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Originally posted by boobmaster
Regarding our physical life, how do you know that noone living today is immortal? In order to KNOW that for sure, you'd have to wait until everyone was dead, and I doubt the question would matter much at that point. You can't prove that I am NOT immortal until I'm dead. It is IMPOSSIBLE to prove that immortality exists.
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The implication by the CS Lewis quote and your additional clarifications of point imply that the impossible to obtain desires are what people call 'God'. My point is that I may desire immortality, but I have no interest in calling immortality god, nor life with him. If anything, immortality would be the first step on to fashioning myself as a god, in which case why would I need or desire another?
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My fervor is likely the direct result of the fact that I hold a minority worldview on GFY. One tends to defend one's position with more zeal when one is confronted by a greater number of those holding an opposing position.
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Fair enough. I fear that much of the world has moved on from this concept because, rightly or wrongly, the new abstraction fits our perceptions better. Having observed first hand evolution at work (bacterial experimentation et al) it's become easier to postulate a spontaneous biotic genesis of replicators from organic compounds than to try and justify "guy in sky with beard and odd hobbies" as the point of origin. You have an uphill battle on that topic.
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I completely disagree with you on this. Our world is ripe with the handprints of our creator. Consider all the dependencies in nature. Life needs certain things to sustain itself: food, water, oxygen, a tolerable climate. Without these things we couldn't exist. Is it just a coincidence that we have all these things, or is it the result of a loving creator?
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If you perceive everything in the context of a religious lens, then you will be more likely to accept that which validates and discard that which invalidates the framework. If it's an abstraction that works for you, then there's no cognitive dissonance pushing you into a new framework. To whit, when the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
Of course, I do the same. I view my world through a lens of rational thought. I personally feel that by taking my chances and filling in the blanks with extrapolation based on logic and intuition, that this framework will serve my purposes in this life better than that which
requires proof to be lessor than faith because "proof denies faith".
"So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence."
-Bertrand Russell
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Angels (and minions) are NOT gods. They, like humans, were CREATED by God.
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Of course, as are most of the 'gods' in various pantheistic traditions the creations of their progenetors. The issue is not that they were 'genuine gods' or not, but rather that the judeochristian god had aspects of himself that could directly mapped onto the 'genuine gods' of other pantheons... as such, claiming that monotheism makes yahweh worship inherently different or superior is a tenuous claim to make, particularly when there are other ancient beliefs which are monotheistic.
At this point I'll go on the record saying that I do not believe in "God", but that I do not disbelieve either. If new facts come my way I'm fully prepared to re-evaluation my current position, but for the time being the only viable option for me is that of a secular skeptic.