Hello OWK! How do we explain the reality, universally expressed over millennia, of the human search for Truth? And the equally universal character of that search as a seeking for an ultimate cause that is not contained in or constrained by what we are pleased to call space-time “reality?”
What we might call the human instinct has throughout history sought the ground of human existence and the human condition in an extra-mundane source. The search itself is amply attested to by the historical record. The name that man everywhere regardless of specific culture has given to this ultimate source and ordering principle is God, or the gods. This is an historical fact. As such, it is “real.”
The point is not, as you rather contemptuously put it, whether this God or gods is a “Giant Cloud-Walking benevolent guy,” the pantheon of the Olympians, the Great Spirit, or a “Blue-skinned six-armed elephant-headed creature.” The point is that human beings seemingly quite “naturally” have a conception of the divine, extramundane source of the universe and its order that historically has been expressed in different human languages and myths. Yet the several descriptions all refer to the same thing – the God or gods who are not “in” the world of existence. That is a real fact, too.
Further, how do we explain the absolute universality of the idea of the soul? All human historical cultures have recognized the existence of the soul. And all human cultures have recognized the post-existence of the soul, for the human insight has ever been that the soul is immortal. Therefore, after death, it must “go somewhere.” That somewhere has been variously called Heaven, Hades, the Elysian Fields, the Isles of the Blessed, et al. Or as the Eastern traditions hold, it could be the soul’s post-death destiny is to reenter human or animal existence via reincarnation or transmigration.
The point is, different cultures have different concepts of the destiny of the soul, but all cultures agree that there is a soul, it is immortal, and it has a post-death destiny.
Again, this is an historical fact – i.e., one “tested by observation” and found to be “real.”
Now you want to say that something like 40,000 years of universal human experience and cultural effort has been devoted to the development and maintenance of what you are pleased to call fantasies.
Who is being irrational here – the theist, or the atheist?
For your fantasy interpretation to be correct, then the entire human race has been hopelessly misguided and misdirected for the entire time the species has been here on earth. Only now – only over the past slender piece of historical time going back maybe something like 200 years – only now the human race is finally getting these questions “right” by saying that man has been misguided or delusional over all historical time, because in fact there is no God and no soul? How will you “prove” that supposed fact, OWK?
If the human race has been hopelessly misguided and misdirected by such fantasies on such a vast scale, with such intense energies invested in such fantasies over the vastness of historical time, might your so-called “fantasies” have survival value for the human species?
If not, why would Nature allow man to continue to select for survival fitness using such worthless strategies?
Why do you feel it needs explaining as being unreal? Thats a 'tar baby' accusation, betty..
Our search for truth is real.
And the equally universal character of that search as a seeking for an ultimate cause that is not contained in or constrained by what we are pleased to call space-time "reality?"
That's your vision betty, not a universal one.
What we might call the human instinct has throughout history sought the ground of human existence and the human condition in an extra-mundane source.
Extra-mundane? Nope. You may search for the mystical, betty. -- I don't.
The search itself is amply attested to by the historical record. The name that man everywhere regardless of specific culture has given to this ultimate source and ordering principle is God, or the gods.
This is an historical fact. As such, it is "real."
The historical facts also point to a search for truth in science.. It is just as real as your search is betty.
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The point is, different cultures have different concepts of the destiny of the soul, but all cultures agree that there is a soul, it is immortal, and it has a post-death destiny.
Again, you are simply insisting that your view is historical fact, – one "tested by observation" and found to be "real."
You are wrong. There is no documented consensus of belief in a soul.
Probably, the only real cultural moral consensus is the existance of a 'golden rule' type rationality.
These conversations are difficult for me precisely because I cannot think of the One I’ve known for about 44 years as hypothetical.
He has made me to be completely different from what I was before I knew Him. I am in Him and He is in me – all the time. I feel His presence continually.
When my eyes read the Bible, the Spirit within me reads the Word. He has answered my prayers faithfully and miraculously. He has brought me through astonishing trials.
I understand things that I shouldn’t be able to understand. When worshipping, I’m lifted up where time, space, proportion have no meaning. I feel His love viscerally and in so great an abundance I cannot contain it.
He has made me so sensitive in the Spirit, that both when my sister and my mother graduated from the mortal realm, I felt them go through me and was given to understand their great joy and peace.
So how could I speak of Him in the abstract? Why would I want to put Him to any test?
To the contrary, I watch the advances in math and science and marvel at the gyrations to deny the obvious. Here's more on my thoughts for any Lurker who may be interested: