The direction the thread is taking is rapidly losing me, but I'll offer one more response. Then I think I will have said all I have to say here.
I’m not sure what point you’re making. The vast majority of humans who have ever lived, dating back at least to the Neanderthals from what we can determine, have been interested in these ultimate questions. To my knowledge, there has never been a human tribe or culture that hasn’t attempted to deal with these questions and arrived at one or more religious or philosophical systems of answers.
For someone to say “Eh, all that is of no interest to me” (and mean it) would have to fall into the category of abnormal psychology. This is
not the same as saying “I've diligently considered the evidence and arguments and my best conclusion is that it’s not possible to arrive at meaningful answers. Ergo, from this point forward I’m just going to live with my uncertainty.”
I do find it incomprehensible that a human living in a reality that is filled with mysteries and invites such questioning would actually say “Eh, all that is of no interest to me” and mean it. It’s so out of the norm as to demand some sort of explanation. “Intellectual laziness” and “fear” are two that occur to me. They are simply possible explanations, not judgments or assignments of blame.
If someone took the position “Eh, all that is of no interest to me” I'd obviously invite his explanation, the same as I would do with a Buddhist or atheist. I know my friend well enough to conclude that there are indeed psychological factors at work. He is disengaged from life and relationships to a degree that is pretty clearly abnormal.
You find theistic views “incomprehensible”? I don’t find any well-thought-out system of belief, atheistic of theistic, incomprehensible. I may find one laughable because it’s contrary to logic, common sense and the best evidence, but not incomprehensible. I may be gobsmacked than anyone constructs his life around Scientology, but I don’t find Scientology flatly incomprehensible.
OK, you’re careful not to “place blame.” Is pointing out that someone is intellectually lazy and hasn't even considered the evidence and arguments “placing blame”? Is challenging someone else’s belief system on the basis of logic and evidence “placing blame”?
Again, I’m not sure what point you’re making. Is it your position that it’s a virtue not to speculate on what might be the motivation for someone else's belief system or even to confront him with that speculation? If so, why?
Every sane person has to be agnostic at least to the extent of not claiming to know with certainty that which cannot be known with certainty this side of the grave. I made that clear with the percentages I assigned to my various beliefs. 98% is not 100%. Christians who claim to have "no doubt" are really just expressing a high level of personal conviction.
In this lifetime, we can never know the answers to the ultimate questions with the same degree of certainty that I can know my Ford is in my garage (wait, I'll go look). But this hardly means we can know
nothing. We can know as much as experience, observation, study, reflection, intuition and perhaps revelation allow us to know. Through a diligent quest, I believe we can arrive at a belief system that has a very solid epistemological basis.
At the risk of sounding arrogant, in my experience most people (including most Christians and definitely including most atheists) haven't put into the quest anything like the time and effort that I have. They hold their beliefs partly or wholly on the basis of influences having little or nothing to do with logic and evidence – parental influences, the influence of other perceived authority figures, cultural and social influences, psychological factors, etc. They are woefully uniformed about the arguments and evidence that are actually out there. This is because they don’t care about these things. They are looking for a comfortable and appealing landing place, and once they find one they aren’t much concerned about how close to the Truth it may be.
Understand, I'm not “assigning blame” or casting aspersions. I'm describing reality. I don’t expect everyone to put in the same effort that I have, nor do I maintain that such an effort is essential. I don’t require my devout Christian brothers and sisters to have ranged as widely as I have. Many of them with educations and analytical abilities that pale in comparison to mine are nevertheless far better Christians than I’ll ever be. Many of them have been blessed with a level of inner conviction that I didn't have. I'm simply talking about “starting from ground zero and constructing a belief system that is as bulletproof and defensible as one can be this side of the grave.”
The paranormal is one of the subject areas in which I've spent thousands of hours of study and have had at least a fair number of experiences, including what are termed After Death Communications. At least some NDE experiencers, such as Pam Reynolds, were clinically dead in the sense that consciousness should not have been possible according to the materialistic model. There have been innumerable veridical apparitions, sometimes experienced by more than one percipient, as well as innumerable documented veridical mediumistic communications. These aren't beyond all debate, but the vast body of anecdotal (and laboratory) evidence has reached the point where naysayers are driven to desperate explanations such as “super-PSI” that themselves don’t even mesh with the materialistic model of reality.
