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.

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.

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

"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).

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.

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.

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