Can a belief in God be justified on a rational basis?

[Thought Criminal]

Many theists will tell you that their belief in God is based on faith, or on something equally nonrational or irrational, such as a special feeling they have, or their unshakable trust in their parents, or an ineffable experience.

Fine, but none of this carries any weight for me because, as a secular humanist, I have a commitment to believe only what is rationally justified, what a logical analysis of the evidence compels me to believe. It's possible that I might miss out on some truths this way, but I do avoid many, many falsehoods. Of course, I do want to believe whatever's true, so I'm always open to evidence.

Anyhow, this leads me to the obvious question: Can a belief in God be justified on a rational basis? If so, how?

TC

[Goat]

Tell me, can you show that 'truth' is objective? I would like to see objective evidence that 'truth' is objective.

Goat, this is not the time or place to fool around.

TC

Who is fooling around. I want to know what definition of 'truth' you use that makes it 'objective'. The word 'truth' seems to have many definitions. Is a 'fact' a 'truth'? Is truth a 'moral pronouncement'? I have seen it declared that 'abortion is murder' is a 'truth'.

Sometimes this is easier to answer than others. I still assert that demonstrability should be utilized to establish what is truth and what is knowledge. As far as the abortion issue goes, it comes down to the definition of "murder" which is an illegal killing. So if an abortion is performed where such a practice is legal, it's not murder.

BUt, how about the 'truth' it is immoral?

One man's truth is another mans tyranny

[cnorman18]

Wrong. The assumption, and it is clearly stated here, is that only objective evidence applies. You are here stating, just as I said, that the existence of a non-material and non-objective aspect of reality can and must be proven only by reference to a conception of reality wherein that is impossible. Begging the question, Q.E.D.

I must admit to being too short on time to read the entirety of your post. This singular assertion, however, is worthy of a response all its own.

The game you play...

Stop right there. I am not "playing a game." I do not formulate my beliefs to gain a tactical advantage in an Internet debate with people I don't even know. I think rather more of them than that. I am trying to explain my beliefs as they are, not as I pretend them to be.

...is to note that what you wish to believe is unsupportable.

No. I am noting that the subjective and non-material cannot be proven or verified by reference to the objective and material, a point which you apparently do not care to acknowledge, analyze or address in any way, shape, or form.

So rather than apply the standards found to be reliable and applicable to all other beliefs...

If you trouble to read the rest of my post, you will find that the standards to which you refer are, in fact, not applicable to many "beliefs," and in fact are routinely not applied.

...you simply assert that such standards are inappropriate for the beliefs you wish to protect from the truth...

The phrase "that you wish to protect from the truth" clearly implies that you know my motivations and that I know my beliefs to be false. I submit that by making such a statement you are, here and now, not applying the standards that you claim are universal. You are claiming to know the content of my thought, which you can neither objectively prove nor objectively verify.

...simply because you claim them to be.

That is more than a claim; it is a fact. If it isn't, prove it; explain how the existence of the subjective, nonmaterial and nonconcrete can be proven by referring only to the objective, material and concrete.

I have actually proven that another realm of "existence" does in fact exist, but I have done so by referring to other nonmaterial, nonconcrete and subjective phenomena that we all acknowledge do exist. If you don't believe that, please read the rest of my post and refute it in detail, not by merely repeating your insistence that nothing outside the realm of provable, verifiable, objective reality exists.

But this is not supportable by the very standards of the claims made. God is said (by theists), to have manipulated physical matter. The manipulation itself is evidence of tampering. Yet we find no evidence of manipulation consistent with anything other than the purely natural.

You are here substituting the beliefs of other theists for my own. I do not and have never claimed that any such manipulation has ever occurred. You may not put words in my mouth nor argue against positions that I do not hold and claim such arguments are either relevant or addresssed to the points I am making.

God is said to be perfect, yet the creator of the universe which exhibits not a single known example of perfection. If one creates that which is imperfect, they have left room for improvement and therefore, have no reasonable claim to being perfect.

Apparently you have not read many of my posts. In Jewish belief, God intentionally left the Universe imperfect and incomplete to that humans could participate in the Creation by completing and perfecting it. Tikkun Olam, the "repair of the world," is said to be the very point of human existence.

That teaching was not formulated to gain an advantage in Internet debates, either. It has been the teaching of Judaism for at least two thousand years.

Again, I cannot permit you to argue against positions that I do not hold and pretend that they are relevant to this discussion.

