Let’s take a few minutes on the couch.

Jester, what an honest and insightful post. Seriously.
There is no doubt in my mind that belief in and of itself would make me feel better. For me, it is a fact that i feel better when i have a purpose or a reason (whether the purpose be to mow the lawn or that my existence has meaning). Lack of meaning and purpose is a downer.

Because I have been so consistently harsh in my criticism of organized religion, i will say that I am still looking quite seriously at life, at my spiritual beliefs, etc.

I might even say its the most important thing in my life.

But i simply refuse to believe in something because it makes me happier. I'm too stuborn, i dont know. But I wont do it. Being a devout Jew might have made me feel a better sense of purpose to the world, therefore happier in general.

However, I think there is a longer road to something beyond simplistic happiness. Not the happiness of a little kid getting a pat on the head from god (daddy). But the happiness of someone who has faced the void, faced the emptiness and actually understood something of it.

You can get something from nothing if you are honest about it. And i think it pays greater dividends than being spoonfed spirituality to get sedated into a fat and happy member of the flock.

[IronUnkind]

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However most of the religious posters on this forum do not have those intellectual handicaps. Ergo, they are not playing with a full deck.

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People who are smarter than you would disagree.

[kbfc]

I figured someone would hone in on the use of 'emotion' in Asimov's passage. I was going to address it preemptively in my last post, but I'm lazy.

In dealing with the Asimov quote, you need to determine what is actually meant by 'emotion.' I'll say up front, that it's possible (although I think unlikely) that my interpretation of his language is not identical to what he originally intended. That's not important, though, because I'm not making an appeal to authority; the quote has special significance to me because of the logical argument presented as I read it, not because the great wise Asimov wrote it. (This distinction is similar to those who would seek to discredit all of modern evolutionary theory because Darwin may or may not have made a misjudgement somewhere.)

When Asimov refers to emotion, he's referring to the basic 'irrationality' that one must live with to assume rationality and reason axiomatically. It is this acknowledgment that allows one to get past the stage of pure metaphysical speculation, and actually make meaningful decisions about life.

Now, you can go ahead and challenge the validity of this assumption, but it doesn't help you out at all either. It just makes any discussion at all impossible or nonsensical at best.

Along these lines, I also dispute your assertion that you don't try to use logic/reason along with faith as a basis of your belief. The simple statement of "faith is evidence of things unseen" (hebrews 11:1) is a logical statement. It is ridiculous, but it still attempts to make a logical implication. If you want to disregard logic as a basis for belief, you are basically stuck saying, "it's true; it just is." You can't really try to make any justification whatsoever, otherwise you're bringing reason into play, and then your whole case breaks down.

[IronUnkind]

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As a teenager, I was very serious about calling myself 'agnostic.' I ridiculed 'atheism' as being egotistical and pompous. After reading the Asimov passage I quoted here awhile back, I immediately changed, and have called myself an 'atheist' ever since. It was a simple realization that Asimov's argument made sense that prompted my change, regardless of any spite or disdain I may have previously held toward the position.

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Brilliant. You've tricked yourself into thinking that the act of renaming a sound position magically vindicates an unsound one.

[kbfc]

BTW, the line between psychological deficiency and lack of logical/rational strength is not a clear one as I see it. It takes a certain amount of logical strength to recognize when a psychological drive is affecting the way you address a position. So which is the root problem here, the psychology or the irrationality?

I tried to make it clear in all my posts on this subject that I'm arguing an assortment of causes lead to religious belief, not simply psychological ones. I added parentheticals after almost every mention of psychology to note these other causes. (I wish David hadn't chopped this out in the other thread when commenting on my post.) It probably varies from individual to individual which causes are more dominating, but like I said above, it's also difficult to draw a specific line of demarcation between them.

[kbfc]

Seriously? I'm sorry, I mean....seriously?

0/10 for content.
0/10 for effort.

[IronUnkind]

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That's not important, though, because I'm not making an appeal to authority; the quote has special significance to me because of the logical argument presented as I read it, not because the great wise Asimov wrote it.

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What is Asimov's argument, exactly? That we should use language imprecisely in order accomodate a specious (but genial) metaphysics?

[kbfc]

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However most of the religious posters on this forum do not have those intellectual handicaps. Ergo, they are not playing with a full deck.

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People who are smarter than you would disagree.

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Maybe you're right.

[IronUnkind]

How unfair. I should at least get a few points for exposing your "logical argument" as meaningless legerdemain.

[IronUnkind]

For real. I'm still trying to figure out if I'm too dumb or too crazy.