It's not that I'm not engaging because of how you engaged there - it's about the content. A key difference between us on this issue is that I don't care about "feelings" - I care about what makes sense, and where the evidence points. When our feelings contradict that, we should usually try to change the feelings, not ignore the evidence. We should certainly not expect anyone else to take those feelings seriously (except on a purely psychological level).

treat religion according to the European model, where it's now more of a social club than a belief system.

Read your last sentence again. Doesn't invite much discussion, does it?

Maybe using the word "feeling" was wrong. Can I retract and say "discoveries".

And the last piece of my post can invite discussion, but not from your stables of thought and beliefs.

As I said - I bet you pretty much summed up your thoughts in the piece you have posted at synapses, and I really do wish to read it in full and digest it properly to understand exactly where you are coming from. I hold what you have to say in very very high regard Jacques and I consider you a highly intellectual human being from whom I can learn a lot. But the fact is that people with much higher IQ's than us (even hardcore scientists) believe in a creator power. Not the indoctrinated "God" the Christians and other faiths hold so dear, but an unnamed, unknown entity which answers a burning question which they too could not find an answer for. And on the other hand there are the same caliber of intellectuals who believe no God exists.

Quote from: Ziltoid the Omniscient on April 21, 2010, 08:32:15 AM

Is an external 'why' needed? I don't think so personally.

Okay. Fair enough.
But I cannot get that question out of my mind so not everyone is inclined to worry about it as we all think differently. But I bet you some of your personal woes and depression you have is due to part of yourself asking this question. Only to end up being mutilated by your own convictions that no God exists. Now I am not saying that you "secretly" believe in a God, I am saying that you are secretly wondering why we are here and that is causing problems - an unidentifiable reason for some of the daily emotional pain most of us encounter. It's the infighting we have in our hearts when we disregard basic impulses due to belief sets.

Because let's face it. Atheism is also just a belief and it could also be wrong regarding everything. But the difference here is that I am not saying it is wrong.

Mutilated by my own convictions that no god exists? Good grief, I've never heard it put quite like that. 

The majority of people in the world don't really think about this because they have an answer already, in the guise of one religion or the other.

I have no answer and I am perfectly fine with that, since I don't have reason to think that there is one. Aside, of course, from the obvious internal stuff like making the world a better place, trying to enjoy yourself, etc, etc.

You say that atheism is just a belief, well, that depends on how we might choose to define belief, certainly it is not a belief in the sense that Christianity is. To me, atheism is a simple statement about a reality for me that does not need any form of god involvement to make sense.

Secretly wondering about why we are here? The why is easy and not particularly bothersome, it's the how that causes me sleepless nights.

Quote from: Ziltoid the Omniscient on April 21, 2010, 09:03:34 AM

Secretly wondering about why we are here? The why is easy and not particularly bothersome, it's the how that causes me sleepless nights.

I do not quite understand what you mean with "how"? Do you mean "How we got here". I thought we answered that question with the discovery of natural evolution? Or am I misinterpreting you?

I am as clear as mud sometimes, I was referring to this:

I am saying that you are secretly wondering why we are here and that is causing problems

This doesn't bother me as much as the 'how' of navigating everyday realities. Realities, as opposed to fretting about matters I have no knowledge of.