I cannot count how many times the equation has been made that since there is "not a shred of evidence" that God exists, people must be delusional who believe that such a God exists. My question to this is usually, What kind of evidence do you need to satisfy your taste for knowledge? That most people who have lived in human history have believed in some form of deity, many of whom claiming to have intimate experience with a deity, is not good enough. That is not evidence at all. The answer is that if God exists, we need to be able to put God to the same kind of testing we can accomplish with any other physical object. To make a believer out of an atheist with naturalist persuasions what is needed is some kind of magical demonstration that supports the hypothesis that a God exists. This is usually a God who can perform such magic on the known physical world by suspending the laws of science as we currently understand them.
Is this the only kind of knowledge that is reliable and/or reasonable? This is a sort of logical positivist argument that is rehashed over and over. Propositions about reality must be logically tied to each other and empirically provable. Why? On what basis is this so highly esteemed other than by an arbitrary and rather phantom understanding of reality? Do we really live our rational lives by this means? Is everything you do that is reasonable logically tied to something and empirically provable? And further, what kinds of empirical evidence pass muster here?
Physics, biology, and chemistry tend towards the place of prominence in this sort of questioning. Yet sociology is also scientific and rooted in empirical data. Psychology is the same way. If we look at the social sciences this is where odd judgments from the atheist naturalist come to play. These social-empirical judgments cannot really be tested since they are fundamentally non universal and not tied to specific objects other than people. So why is it that one is better than the other? Social sciences deal with such very different objects in reality and have such different rational processes in the course of an investigation that it is assumed they are inferior. Dawkins introduces new criteria for delusions because he believes the social sciences have given religion a "free pass." Perhaps this is because they are not the same kind of science Dawkins wishes they were? The humanities are even worse off. One kind of knowledge is judged to be superior here and no empirical test can prove it logically. This is a matter of taste.
This is what ne0-atheist assertions boil down to: taste. Values are shaped by far more sources than the kind of empiricism that many an atheist argument will level against the notion of God as a reality. While some concepts that prove to be powerful in the shape of our worldview such as love, it seems that it is reasonable to have these concepts and dispositions shape a worldview so long as there is an empirical object around which such concepts and dispositions form. So I can actually produce a physical object like my wife or kids to substantiate my feeling of love. But is it only the issue of whether or not there is an actual object? Can I love justice? Can I love compassion? Can I love peacefulness? Can I love the experience of my relationship with my family? Not the person mind you, the relationship itself. Do these concepts need to have some kind of empirical object for that love not to be "delusional"? Concepts like these depend on how one measures the term. Justice and compassion for one are likely to be different than for another. These are socially constituted terms that pack different social functions and meanings that are contextual for which we can only measure differences, set criteria, and then make predictions on human behavior from there. So are we then delusional to love justice or compassion?
On the one side is it only acceptable to rely on experience given that there are objects that meet some kind of universal criteria regulated by scientific discipline that are logically tied. It is only rational not to believe in God under that rubric. By another view, it does not seem all that rational not to believe in God given by such an arbitrary constraint imposed on what one can rationally experience in terms of those criteria alone. One will say "Why God?" and claim delusion. The other side says "Why not God?" and sees arbitrary limits on what humans are capable of understanding. Finding a deep connection in human experience that is constitutive of a reasonable worldview is not by necessity constrained to the atheist naturalistic criteria.
I happen to think the latter is more reasonable because we simply do not know why everything is the way it is, we may never be satisfied with our explanations, we may never come to any empirical conclusion about God or any sacred reality, and even science reveals on a progressive course that there is always something more to reality that we can currently perceive. It is the experience of a living God that makes sense of this progressive revelation of the very structure of reality in which we live, and are shaped.
Related posts:
Faith is not needed to believe in God.. Deists think that reason points to an existence of God. http://kansasbob.com/2009/06/deism-truth-withou...
Dear Drew,
When you ask, "why not God", it would be very nice of you to explain exactly what you mean by "God". Here are some questions that you need to answer before we can have a meaningful discussion:
(1) Did God create the universe or was he around and the universe naturally appeared?