By every standard of the beliefs themselves there should be physical means to confirmation.

Oh? How's that? Can you show that MY beliefs, as opposed to those to which you refer here, which are those of fundamentalists and Biblical literalists, should, by their own standard, have "physical means of confirmation"?

And while many attempts are made to find such physical means, whenever it is noted that such confirmation does not exist, the next claim is that it would be inappropriate to expect such systems of confirmation.

Not the "next claim." That is the claim from the get-go here. Again, if that claim is false, please show how there can be physical confirmation of the nonphysical.

It's nothing but theistic double-talk to support not what is true, but only what you wish to believe is true.

Are you quite sure you didn't read the rest of my post? I predicted the use of that very phrase, "theistic doubletalk." If you want to dismiss my post as mere disingenuous posturing, feel free; but be aware that that is neither a refutation or a rebuttal. It is merely an assertion unsupported by anything but your own unprovable and unverifiable opinion about my thoughts and motivations.

You will accept no truth other than what you have already decided to be the truth and as such, you have isolated yourself from truth.

If any of that were true, I would still be a Christian.

You have not addressed a single point that I have made here. You have only repeated your assertion that no aspects of reality exist other than the objective, material, provable and verifiable--while making claims about my thinking that are neither provable nor verifiable, thus violating your own professed standards of belief.

If you really wish to refute anything I have said here, you might at least try to address a couple of my points. You can start by showing how one might prove the existence of the nonmaterial, nonphysical and nonobjective by referring only to the material, physical and objective. And, sorry; merely saying that no such proof is possible because no such things exist is not an answer; that is begging the question by definition.

You may even address the question hypothetically: If there were nonphysical and nonobjective aspects to reality, how could they be proven through reference only to the physical and objective?

If you really wish to debate the points I have made in my post, I would think it incumbent upon you to read all of it and reply accordingly. Merely dismissing my point of view while impugning my integrity and intellectual honesty is not a cogent argument by any standard of reason or logic.

If you want to be seen as refuting or rebutting arguments, address the arguments, not specious and unfounded allegations about their motivation.

[otseng]

You and Goat and Zzyzx, etc., are in a catch 22. Your pride won't let you get down on your knees and confess your sins and ask the Lord Jesus to come into your life and be your Savior, so you stay in the dark and don't experience him. Many of the rest of us have experienced ("detected") him. You keep hearing but never believing.

Moderator note:

Please avoid personal comments in debates.

[LittlePig]

Atheists assume that there is nothing more to reality than that which is material, concrete, and/or objectively provable and verifiable; that nothing else exists, and any claims referring to anything outside of that concrete reality are meaningless and/or nonsensical.

It should be noted that there is no credible evidence consistent with any assertions that anything exists outside of what is objectively provable and verifiable. So this is much more than an assumption. It is evidence-based.

Wrong. The assumption, and it is clearly stated here, is that only objective evidence applies. You are here stating, just as I said, that the existence of a non-material and non-objective aspect of reality can and must be proven only by reference to a conception of reality wherein that is impossible. Begging the question, Q.E.D.

I don't want to get in the way of your effort to put Beastt in line, but I think there needs to be a small correction here (see bolded). This may be true of many atheists here, but I'd have to say that it is not true of me and some others I know.

I think those of my camp would say that one can only know that which one can experience. Any aspect of reality that definitionally cannot potentially be detected directly or indirectly (i.e. by interacting with other potentially detectable aspects of reality) cannot be known in any way by us, and, thus, any claims of such knowledge would be baseless, regardless of what is 'really there.' That is, you can say there is a God, and maybe there is, but you cannot say that you know such if God cannot be experienced. Any claim to know an unknowable thing is either an error, a lie, or some swirly mix of the two. Anything that might exist 'beyond' our reality is a bit beyond the scope of debate and rational belief and could be classified as practically nonexistent in that it doesn't exist for us and never will.

Verifiability of an experience doesn't make an experience any more or less real. It affects interpretation of the experience. A hallucination is a real experience, but how we understand it is very much influenced by what other eyes see, not just our own. When other eyes cannot see what ours see, we have a much harder time filtering out potentially erroneous interpretations inherent to those kinds of experiences.

As you mentioned, the line between subjective and objective is a fuzzy one, and I think it has nothing to do with reality. But if God is really beyond material, concrete reality, I don't see how one could experience it either subjectively or objectively. If God interacts with material, concrete reality sufficiently so as to create an 'experience,' then it doesn't seem right to say that God is beyond material, concrete reality.

