Steve Shaw says: As I've made it clear that I don't know whether there's a God or not (oh for such honesty from believers!), I'm simply giving my opinions.

Up above, Joe Offer says: "And to counter Steve, I would suggest that what his dad and I see is the same thing he [Steve] sees, but we perceive a divine essence within that causes us to ponder in awe. I don't know that it matters whether that essence is reality or perception, and I don't know why Steve feels it is so important to deny that perception."

But Steve attempts to redefine what Joe has consistently said about God, and make Joe's perception of God into something else: So you attempt to harmonise it with your faith by suggesting (without a shred of evidence to support you) that God runs evolution or has inputs, such as "creating" human beings? Can't you see how silly and facile that is? It's not me taking a narrow view, Joe, it's you narrowing down and degrading the work of thousands of evolutionary biologists who, with respect, know a lot more about the science than you do... When I say that the essence of evolution is that there can be no conscious directional driving force or "intelligence" of any kind behind it, I'm not shutting you out. I'm just doing the science.

I don't have a simplistic view of God as some guy who goes around throwing the switches so all the trains run on time. I believe that everything that surrounds me follows the laws of science and logic exactly. But within all that surrounds me and all that is within me, I perceive something infinite that is worthy of awe and wonder - and that is what I perceive as God. The doctrines and rituals and myth help people to celebrate and recognize that essence that is worthy of awe and wonder, but those are things that I don't hold tightly to. I also recognize that the general concept of God is an anthropomorphism, but humans tend to think anthropomorpically - and maybe that's ok.

For me, while the laws of science and logic are true, they fail to explore the depth of meaning of that which surrounds us. For that, I have to go into the realm of poetry and myth and ritual and perhaps mysticism or nirvana.

Literalists cannot deal with poetry and myth and mysticism, so they find them untrue or worthless and find ritual to be empty. Steve seems to be more-or-less a literalist. Fundamentalist Christians and generally literalists, too. Steve's intelligence and education will not allow him to accept a literalist God, so he rightly rejects that God - and I applaud him for that.

Note again what I said: "[I] perceive a divine essence within that causes [me] to ponder in awe. I don't know that it matters whether that essence is reality or perception." But whether it is reality or perception, exploring that essence has been of great and deep value to me all my life.

Steve can use his Scientific Method to analyze love, too - and his analysis would be correct. To really appreciate love, one has to go into the realm of poetry and beyond. Same with death, or life. These things are mysteries that we can never fully define or explain - but nonetheless they are worthy of lifelong exploration, using the Scientific Method to its fullest extent, but also going deeper and farther than the Scientific Method will allow.

And that exploration will not produce absolute answers - it will produce only perceptions, but those perceptions are of infinite value.

-Joe Offer-

P.S. And yeah, I do acknowledge Steve to be a fluffy bunny (his words). Maybe that's why I enjoy debating with him.