(2) Did God create life or was the universe set up in such a way that it was inevitable that life would naturally appear somewhere within it?
(3) Did God intervene in the course of events to create humans or was the emergence of intelligent life somewhere within the universe inevitable by natural means?
(4) Does God presently intervene in the workings of nature at the bequest of pleas from the faithful, or does he let the laws of nature do their thing without his minute to minute tinkerings?
(5) Does the bible contain a divinely-inspired message from God to us, or is it just a book written by a relatively primitive people with no input from God? If the bible does contain a divinely-inspired message for mankind, does that mean that it is without error, or did God allow errors to creep into his otherwise perfect message? If the bible is without error, then does it mean what it literally says, or is the perfect message contingent upon proper interpretation of what imperfect humans think it means?
(6) Did God impregnate a virgin 2000 years ago with DNA that would allow himself to directly experience humanity, or is the Jesus story a myth?
(7) Did an historical Jesus get himself executed by Romans so that he could take on the sins of all humanity from that point on allowing believers to be rewarded with an everlasting life in paradise, or is that just a myth?
The first part of each of these questions postulates an activist God, while the second part postulates a God who lets things take their own course (ie a passivist God). Let aG be the activist God position and pG be the passivist God position. I have tried to arrange the questions in a way such that I think that if you took a aG position on one question you were likely to have taken an aG position on the ones before it. Conversely, if you take a pG position on any question, I think it likely that you would take a pG position on the questions following it. Of course, I could be wrong … but if I take all the possibilities into account then this answer will be WAY too long for anyone to read. It may be that already.
Suppose you take a pG position on question 1: That is God didn't make the universe, it happened all on its own.
Then the answer to "WHY NOT GOD?"(WNG) is even if that supernatural being existed why would you call him God?
Suppose you take a pG position on question 2: That is God made the universe, but he stays outside it and never interferes in its actions.
The answer to WNG is "who cares". Even if this God existed he is certainly irrelevant to anything that we need to consider. He is irrelevant at best. From Occam's razor we are more than justified in postulating a world in which there is no God than one in which there is but no effect from him can possibly be felt.
Suppose you take a pG position on question 3. God made the universe, and he created the life within it. But once life was created he let everything go its own way.
An answer to WNG here is that it doesn't fit the data. The history of life as we know it (ie life on earth) is one in which life seems to have started early and at a simple level. The chemicals life uses for its chemistry (amino acids, nucleotides, carbohydrates, and fatty acids) seem to be the ones that are most easily produced by abiotic means. From what we do know about early life, this much more fits with a naturalistic scenario than with one involving an intelligent creative agency who could have done almost anything he wished.
Suppose you give you pG response to question 4. God created the universe, he directed the formation of life, and he specifically directed the formation of humanity, but he doesn't intervene in the workings of nature to answer prayers.
Then an answer to WNG would be, "why not?" What sense does it make for him to have gone to all this trouble to specifically make humanity, but not commune with them in any way.
Suppose you give your pG response to question 5. God made the universe, he made life, he directly intervened to create humanity, he answers prayer, but the bible is not a message to us from him.
Then an answer to WNG becomes a little longer. (1) The question of whether or not God answers prayers is a scientific question testible by empirical means. The data strongly suggests he doesn't. (2) If the bible is not a message to us then the only means of communication with him is through personal revelation at a time of his chosing. The problem here is that many people think that God talks to them. Unfortunately quite often what one person thinks that God tells him contradicts what another person thinks that God has told them. For instance, some of the 911 hijackers believed that God instructed them to fly planes into buildings, while George W. Bush believed that God told him to fight a war on people who believed like the 911 hijackers. So at best this form of communication is not particularly reliable. Why would God use such an unreliable means of communication to convey his message.
Suppose you gave your first pG response to question 6. God created the universe, he created life in the universe, he directed the formation of humanity, he answers prayers, and the bible does contain a divinely-inspired message to us, but Jesus was not virgin born, nor the son of God, nor God incarnate.