Your definition of God is a difficult one to grasp. I'd say it's somewhere between pantheism and panentheism. And if God is indeed the universe or 'infused' in our universe and not just something in your head, then I'm not sure I'd say that God is a purely subjective experience since we all experience the universe.

But, for the most part, I'm not into arguing with people about how their subjective religious experiences should be interpreted. I don't see the point. For all practical purposes, I think we can agree that we cannot objectively show God's existence, nor can we objectively interpret all subjective experiences, and that should be sufficient for us all to avoid dishing out intolerance over the issue.

[Cathar1950]

Atheists assume that there is nothing more to reality than that which is material, concrete, and/or objectively provable and verifiable; that nothing else exists, and any claims referring to anything outside of that concrete reality are meaningless and/or nonsensical.

It should be noted that there is no credible evidence consistent with any assertions that anything exists outside of what is objectively provable and verifiable. So this is much more than an assumption. It is evidence-based.

Wrong. The assumption, and it is clearly stated here, is that only objective evidence applies. You are here stating, just as I said, that the existence of a non-material and non-objective aspect of reality can and must be proven only by reference to a conception of reality wherein that is impossible. Begging the question, Q.E.D.

I don't want to get in the way of your effort to put Beastt in line, but I think there needs to be a small correction here (see bolded). This may be true of many atheists here, but I'd have to say that it is not true of me and some others I know.

I think those of my camp would say that one can only know that which one can experience. Any aspect of reality that definitionally cannot potentially be detected directly or indirectly (i.e. by interacting with other potentially detectable aspects of reality) cannot be known in any way by us, and, thus, any claims of such knowledge would be baseless, regardless of what is 'really there.' That is, you can say there is a God, and maybe there is, but you cannot say that you know such if God cannot be experienced. Any claim to know an unknowable thing is either an error, a lie, or some swirly mix of the two. Anything that might exist 'beyond' our reality is a bit beyond the scope of debate and rational belief and could be classified as practically nonexistent in that it doesn't exist for us and never will.

Verifiability of an experience doesn't make an experience any more or less real. It affects interpretation of the experience. A hallucination is a real experience, but how we understand it is very much influenced by what other eyes see, not just our own. When other eyes cannot see what ours see, we have a much harder time filtering out potentially erroneous interpretations inherent to those kinds of experiences.

As you mentioned, the line between subjective and objective is a fuzzy one, and I think it has nothing to do with reality. But if God is really beyond material, concrete reality, I don't see how one could experience it either subjectively or objectively. If God interacts with material, concrete reality sufficiently so as to create an 'experience,' then it doesn't seem right to say that God is beyond material, concrete reality.

Your definition of God is a difficult one to grasp. I'd say it's somewhere between pantheism and panentheism. And if God is indeed the universe or 'infused' in our universe and not just something in your head, then I'm not sure I'd say that God is a purely subjective experience since we all experience the universe.

But, for the most part, I'm not into arguing with people about how their subjective religious experiences should be interpreted. I don't see the point. For all practical purposes, I think we can agree that we cannot objectively show God's existence, nor can we objectively interpret all subjective experiences, and that should be sufficient for us all to avoid dishing out intolerance over the issue.

I can't help but see your point being somewhat of a panentheist myself.
I am forced to disagree with Cnorman's statement even if I can say some do think that way.

Atheists assume that there is nothing more to reality than that which is material, concrete, and/or objectively provable and verifiable; that nothing else exists, and any claims referring to anything outside of that concrete reality are meaningless and/or nonsensical.

Atheist live in a world of meaning, concepts and culture and much of it does not fit within his conception of materialism. As a non-dualist I appreciate reality being grounded in out experiences of the universe but as limited finite humans we can be wrong about ultimate reality.
I have just finished reading Schellenberg's "The Wisdom of Doubt " and I am about to reread it. One of the things we need to keep in mind is the need for healthy doubt about ultimate reality both as presented by the religious and the irreligious. I suspect that Cnorman might be still looking at materialism from a 19th century model and the world is slowly changing.
Many atheists as well as theist suffer from the same.

[Beastt]

Tell me, can you show that 'truth' is objective? I would like to see objective evidence that 'truth' is objective.

Goat, this is not the time or place to fool around.

