http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bie-Wu8S20E

I just love it when arrogant know-it-alls scream in my face.

I became a Quaker largely because of the emphasis placed on the importance of silent reflection. I had left my original church because I had thought I had had enough of Christianity. I became an atheist and found that many of the character traits I found unsavory in the churchgoing people I knew were present in atheist circles as well.

For me, the approach was everything. My worldview is too contradictory and complex to be shouted through a bullhorn.

I find Hemant’s approach accessible, humble and respectful. He seems to understand, the way a few Christians are starting to see, that people like to have conversations, rather than be told, talked at, talked down to or shouted at.

It’s hard not to read Dawkin’s and Harris’s criticisms of the practices and behavior of people of faith and not say “Well, he’s got me there…”, but Hemant seems to be a lot more kind, and a lot more compassionate. It’s a discussion for him, not a monologue or a proclamation.

He and I may disagree, but I get the feeling he doesn’t wish me harm, or thinks I’m stupid.

You are assuming that Rationalism = Reality.

Well, that depends on how you define both terms.

it is a philosophical system that defines reality a certain way (empiricism).

I’m not certain that I do that. I merely exist in the world around me. I eat when hungry, I sleep when tired. When the baby cries, I give her a bottle. I don’t pray to invisible magical things to make the baby stop crying. I’m not denying that invisible magical things exist, it’s just that I don’t know any way to interact with them. And the baby’s crying, and I’m busy, and the bottle has always worked in the past…

Truth has been discovered in many different ways before this became the dominant force, and it will be discovered in many other ways as the age of modernism passes.

So you now have the ability to see into the future? You really know that in the future there will be new and different ways to discover truth? By what method have you divined the future, and how do you know that it’s an accurate prediction?

How do you define truth, by the way? How do you know when you’ve gotten hold of a “Truth”? How do you tell it from a falsehood?

It is nothing to do with chasing fads – although you are simply desperately hanging on to one ‘fad’ yourself.

And what is your method for determining true methods for finding truths? How do you know you’ve gotten hold of a good true method and not a fad?

Yeah, that whole “reality” thing is so passé.

Chase fads all you want, Ian. I’ll follow the evidence where it leads

You are assuming that Rationalism = Reality. It is nothing to do with reality – it is a philosophical system that defines reality a certain way (empiricism). Truth has been discovered in many different ways before this became the dominant force, and it will be discovered in many other ways as the age of modernism passes. It is nothing to do with chasing fads – although you are simply desperately hanging on to one ‘fad’ yourself.

This whole philosophical idea of evidence and truth is such a modernist position and is, frankly, a passing fad that is already fading.

Yeah, that whole “reality” thing is so passé.

Chase fads all you want, Ian. I’ll follow the evidence where it leads.

Now who’s doing poor philosophy? Theism is the position making the extraordinary claim; it is the position that requires evidence to support it. If I told you I saw an unicorn in my backyard, and I couldn’t produce a shred of empirical evidence to the point, your logical conclusion would not be agnosticism–you’d think I was mad.

You are only claiming that Theism is extraordinary because of your definition of ordinary. You make empricism the norm and then proclaim everything outside of this as crazy. The aim is not to prove anything but to test a theory, so if the basis of science is to dispove a theory through evidence then show me how you have disproved the theory of non-materialism?

An honest atheist is agnostic to the extent that he will be open to the (exceptionally slim) possibility that he can be shown evidence that he is wrong. But then you would have to say you’re agnostic towards unicorns and fairies and elves and ghosts. People say “I don’t believe in unicorns”, not “Unless evidence is presented to me that unicorns exist, I reject their existence.” It is the same with atheism.

Even with your prejudicial comment above, I still disagree. I neither believe or disbelieve in elves – so maybe I am agnostic on this. However, this is still basing existence and truth on a materialist worldview which I reject. The world existed before it and will exist after it. This whole philosophical idea of evidence and truth is such a modernist position and is, frankly, a passing fad that is already fading. I suggest Alistair McGrath’s ‘The Twilight of Atheism’.

That’s not the “rules of science” that’s just plain common sense. If someone told you a flying saucer landed in their backyard you would demand some kind of evidence. Why is it suddenly so different when we’re required to accept that some sky fairy embodied a human being, preached a bunch of stuff that most people had heard before, and got himself killed in a spectacularly brutal fashion so he could go back into the sky?

You miss your own circular logic: ‘only empirical evidence is valid; only what is empirically verifiable is true’.

I have a lot more respect for the theist who admits faith can’t be explained rationally than this kind of illogical gymnastics.

My point is that the very basis of rationalism is faulty so is not a good basis for a non-belief in God.