In that case, you still have the evidential problem with the formation of life and all that. And you have the apparent contradictions, inaccracies, poor morals, etc that are in the bible. You can try to get around it by saying that only some of the bible is God's divinely-inspired message, and others are bullshit, but why would an all-powerful God allow his message to become corrupted to the point where so many people disagree as to the message, it is borderline meaningless.
Suppose you gave your pG response to question 7. God created the universe, he created life, he specifically directed the formation of humanity, he answers prayers, Jesus was God incarnate, the bible is a divinely inspired message, but Jesus's sacriice didn't absolve all of future humanity's sins so long as they are believers.
Then WNG answers include: (A) problems with evidence and (B) the biblical problems. You have already swallowed the "camel" of a thousand miracles, why strain at the "gnat" of one more?
Suppose you gave only aG responses. Then as to WNG you have all the aforementioned problems AND the problem that Jesus' sacrifice makes no sense. Jesus' dying a horrible death gives God no powers to do something that he couldn't have done anyway. It would at best be a symbolic act. When looked upon in that light, it is a cruel symbolic act.
The real answer to the WNG question is because God makes no sense at any level really.
Cheers
Darwin's Beagle
substitute "God" with sacred reality and the same issue is at stake. if there is an object outside the set of all cause and effect called "god" or something else that is a reality impacting what we can verify through current scientific means it is the same issue. many of your questions deal not with the object of God, but with the kind of kind that seems to please your subjective inclinations. suggest those are secondary to the issue i am raising which is only to argue that atheist rejections of god based on evidence are rooted in a subjective judgment of taste. your questions and answers you have already given seem to be an example of this.
The problem is your whole argument relies on a poorly defined concept of God. The fact that you refuse to define it any better does not bode well for your argument. In that case, the answer to "Why not God" is that without a better definition your God is meaningless.
Cheers,
DB
again, you are talking in pure semantics which is not helpful. and again, call it sacred reality which is a reality that is fundamentally and substantively other than that which is constrained by the set of all cause and effect. your entire matrix of responses is completely moot to the point of the argument.
i did not define "God" here because it is irrelevant if we are deling with an object that is not constrined by the set of all cause and effect.
Er … Your title is asking an atheist a question … "Why not God?" Understanding exactly what you mean by "God" is at least a bit relevant to the question.
In your original post I didn't get a good sense of what you meant. Now you have responded twice, and I have even a much less sense of what you mean by "God".
You have given two definitions
(1) God is a "sacred reality which is a reality that is fundamentally and substantively other than that which is constrained by the set of all cause and effect."
and
(2) God is "an object that is not constrined by the set of all cause and effect."
In order for something to have meaning it must rule in some things AND rule out others. This is so nebulous that it could mean almost anything. So your question then boils down to …
Why not something mystical that we cannot possibly rule out?
My answer to you would be … Of course you can't rule out that possibility (by definition). But that concept is pretty much useless. "God" is just as likely to be an invisible pink unicorn or a flying spaghetti monster as an almighty father. Just because one cannot possibly rule out the possibility that God is an invisible pink unicorn or the flying spaghetti monster doesn't make it reasonable to believe that invisible pink unicorns and flying spaghetti monsters actually exist.
Cheers,
DB
which begs the question of my inquiry. what is the basis of making a reasonable judgment? what kind of evidence suits a judgment to call it reasonable? the inquiry is less about god that what criteria are necessary in order to make a reasonable judgment.
Theoblogging led me to faith in God.
From my point of view … I have been a scientist for more years than I care to mention … the question "what is the basis of making a reasonable judgment?" is meaningless until you specify what it is that you are in need of making a reasonable judgment about. The evidence required to make a judgment to the question "Does she love me?" is different than the evidence required to make a judgment of the question "Does my car needs an oil change?".
If you are asking the question "what criteria are necessary to make a reasonable judgment about God's existence" then you need to know what is meant by God.
As it is now, the question seems to me to be "What criteria are necessary to make a reasonable judgment about something that no one knows what is". Perhaps, the answer is that no reasonable judgment can be made about such an ill-defined question.