TC

Who is fooling around. I want to know what definition of 'truth' you use that makes it 'objective'. The word 'truth' seems to have many definitions. Is a 'fact' a 'truth'? Is truth a 'moral pronouncement'? I have seen it declared that 'abortion is murder' is a 'truth'.

Sometimes this is easier to answer than others. I still assert that demonstrability should be utilized to establish what is truth and what is knowledge. As far as the abortion issue goes, it comes down to the definition of "murder" which is an illegal killing. So if an abortion is performed where such a practice is legal, it's not murder.

BUt, how about the 'truth' it is immoral?

One man's truth is another mans tyranny

Morality, like good and evil, is strictly a matter of perspective. How that does or doesn't make a belief in gods rational isn't quite apparent to me.

[Beastt]

Stop right there. I am not "playing a game." I do not formulate my beliefs to gain a tactical advantage in an Internet debate with people I don't even know. I think rather more of them than that. I am trying to explain my beliefs as they are, not as I pretend them to be.

I'm not suggesting that you formulate your beliefs for a tactical advantage. I'm suggesting that you form your tactics only to meet your beliefs.

To clarify that, science has demonstrated over and over and over that the only way to find truth is to exclude human subjectivity. Every human holds slightly different beliefs and opinions and those are what shape their subjective ideas. It is only when this subjectivity is removed that we can see the truth. When people first found their lives ripped apart by eruption of volcanoes, they did what any subjective human might be expected to do -- in their attempt to understand the volcano, they anthropomorphized it. They looked at the mountain in human terms. They knew that if a human burst forth violently and destroyed property, they were probably angry. So it was their assumption that the mountain was angry. This is how they came to assume the existence of a volcano god and began trying to find ways to appease this volcano god.

And despite the fact that there never was a god controlling the eruptions of the mountain, many proclaimed that their attempts to appease the god were working. That's because they were using subjective methods to try to understand the situation and subjective methods to assess their successes. Only when man began recognizing the value of excluding his own subjective feelings from his assessments did he start to grasp the true nature of things such as volcanic eruptions. This pattern has been repeated over and over with tidal waves, earthquakes, storms, droughts, floods, crops, disease and just about anything else one could name as a potential destructive power over men. And yet each and every time, objective observation and assessment has been what lead to discovering the truth while subjective assessment has lead to little more than highly destructive fairy-tales.

You're suggesting that we abandon what works and return to what doesn't work, simply because objectivity does work to show us the truth, but it's not the truth you hoped for.

And I have to apologize but I received an unexpected phone call which required nearly all of my time to respond to you and now I'm going to need to start getting myself ready for work.

[cnorman18]

First, my sincere thanks, LittlePig, for your thoughtful and analytical response.

Atheists assume that there is nothing more to reality than that which is material, concrete, and/or objectively provable and verifiable; that nothing else exists, and any claims referring to anything outside of that concrete reality are meaningless and/or nonsensical.

It should be noted that there is no credible evidence consistent with any assertions that anything exists outside of what is objectively provable and verifiable. So this is much more than an assumption. It is evidence-based.

Wrong. The assumption, and it is clearly stated here, is that only objective evidence applies. You are here stating, just as I said, that the existence of a non-material and non-objective aspect of reality can and must be proven only by reference to a conception of reality wherein that is impossible. Begging the question, Q.E.D.

I don't want to get in the way of your effort to put Beastt in line, but I think there needs to be a small correction here (see bolded). This may be true of many atheists here, but I'd have to say that it is not true of me and some others I know.

Point taken. I should and ought to have said, "some atheists." In context, that remark was addressed to the atheists with whom I was speaking; but still, you are quite right; the qualifier should not have been omitted. I knew better.

I think those of my camp would say that one can only know that which one can experience.

That seems reasonable.

Any aspect of reality that definitionally cannot potentially be detected directly or indirectly (i.e. by interacting with other potentially detectable aspects of reality) cannot be known in any way by us, and, thus, any claims of such knowledge would be baseless, regardless of what is 'really there.' That is, you can say there is a God, and maybe there is, but you cannot say that you know such if God cannot be experienced.

True enough; but I didn't say that God cannot be experienced, nor did I intend to. I thought my post was long enough without going into Martin Buber, the "Ich-Du" relationship, and the "contentless" internal and subjective encounter with God. I thought that the implication that one may subjectively experience God was clear, but I see that it wasn't. My apologies, but that experience and whether or not it is subjectively "real" seems to me to be a separate topic.

