Quote Originally Posted by Strike For The South View Post
My condolences
Thank you, he was 99 and 11 months (almost to the day), so it was not a very great surprise,

So by eschewing coincidence you can only logically come to the conclusion that there is a higher power? Not only is there a higher power, but he is the one you believe in.
Well, yes, to be honest. I consider the Christian conception of God to be most likely, because he is the most forgiving - he's welcome to correct me at any time, and I shall be extremely sorry if it turns out that, in fact, I should have been worshipping Odin, but there you go.

Would Abrhamic suffice? I could name all the religons of all the world, none of which I find a kinder word for but far reaching, but that would take up the page.
If you can't get behind God, just say so, don't hide behind a pingeon hole, it implies you might be able to believe in, say, Mithras or Sol Invictus - but from what you have said that is no easier for you than believing in YHWH.

If it's just the theistic bit, you could try being a Deist.

You say you don't subscribe to coicidence yet the bolded sentence is percisely why I hold the oppisite view. If you were born anywhere else, your view only religion would be entirely different. Unless you subscribe to predestinantion I don't understand how you could find that view logically consistent. Your think your religon is right only becuase it is yours, not becuase it is right.
Someone said something similar to Archbishop Temple, his response?

"You only believe that because of your upbringing."

I said experience, not upbringing. I was brought up in a staunchly non-Christian atheist family, my ubringing was designed to innoculate me against Christianity - it failed utterly because I found the religion compelling and the arguments against it flimsy and incoherent.

So I have been led astray by my church elders and I have not prayed hard enough? Losing my faith was a very hard thing to do, more reflection only stiffens my resolve in the other direction.
If you think preyer improves faith then I'd say someone has let you down.

So it all comes down to a matter of feeling then?
Yes, and absolutely not.

What is a feeling? Have you ever tried to describe one to someone else without comparing it to another sensatio0n?

It's like describing colours to a blind man, it doesn't mean anything, you're just describing how the colours make you feel, not what they look like - because the blind man can't see them.

I would say you have a decidely smaller view
You have no reason to say that other than being afraid of what I'm saying.

I may be mad, but my breadth of experience is broader than your because I am talking about something you obviously can't comprehend, because it is so far beyond your pale.

Quote Originally Posted by Kadagar_AV View Post
First of all I very much question the "cohesiveness" you describe.

Secondly, your world does not include my world. In my world science, the universe and nature trumps what the very vast majority of the worlds society consider to be imaginary beings.

Let me rephrase that slightly - my world includes all the "stuff yours does" - beer, women, sunlight, small children. I have all that "physical stuff" and then I have "other stuff".

Yes, my way of understanding might be "different" instead of "bigger", but my worldview definately includes more stuff than yours, because I'll believe in anything you do in the physical world, and all the non-physical stuff you don't believe in.