[MD] Theism/epistemology [re-mail]

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Ham to Ron]
One doesn't come upon [sensibility] by interacting with his fellow creatures..

[Arlo]
Too funny. But a good place to point out that Ham's ideas on how one 
DOES come about it is that it is "poofed" into each and every human 
being by a Primary Source (which does this out of a need to be adored).

To wit, Ham has stated that human consciousness does, in fact , 
evolve over historic time. But the only way he can account for this 
is to allude to a Primary Source that doles out new-and-improved 
models to subsequent generations (either He is incapable of getting 
it right the first time, or The Great Plan calls for generations of 
His Children to survive with a deliberately un-evolved consciousness).

Also, for Ham, "The Great Poof of Essigod" also accounts for the 
appearance of human consciousness in the historic timeline (since Ham 
agreed that at one point in the distant timeline consciousness did 
NOT exist, then at another point it DID exist). Like a good Theist, 
Ham simply turns to his Essigod, which created and poofed human 
consciousness into some distant human ancestors, and has been 
progressively updating His model ever since.

[Ham]
As Michael said above, " belief in g*d is deeper than culture."

[Arlo]
Except that it isn't. What appears to be innate (deeper than culture) 
is the drive to seek transcendence, which note has nothing to do with 
god or gods or needy Primary Source's seeking to be adored, it has to 
do with the barest and most primary of human experience, of man's 
experience with his world. What is "deeper than culture" is this 
impetus to experience, to describe, to find answers, to understand... 
since all cultures everywhere have developed their mythos (of which 
"belief in a god" is part) in response to this most primary human experience.

Not to mention that humans as a species hate not knowing. It 
irritates us like a piece of sand, and (to continue the metaphor), we 
produce beautiful pearls to keep us from experiencing the irritation. 
For ancient man, it was not enough to experience "fire", he had to 
explain it, and his explanations evolved over time (via the 
collective consciousness) to the stories of Prometheus, Raven, and 
other encounters with magical beings. And the mythos grows, and 
children assimilate and evolve the stories of their culture, and it 
can be hard to forget that the "core" to all this is direct 
experiential contact with a world preceding these learned forms. Not 
"god" or "gods" or "g*d" or any other "transcendent being".

The impetus to transcend should never be confused with a transcendent 
being. But this is your ongoing mistake, and why the only way you can 
explain the cosmos is through the actions of a needy God. "Zen" 
doesn't make this mistake, mind you.