My intent was only to establish that there is a plane or mode of "existence" that is neither physical nor objective, and I think I did that. The nature of the God-encounter is for another thread.

Any claim to know an unknowable thing is either an error, a lie, or some swirly mix of the two. Anything that might exist 'beyond' our reality is a bit beyond the scope of debate and rational belief and could be classified as practically nonexistent in that it doesn't exist for us and never will.

Since I would say that the subjective God-experience is, according to the terms I laid down about the reality of the subjective, a part of our reality, I would agree with that general statement, but not that it applies to God.

Verifiability of an experience doesn't make an experience any more or less real. It affects interpretation of the experience. A hallucination is a real experience, but how we understand it is very much influenced by what other eyes see, not just our own. When other eyes cannot see what ours see, we have a much harder time filtering out potentially erroneous interpretations inherent to those kinds of experiences.

Of course. Which is why religion must be a collective enterprise. One may not claim special "visions" or insights without comparing them to one's religious tradition. In Judaism, the idea of "visions" is not admitted at all; anyone who claims that God has spoken directly to him is dismissed out of hand. Maybe God did, in which case he is free to go found his very own religion; people do that all the time, e.g. David Koresh.

The God-encounter spoken of by Buber (and myself), though, is not of that order. It contains no message, no cognitive content, and thus "interpretation" is not much involved. It would be difficult to go farther without a lengthy dissertation.

As you mentioned, the line between subjective and objective is a fuzzy one, and I think it has nothing to do with reality. But if God is really beyond material, concrete reality, I don't see how one could experience it either subjectively or objectively. If God interacts with material, concrete reality sufficiently so as to create an 'experience,' then it doesn't seem right to say that God is beyond material, concrete reality.

I see your point, but does interacting with the subjective human mind constitute interacting with material, concrete reality? I doubt that it does; the mind may then impact reality as a result of one's thoughts, but that is a separate transaction, so to speak.

Even if interaction with the human mind does constitute interaction with concrete reality, does that mean that God Himself is part of that material reality? I don't see how that follows. Dreams, for instance, have an effect in the mind, but I doubt that anyone would say they are part of the material Universe. Perhaps I am wrong.

Is human thought part of concrete, material reality? It's hard to see how it could be, by the terms presented to me on this thread.

Your definition of God is a difficult one to grasp.

Tell me about it. It's not an easy way to think. That's the nature of Jewish theology. Even so, it seems to me to be the only adequate and appropriate way to approach the subject. We (that is, Jews) are trying to make statements about things which are, at bottom, ineffable. It's not surprising that it isn't easy to do.

I'd say it's somewhere between pantheism and panentheism. And if God is indeed the universe or 'infused' in our universe and not just something in your head, then I'm not sure I'd say that God is a purely subjective experience since we all experience the universe.

Neither pantheism nor panentheism is an appropriate category. God is not identical with the Universe, as in pantheism; neither is the Universe part of God or an aspect of God, as in panentheism. God is, rather, an aspect of the Universe that is only present in the mind; subjective real, but not objectively so.

The imperfect analogy of mathematics might be helpful again here. If one picks up a stone, one does not "experience" mathematics; but if one picks up a stone and thinks, "One stone," one does. The experience is in the mind, not in the stone.

But, for the most part, I'm not into arguing with people about how their subjective religious experiences should be interpreted. I don't see the point. For all practical purposes, I think we can agree that we cannot objectively show God's existence, nor can we objectively interpret all subjective experiences, and that should be sufficient for us all to avoid dishing out intolerance over the issue.

I agree wholeheartedly with every word of that. It is the intolerance of the religious point of view per se that I argue against. That religious belief is "nonrational," i.e., not founded on purely rational thought, is something I have always granted; that it is "irrational," that is, contrary to and proven false by reason itself, I do not grant.

I honestly can't; I live in this head, and I do have the temerity to claim that I know when I'm thinking and when I'm not. It annoys me when others presume to know the content, not to mention the intent, of my thoughts better than I.

[cnorman18]

I can't help but see your point being somewhat of a panentheist myself.
I am forced to disagree with Cnorman's statement even if I can say some do think that way.

Corrected, as noted in my reply to LittlePig.

Atheist live in a world of meaning, concepts and culture and much of it does not fit within his conception of materialism. As a non-dualist I appreciate reality being grounded in out experiences of the universe but as limited finite humans we can be wrong about ultimate reality.

