to testing claims by naturalistic science - but there are very real limits to empiricism, and we are faced with the limits of what can be known, but in the face of a lack of compelling evidence, why believe? Some individuals do "empirically" know the truth of their religious claims, and attempt to enforce them on others on that basis - but their arguments are personal and subjective. I made a rational case for theism earlier in this thread, based upon the
World of Warcraft, but I don't expect many of you will have started worshiping our simulation runners!
At this time, all one can do is personally test the faith hypothesis. I don't believe that we can actually be dogmatic about Atheism or Theism - Huxley's original Agnosticism, which denied Special Revelation but was open to the theistic possibility remains a sensible but perhaps emotionally unsatisfying default. Following a crisis of non-faith many years ago I renounced my atheism; but I don't deny its rationality. Many years later I embraced theism - on a personal balance of probabilities (I have mentioned some of the issues already in the thread - please don't ask how i became a Christian, because it really would not mean anything to you, and i am not sure I know, or that my current answer would reflect my real motivations or understanding at the time - it would just be a narrative I construct which tells you much more about who I am
now).
There is another option - Martin Gardner is atheist who denies Special Revelation, a Fideist, and if you have never read his
The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener http://www.amazon.co.uk/Whys-Philos...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204596150&sr=8-1
I would strongly encourage you to do so. He is a wonderful thinker, and I think his influence on Scepticism is well known.
I may be an idiot - but DD, I challenge you to say Gardner is.
cj x