For MY life, I first ask — "Suppose such phenomena are real. Then what can we reasonably expect to see in the real world from it?" If the answer is "Nothing". Then whether the phenomenon exists or not, it is not worth spending any time on. Occam's Razor says don't believe it. If it something that we can look for, then look for it. If you find it, try to think of alternate explanations for it being there, and rule those out if you can. Of the possible explanations remaining ask yourself which is the most plausible.
Cheers,
DB
Very well, for this purpose let's suppose the following functional definition of God: "a sacred reality which is a reality that is fundamentally and substantively other than that which is constrained by the set of all cause and effect, yet actively engages in the set of all cause and effect in relationship to it."
Of course what we expect to "see" in the real world is already value-laden which is why there are multiple strains of reasoning in the ways that people think. The argument I am making is that Dawkins et. al. arbitrarily favor one criteria for making a reasonable judgment over all others. To say that all religious persons who do not reason with these criteria are delusional or irrational by default is the primary outcome that I am critiquing.
OK … but now you need to define your definition. What the hell does it mean?
What is "a sacred reality"? I'm guessing "God"
Aren't you assuming the question when you say it "is a reality that is fundamentally and substantively other that which is constrained by the set of all cause and effect"? When you say something "is" you are saying it exists, which is the question you want to ask, isn't it.
Exactly how is this "sacred reality" "fundamentally an substantively" different from the natural world (what I am assuming you mean by "that which is constrained by the set of all cause and effect"? Do you mean God is omnimax? If so we can rule that one out.
If this "sacred reality" is God and "engag[ing] in the set of all cause and effect" is doing things like answering prayers and giving personal revelations then since this information can presumably cause changes in the person whom is communing with God that "sacred reality" actually becomes part of "the set of all cause and effect". Is not God constrained by his own logical limitations … or can God really make a square circle?
Why would not answered prayers and personal revelations be what we would expect to see in the real world?
If so, do we see them? — YES!
What are alternative explanations for them being there?
The people who think they are seeing them are fooling themselves is the big one.
How would you go about distinguishing between those alternatives?
Can we find answered prayers empirically? When we have looked the answer is NO. See the STEP studies for the most up-to-date multicenter controlled study to date.
If personal revelations are coming from a common source — your "sacred reality — shouldn't the revelations be consistent between people who claim them? Well, they're not.
All that suggests to me that the more plausible explanation is that the people who claim answered prayers and personal revelations are fooling themselves. By definition, if they are fooling themselves then they are operating under a delusion.
I don't think any of that reasoning is particularly "value-laden". I also think it is reasoning similar to that used by Dawkins et al. I also think this criteria is unique to this question. So it cannot be a "default" position. If you ask another question then perhaps we would expect to see different things in the natural world and the criteria to judge that question would be different.
Here is where it is value laden. It is in this question: "Can we find answered prayers empirically?" At base, no matter how you present the argument, this is your criteria. My argument is to ask why this is the only criteria by which we can understand something to be reasonable. I don't think it is. Even further, I don't think the criteria of something being "reasonable" fundamentally rooted in something empirical is itself empirically based and so, rooted in other criteria that mediate the judgment. I am suggesting this criteria is that of one's personal taste for what reasonable actually means.
"shouldn't the revelations be consistent between people who claim them?" This depends on the level of consistency that you are requiring. To say that all experiences from a single source should be the same is an impossible criteria to meet. I don't think this is what you are saying so I won't pursue it. If you read through the narratives in Christian spirituality, for instance, where one describes the experience of God, Jesus, a saint, the holy spirit, etc. there is a great deal of consistency. It's called the three-fold way and Christian spiritual literature follows this consistent pattern. To say it's all fiction is a choice. If you make this choice it is again, a value laden choice rooted in other criteria. My hunch is the criteria you note with the word "empirically."