I quite agree. I have always said that I am not absolutely, objectively certain that God exists; I don't see how anyone can be. I have been described as an "agnostic theist," and as I said, I thought that description a fair one.

I have just finished reading Schellenberg's "The Wisdom of Doubt " and I am about to reread it. One of the things we need to keep in mind is the need for healthy doubt about ultimate reality both as presented by the religious and the irreligious.

Indeed. Such doubt is, in fact, the Jewish way. We are more famous for questioning and arguing than for agreeing--about much of anything.

I suspect that Cnorman might be still looking at materialism from a 19th century model and the world is slowly changing.
Many atheists as well as theist suffer from the same.

I know nothing of 19th century materialism. I was responding to the statements which were addressed to me, and nothing more.

[cnorman18]

Stop right there. I am not "playing a game." I do not formulate my beliefs to gain a tactical advantage in an Internet debate with people I don't even know. I think rather more of them than that. I am trying to explain my beliefs as they are, not as I pretend them to be.

I'm not suggesting that you formulate your beliefs for a tactical advantage. I'm suggesting that you form your tactics only to meet your beliefs.

?

What does that mean?

I am conscious of using no "tactics" at all. I am merely trying to explain my thoughts on this subject. What else should I organize that effort around, other than what I actually believe?

To clarify that, science has demonstrated over and over and over that the only way to find truth is to exclude human subjectivity. Every human holds slightly different beliefs and opinions and those are what shape their subjective ideas. It is only when this subjectivity is removed that we can see the truth.

And in matters scientific--that is, objective and concrete--that is surely necessary. In matters that are subjective and nonconcrete in themselves, that is rather harder to do.

It might help to remember that in matters pertaining to theology, Jews do not claim that there is "one true truth.." There may be many.

Theology is not science. It is not even like science. We do not apply the strict standards of science--true/false, yes/no--to everything in our lives; art, music, love, the taste of a sandwich--and since the religious experience is as subjective as any of those, we see no need to apply them there either.

Theological beliefs are, among Jews, a matter of personal choice. Our "Eternal Fate" does not depend on them, no one can claim to know which is definitively and finally correct, and they are of little importance anyway, so nobody much cares what one believes. Ethics and personal behavior are another matter.

When people first found their lives ripped apart by eruption of volcanoes, they did what any subjective human might be expected to do -- in their attempt to understand the volcano, they anthropomorphized it. They looked at the mountain in human terms. They knew that if a human burst forth violently and destroyed property, they were probably angry. So it was their assumption that the mountain was angry. This is how they came to assume the existence of a volcano god and began trying to find ways to appease this volcano god.

And despite the fact that there never was a god controlling the eruptions of the mountain, many proclaimed that their attempts to appease the god were working. That's because they were using subjective methods to try to understand the situation and subjective methods to assess their successes. Only when man began recognizing the value of excluding his own subjective feelings from his assessments did he start to grasp the true nature of things such as volcanic eruptions. This pattern has been repeated over and over with tidal waves, earthquakes, storms, droughts, floods, crops, disease and just about anything else one could name as a potential destructive power over men. And yet each and every time, objective observation and assessment has been what lead to discovering the truth while subjective assessment has lead to little more than highly destructive fairy-tales.

Quibbles aside, most of what you say is true, but again, all that concerns objective, concrete, and scientific matters; and on that score, Jews are not culpable. We have not and do not resist science. We revere it, and regard academic study in any field, without restriction or restraint, as a sacred activity.

Again, the "God of the gaps" is not under discussion here, and the beliefs and approaches of other religions, past or present, have nothing whatever to do with my own.

You're suggesting that we abandon what works and return to what doesn't work, simply because objectivity does work to show us the truth, but it's not the truth you hoped for.

You are once again claiming to know my thoughts and motivations.

Further, you have not addressed the question I have put to you; How does one prove the nonphysical by reference to the physical alone?

The discussion has not gotten to the point of proving the existence of God, which I think is unprovable anyway; we are only trying to establish whether or not there is a nonobjective aspect to reality. Instead of continuing to assume that there is not, and talking about the fearful consequences in the past of dependence upon such an aspect in matters scientific (with which I do not disagree), can you please address that question as it stands?

And I have to apologize but I received an unexpected phone call which required nearly all of my time to respond to you and now I'm going to need to start getting myself ready for work.

Understood. Feel free to continue the conversation later. Thanks for your remarks.