DrW wrote:
Hoops,
Hoops,
In case you have not yet figured it out (after all of our delightful exchanges on the subject), I place very little value on faith (unfounded belief).
Faith is a poor substitute for knowledge. This is especially true considering that it takes so little additional effort to go from unfounded belief, to belief based on physical evidence, to logical and reasoned interpretation of that evidence - resulting in real knowledge.
Best of all, no magic is required.
I disagree with this, Dr W. I think that your "substitue for knowledge" comment points toward empirical evidence. I could be wrong, but having encountered what I think are the most rigorous challenges put forth by highly intelligent skeptics for a number of years (not here, it simply doesn't exist on MDB), I think I know it when I see it. :-)
When I think in terms of spirituality, having faith and all of that, I think that what we're actually talking about is the human need for love and to be loved. In other words, a sense of emotional connectedness to another human being or in this case, a deity. Our very survival depends on a sense of emotional connectedness and you can credit evolution for that or a Creator for the development of our brain, whichever you choose.
Further, I think that our perceived emotional connectedness has everything to do with intuition. We intuit that we are loved, that someone or some deity loves us and that grounds the sense of connectedness within our brain and our "emotional heart".
In a romantic human relationship that, let's say, leads to marriage or life long partnership, we have faith that the other person loves us. We perceive "signals" through their actions, their appearance, that signal "love" for us.
In much the same way, I think that religious or spiritual relationships or perceived bonds with a deity are based on the same conditions. We perceive "signals" in our lives that something greater than ourselves is either responsible for our existence or for the conditions of our lives be they positive or negative.
Empirical evidence for love is no more or less reliable in the human relationship than it is in the human:deity relationship and both of those hinge on what we perceive as acts of reciprocity.
You can say that there is no empirical evidence for a God being and you are right in that regard. However, I submit to you, that the emotional bonds that we seek out with other human beings (beings for whom there is empirical evidence), that weigh heavily in our survival as a race, are no more reliable since they can be swept away by hidden and then, exposed deceit on the part of other human beings in the blink of an eye.
You can pose the question "Why does God insist on tricking us?" but again, I submit to you that human beings who claim and appear to love us also insist on tricking us.
Both relationships in my view, require a leap of faith whether it is a leap of faith in another human being or a perceived deity.