The other bit about God relating to that which is within the set of all cause and effect through prayer, revelation, etc. You seem to imply that if God enters the conditions of cause and effect, or space and time – I am fine with either, the being of God is fundamentally changed by that action. Why is it reversible? Why does the being of a non-contingent existant need to become fundementally contingent by interacting within a set of contingency? While I do not believe in the plausibility of the omnimax being of God, it is also possible to have an omnimax will in God's being where the choice to be limited was made at the point of the ordering of the cosmos. Yet before the ordering of the cosmos took place God yet existed and at that point was omnimax. Dawkins deconstructs a particular understanding of God that I do not believe in the first place which is where I often find confusion when discussing this issue with atheists (and anti-theists).
(1) Can we find answered prayers empirically?:
Erm … why not? An answered prayer would be an observation about the natural world, and that is the forte of empiricism. From the history of science, it is the only reliable method of determining what is real about the natural world.
But what the hell, I'll bite … what method do you think is better?
(2) Consistency of revelation:
From my experience the consistency in revelation is not so good. There is some consistency in the FEELING that people have when they commune with God — there is a feeling of euphoria, serenity, calmness, and reassurance. But I think this is like the consistency that psychics have in telling the police where they can find missing bodies — The body is in a dark area, away from people, in a place where running water is nearby.
The consistency in the FEELING seems to me to be more likely due to the shared mental state required for the participants to let random thoughts mistaken for God's revelations enter. I can get the same feelings when I do my relaxation meditation exercises.
Where I see inconsistencies concern the principle underlying the claimed revelations. Examples include God telling Mother Theresa to devote her life to working with the poor of India (and then ironically never telling her anything else) while at the same time telling certain Sikh extremists to launch terrorist attacks that affect similar people. Telling Martin Luther King to devote his life to non-violence but telling 911 hijackers to fly planes into buildings. These are IMPORTANT inconsistencies that have effects on the world.
Here is a proposal for an empirical test of God's revelations: Have a computer pick a random number between one and a thousand. Print it off and put it in a sealed envelop without anybody having looked at it. Get 1000 believers to commune with God until they feel like God has given them a good idea of the number in the envelop (you could use as more believers if you wanted to so long until you have a thousand come up with a number). Having the number chosen most often by believers come out to be the correct number would for me be a positive sign so long as the number of people coming up with it was greater than 10 (although by all rights the number of correct hits should be in the hundreds if God is truly giving revelations). Having that number be in the middle of the pack or lower and 4 or fewer people coming up with it would be a negative sign. In between would be … eh?
Repeat the experiment by two or three independent groups with the same result and you have it nailed.
I think both you and I know the results would almost certainly come out poorly. My guess is that you or other believers would quote Matthew 4:7 and Luke 4:12 which says not to put God to the test. But 1 Thesselonians 5:21 says to test everything and hold on to the good. Furthermore, even the bible realizes that there has been a problem with revelation considering the numerous references to false prophets. I would think it very reasonable for God to want to instill confidence in his revelation. Thus, I think a poor result would be valid evidence against revelations coming from God.
Again if you say that this is not a valid technique, then I'm willing to listen to a better one.
(3) Concerning God relating to that which is with the set of cause and effect:
The sole point of that was to demonstrate an inconsistency in your definition. God (your "sacred reality") was defined as that which is not constrained by the set of all cause and effect. But God is part of that set. Therefore God's limitations are part of that. Not even God can do that which is logically impossible to do. God cannot make a square circle. That is a logical impossibility.
(4) Concerning an omnimax God:
For purposes of clarity let me give you my definition of an omnimax God:
An omnimax God is one who is,
(1) Omnipotent — capable of doing anything that is logically possible to be done.
(2) Omniscient — knows everything that is logically possible to be known.
(3) Omnibenevolent — looks out for the best interests of all the beings in his creation.
I am very happy that you agree such a God is not plausible.
I do, however, have some problem with your kenotic God. It reminds me of the philosophical question, "Can God make a stone so heavy that even he cannot lift it?"
Does an omnimax God have the power to make himself no longer omnimax? If there is nothing in the rules of logic that forbids this then the answer would have to be "yes". And on the surface it seems like there is no obvious logic that prevents it. However, how about this:
At the time of "the ordering of the cosmos" it should be logically possible for God to know that there would be inhabitants of it. If that is the case then he should know that if he makes himself non-omnimax then he may very well not be able to ensure the best interests of his inhabitants. So an omnimax God who made himself non-omnimax would not be omnibenevolent, would he? That is a logical contradiction and if valid would make that act of kenosis invalid.
