In the case against religious theism, what is so damning...

[carlo]

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There is no longer a "case against religious theism", it is over. The people believing in religion/god are either choosing to ignore the arguments against it…


There is not argument against it, because there is no argument for it. Faith is not logic based any more than beauty or love are logic based.



A long time ago BluffThis wrote that Catholics can accept the idea that an objective examination of the evidence is maybe not enough to lead someone who is an impartial, expert evidence evaluator, to come to the conclusion that the Catholic God is highly likely to be the true one.

But many other Christians on this forum disagree with that stance. They maintain that a logical examination of the evidence is by itself enough to lead a rational person to the conclusion that there is not only God, but that it is a fairly specific type of Christian God. It is easy for Catholics to disagree with them because Catholics allow for the possibility for non Christians to go to heaven. But when you don't allow for that possibility you are pretty muched forced to reject the notion that objective evaluation of the evidence leads you to smaller than 50-50 chance of the truth of Christianity. Because that would mean that God would be condemning objective truth seekers with no ulterior motives.

The bottom line is that people like txaq, Not Ready, and Splendour, do in fact think there beliefs are quite logical.

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This is quite to the point. The protestant Reformation was about the entry of the 'Age of Reason" into the Christian Church(Roman Catholic). Of course Martin Luther delineated his many difficulties with the Papacy/Church but at root was the "New" Christians utilizing Reason to a most significant extent. So we have "Protestants" living within the same cerebral framework as the scientist attempting to utilize reason for that which is within what the long line of Roman Catholics called "mystery".

It should be noted that because it is called "mystery" in no way obviates the ability of SOME Roman Catholics(or others in fact) to enter into these realms which REASON BY ITS VERY NATURE IS UNABLE TO ENTER. Seen from this perspective, to worship at the alter of 'Reason" to the exclusion of any other cognitive abilities is "unreasonable" [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img].


Those who believe that one cannot "prove" the "existence of God" via reason are dead wrong.Most perfect "proofs" are supplied by Aquinas, the logician and rationalist par excellence of the 14th century. These"proofs" WILL NOT PLACE DEITY ON YOUR PLATTER(some may expect these "proofs" to bring them into some sartoric state or at least produce a chair from heaven as an apparition and therefore they will not "believe"). These "proofs" are the exact logical consequence of reason and logic.