Indeed, one anthropological explanation for the origin of religion is not that “ignorant primitives were trying to come to grips with the terrifying forces of nature” but that “primitive people experienced precisely the same inexplicable afterlife phenomena that we do, such as apparitions, ghosts and NDEs, and developed religious beliefs as a rational response.”
My guess would be that someone who insists that the notion that consciousness survives bodily death is ridiculous may not have done the depth of study of physics, consciousness and phenomena suggestive of survival that I have or may be motivated by something other than the evidence.
If someone holds entirely opposite beliefs then, no, we cannot both be correct. However, I'm perfectly open to the notion that my beliefs are only part of the picture and that some other belief system(s) may have another part of the picture. Or that the picture is so different from anything any of us can conceive that we'll all be astounded. All I can do is give the puzzle my best effort.
The only way I could assign a “flaw” would be if two people had the same intelligence and analytical abilities and had investigated the same evidence and arguments to the same extent. As I say, however, when most people are pressed you find that their beliefs are based on things other than a diligent quest and a careful consideration of the best arguments and evidence.
I “now” agree? If you read something I previously said as suggesting otherwise, either you misread it or I didn't say it very well.
No, the quest is never futile, even if you arrive at a misguided belief system that sends you to hell (whatever that may mean). I think this is precisely why Jesus says in Revelation that he would prefer you to be hot or cold, but if you are lukewarm he will spit you out of his mouth. The “cold” person - an atheist, from the Christian perspective - is at least grappling with the issues and has some possibility of arriving at Truth.
“Not pursuing an answer” is not a valid option. This is the lukewarm position. “Diligently pursuing an answer to the point that you rationally conclude no meaningful answers are possible” is a valid option.
Since you've apparently engaged in enough of a quest to conclude that theistic beliefs are badly misguided, it’s not clear to me why "not pursuing an answer" is such a concern for you.
You lost me. I have no “need to assume that my experience can be shared.” I truly have no idea what you're suggesting here. If someone has the time and interest, I'm happy to share the path I followed, the reasoning I applied, and the conclusions I reached. But I have no interest in being anyone’s guru and make no guarantee that someone who follows the same path will reach the same conclusions.
My belief that my beliefs are not entirely subjective is itself subjective? It's not clear to me what this means. My beliefs are based in large part on experiences, observations and studies of vast bodies of evidence. They are clearly not entirely subjective. My conclusion that they are likely to be correct may be my subjective evaluation of the evidence.
No, they have been obvious to the vast majority of humans who have ever lived, as evidenced by the fact that every tribe and every culture has developed some fairly elaborate religious or philosophical system in an effort to address them. Again, I'm lost as to why you feel compelled to defend the “normality” of people who choose to ignore these questions. Good Lord, I’ve met only two or three such people in my entire life – do you live in a community of them or something? The Village of People Who Simply Don't Care?
I don’t believe that people who hold entirely different beliefs would ever agree upon the definition of “better.” Do I believe that Christianity leads to a better life (and afterlife) than atheism? A richer, deeper existence than atheism? Absolutely. But I don’t expect you to share my idea of “better.”
Slightly off-topic, but atheists and humanists always have this John Lennon-ish fantasy that peace and harmony would reign and everything would be "better" if religion could simply be eliminated. The truth that Christianity offers is that precisely nothing would be different - certainly, nothing would be "better." The reason?
Human nature. Human nature unrestrained by religion would produce nothing but the living hell of unrestrained human nature.
Ontological Truth is out there. It's clearly not non-existent.
Neither I nor Pascal starts with an unquestionable premise that Christianity is true. Far, far from it in my case. Pascal simply said “Try living as though Christianity were true and see if it doesn’t ripen into a conviction that it is true.” I could expand this to say “Try living for five years as though materialistic atheism were true ... then five years as though Hinduism were true ... then five years as though Christianity were true ... and see if this experiment doesn’t ripen into a conviction that Christianity is true.”
The experiment doesn’t require any unquestionable premise that Christianity is true. The person making the challenge obviously believes Christianity is true and that a sincere effort to explore it will, through the work of the Holy Spirit, ripen into a conviction that it's true. But there is no requirement that the person undertaking the experiment accept as an initial premise that Christianity is true.
....c'mon, Man!