(5) Concerning Dawkins et al. deconstructing Gods that you do not believe in.
LOL … the reason they (I) do that is because you guys don't define the God you believe in in any useful manner. Your God, for example, is so nebulously defined it could be anything … from nature itself to the God of the literal Old Testament to flying spaghetti monsters. That's not Dawkins et al.'s (my) fault. That is your fault.
The only thing they (I) have to work with is a God that is defined. That happens to be the God that HUGE NUMBERS of people DO believe in … the literal God of the bible. A hell of a lot more people believe in that God than believe in your God (in fact I think that if we look close enough, you may be the only one that believes in whatever that particular God is).
So instead of saying "the God you don't believe in is a God I don't believe in either", say "The God I believe in has these following characteristics …". And then give us some concrete characteristics that we can work with. Then we would be getting somewhere.
Cheers,
DB
1) "it is the only reliable method of determining what is real about the natural world" And so, if God's being is not grounded in the natural world, the question is moot. That's like trying to observe the behavior of cats by going on a deep sea dive. This is not whether or not we *can* make an empirical observation, but whether or not it is *necessary* to do so. Further, what kind of empirical observations one needs to support a plausibility that God exists. Clearly the observations of sociologist, psychologists, and anthropologists do not pass the test for the kind of empirical data that many atheists require for God to be plausible. This is a value judgment. That the vast majority of human beings have made claims that support the idea of God does not pass for the empirical criteria for many atheists (e.g. Dawkins psychological "free-pass on religion" assertion). The question for me is not if we can "prove" God's existence empirically, but what we can observe in various sets of empirical data lends to the plausibility of God's existence in some form.
2) That there are very consistent patterns of belief and behavior that are very predictable is a truism in sociological studies of religion. Your example of Religious terrorists and Mother Theresa is making a claim that is not necessary to support. Basic communication is that a message sent does not always equal the message received. Once a message is sent it is independent of the one who sent it. People continually abuse information they receive in order to fuel their own ideological commitments. In the old testament prophet after prophet is killed and then there is the whole Jesus issue. Fox News picks and chooses information out of context not to be faithful to the information, but to support an ideological structure for various social purposes. Inconsistency in an interpretation of a message does not mean that the source does not exist or is then logically implausible. It does call into question specific attributes of that source.
3 & 4. Logic is a tool for a certain understanding of the world. Even logic is not totally self-consistent re: Godel's incompleteness theorem. To expect God to reflect logic is not necessary to support the plausibility of God's existence. This is again a need for God to satisfy one's taste for what is real. If logic constrained everything in reality, light should not exist should it? Logically, it cannot be both wave and particle, yet it is. Complementarity is not logical which is why Einstein had such a problem with it. We know that Einstein was wrong and Bohr was right. It still is the case today among many other logic defying qualities in particle physics. That God can have an existence grounded outside of the set of all cause and effect and yet also exist within that set does not conform to logic. This is something the Easter traditions accepted a long time ago. Here's another one: how can Jesus be fully human and fully God? Totally logic defying. So what? It's a matter of taste. You need it to be logical to be plausible. I and billions of others do not. Koans are short poems and stories told by Buddhists for the sole purpose of defying logic as a means to redirect people on the right path to Nirvana. Again, you don't have to buy any of it. But this is a matter of taste, not in a fact that one can observe with the kind of empirical data I think you are looking for.
5. So what the hell is "useful"? A God that fits specific criteria for Dawkins to be correct? That's called a straw-man. Dawkins needs his God in order for his assertions to pass any muster. The definition I gave you fits the picture that Averroes, through Aquinas, along with Augustine, Athanasius, Ambrose, onward through Calvin, Luther, Kierkegaard, Tillich, Barth, Bentley Hart, Pannenberg and on and on. To assert that I am pulling this definition out of my ass is pretty ignorant. As Wuthnow and other sociologist have argued, even Christian and Muslim "conservatives" much less Jews believe in the literal God of the fundamentalist. It is like saying that the most useful and consistent definition of God for Muslims is the God of the Taliban only to reject the God of Sufism as not useful and therefore not correct! Just because Dawkins does not pay attention to theology because he thinks it is stupid does not mean that discounting the history of Christianity is a very responsible position to take. Again, this is not a matter of a judgment that gives a "true" picture of the world it is a matter of his taste for what "true" should mean. That's is the point of the argument in the post.
1) "it is the only reliable method of determining what is real about the natural world" And so, if God's being is not grounded in the natural world, the question is moot. That's like trying to observe the behavior of cats by going on a deep sea dive. This is not whether or not we *can* make an empirical observation, but whether or not it is *necessary* to do so. Further, what kind of empirical observations one needs to support a plausibility that God exists. Clearly the observations of sociologist, psychologists, and anthropologists do not pass the test for the kind of empirical data that many atheists require for God to be plausible. This is a value judgment. That the vast majority of human beings have made claims that support the idea of God does not pass for the empirical criteria for many atheists (e.g. Dawkins psychological "free-pass on religion" assertion). The question for me is not if we can "prove" God's existence empirically, but what we can observe in various sets of empirical data lends to the plausibility of God's existence in some form.
2) That there are very consistent patterns of belief and behavior that are very predictable is a truism in sociological studies of religion. Your example of Religious terrorists and Mother Theresa is making a claim that is not necessary to support. Basic communication is that a message sent does not always equal the message received. Once a message is sent it is independent of the one who sent it. People continually abuse information they receive in order to fuel their own ideological commitments. In the old testament prophet after prophet is killed and then there is the whole Jesus issue. Fox News picks and chooses information out of context not to be faithful to the information, but to support an ideological structure for various social purposes. Inconsistency in an interpretation of a message does not mean that the source does not exist or is then logically implausible. It does call into question specific attributes of that source.
3 & 4. Logic is a tool for a certain understanding of the world. Even logic is not totally self-consistent re: Godel's incompleteness theorem. To expect God to reflect logic is not necessary to support the plausibility of God's existence. This is again a need for God to satisfy one's taste for what is real. If logic constrained everything in reality, light should not exist should it? Logically, it cannot be both wave and particle, yet it is. Complementarity is not logical which is why Einstein had such a problem with it. We know that Einstein was wrong and Bohr was right. It still is the case today among many other logic defying qualities in particle physics. That God can have an existence grounded outside of the set of all cause and effect and yet also exist within that set does not conform to logic. This is something the Easter traditions accepted a long time ago. Here's another one: how can Jesus be fully human and fully God? Totally logic defying. So what? It's a matter of taste. You need it to be logical to be plausible. I and billions of others do not. Koans are short poems and stories told by Buddhists for the sole purpose of defying logic as a means to redirect people on the right path to Nirvana. Again, you don't have to buy any of it. But this is a matter of taste, not in a fact that one can observe with the kind of empirical data I think you are looking for.
5. So what the hell is "useful"? A God that fits specific criteria for Dawkins to be correct? That's called a straw-man. Dawkins needs his God in order for his assertions to pass any muster. The definition I gave you fits the picture that Averroes, through Aquinas, along with Augustine, Athanasius, Ambrose, onward through Calvin, Luther, Kierkegaard, Tillich, Barth, Bentley Hart, Pannenberg and on and on. To assert that I am pulling this definition out of my ass is pretty ignorant. As Wuthnow and other sociologist have argued, even Christian and Muslim "conservatives" much less Jews believe in the literal God of the fundamentalist. It is like saying that the most useful and consistent definition of God for Muslims is the God of the Taliban only to reject the God of Sufism as not useful and therefore not correct! Just because Dawkins does not pay attention to theology because he thinks it is stupid does not mean that discounting the history of Christianity is a very responsible position to take. Again, this is not a matter of a judgment that gives a "true" picture of the world it is a matter of his taste for what "true" should mean. That's is the point of the argument in the post.
[...] The blog Notes From Off Center asks the question, dear atheist, why not God?. [...]