Even if we somehow accept that these desires are is actually distinct from our desires for things that can be found on Earth, rather than just "perfect" extrapolations of these desires, how would that prove that God exists? The OP just points out certain features of these desires and claims that they have no naturalistic explanation, but gives absolutely no reason to think that this is the case, and then it claims that God is the best explanation, again with no explanation as to why this is the case. The whole article seems like a particularly egregious "God of the gaps" argument (I tend to avoid that term because people often respond to it by derailing the conversation, but it fits too well not to use here).

We do not know if we feel joy in discovering truth, we feel joy in thinking we have discovered truth, God knows whether it is actually true or not.

Kidding aside, it is the mechanism that evolves, which is not content specific. We develop the mechanism of joy to feeling like we have discovered something irrespective of whether we have, or it is useful. So it would make perfect sense for us to enjoy discovery both practical and "for its own sake".

I don't know what other species are capable of, some animals I think some seem to have aesthetic enjoyment, such as whalesong. But we are significantly different than other animals.

For one, I never claimed to be an expert, though you made the assumption. I believe I do know more than you on this particular topic, but there's so much more to learn on my part.

Secondly, the assertion that "there seems to be as many experts and commentators on Christianity" is mere conjecture and used as a way to deflect the argument I'm making. Not every opinion or interpretation is equal. There are some scientists, for example, who swear they have proof the world is 6000 years old. I hope you can agree that their proofs should be taken with a grain of salt considering the quality, quantity, and support of arguments to the contrary by other experts who say the world is almost 5 billion years old. It is not to dissimilar when it comes to interpretation of Scripture.

If your Catholic friends say that Jesus did not found the Church today (and this is your appeal to authority), I'm afraid they don't even know what they are talking about, and more importantly, they aren't faithful Catholics, but instead dissident Catholics, who could potentially fall into heresy like Arius or other Protestants. At every Mass, they would be reciting a version of the Creed, which states that they believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. Therefore, they recite that they believe the Catholic Church is the one Jesus Christ founded and handed over to the Apostles. It's a basic tenet of the faith.

The next time you reason together with your Catholic friends, if you could bring up with them what they believe the Catholic Church is, and how they reconcile the Creed they would recite at Mass with their own personal beliefs to the contrary. I wouldn't mind if you shared their thoughts later on in this thread (just reply after the next time you get together with them).

I have nothing more to add for the moment, so this is where I will end for now.

P.S The arguments I use don't just work for people who already believe, otherwise the Catholic Church would never have got off the ground. It would have died with the Apostles and other Jews, if they could not convert the Gentiles.

P.P.S The magisterium isn't some secret society sitting in a watchtower in the Vatican, which is what you're alluding to. It's the entirety of Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition as taught by all the bishops of the world in communion with Rome. There are several levels of magisterium which are not infallible. Wikipedia has a good entry on this which you should read.

Very well then. You are an expert in Church history and I am not. The problem is that there seem to be as many experts in and commentators on Church history as there are currents within Christianity. There are so many interpretations of the same faith and all experts claim to own the God-given truth.
How can I (an agnostic/atheist for God's sake!) know that Jesus did not found a new Church and you (the expert) should not? Well, I don't. I try to keep an open mind and I listen to what my Catholic friends say - and that is that Jesus did not found a new Church, not the Church as we know it now. We discuss faith (and many other topics), but never in terms of experiencing a "humiliating failure" if we do not succeed in convincing one another. Neither do they appeal to the Magisterium. Our Leitmotiv is indeed: Come now, let us REASON together. The arguments you use only work for people who already believe.

I think I asked somewhere else how else you would believe God would reveal Himself apart from becoming one particular person at one particular point in time, but I can't find it, and nevertheless, it was a rhetorical question meant for personal contemplation. But it wasn't my intention to gauge you in that, my intention was to gauge you about the creation of the Christian church.

1) If you are a) not an expert on Church history, and there b) no match for a Catholic in Church history, how can you c) know that Jesus did not found a new Church, and that I should not? It would be the most humiliating failure on my part. Rather, you're making the mistake the Protestants made (and of which they need in order to remain Protestant) that Jesus was some cultish Jew who started a new spiritual trend that's apparently more pagan than Jewish in conduct. Christianity was never some "kumbayah" faith, it was the fulfilment of God's promise that stretched all the way to Moses. And so it retains many of the rituals that were part of Second Temple Judaism.

2) The vote against Arius wasn't the result of debate and research. The majority of bishops were overwhelmingly in support of the Son being co-equal and co-eternal with the Father. You could even say the council was merely a formality to condemn the infectious heresy. To imagine it as 'debate and research' is the error of displaced 21st century "scholarship" who know nothing of the history of Christology or the history of the Church. For Arius to say the Son is less than the Father, he would completely have had to discount the Gospel of John, and the other bishops in the council knew it, hence the overwhelming majority vote. A second council many years later was convened under Constantius II the Arian sympathiser to open dialogue, but was once again shut down, and the nature of the triune Godhead further reinforced.

Part Two.

There is, within the context of Kant's philosophy, a. division between empirical realities and transcendental idealities, the latter of course being identified within the Christian context as a reality. This fundamental difference between AT and Modern philosophy, therefore would constitute a major distinction within
their relevant concepts of transcendence.

In both stories, The Handmaiden and the Avengers, motherhood is placed within a context in which her 'person' is undervalued. Those who are depicted within the Atwood example would defend the Christian patriarch and the traditional
transcendentals. Those within the fictional representation of some of the ideas we associate with The Third Reich would respond in an analogous way. But perhaps within all of these cases there is reciprocity between fact and the ideas, whether or not the latter are regarded as fictions. Within the context
of the Avengers, is it possible, for instance, that Nietzsche would reconsider the negation of the traditional transcendentals if he had been aware of how his philosophy would later be interpreted, as an emphasis on the state rather than
the individual? How is it that there can arise constant misunderstandings because of the relation of the inner world of consciousness, to the external world of empirical reality?

The Avengers would surely be considered a fiction, for how could the function of motherhood no longer be considered necessary, but rather an impediment to a higher order established by a rule of 'robotic gods'. Their authority governs not only the domain of law, but the biological sphere of science,
without consideration of human, rational, physical or innate characteristics, particularly that of some kind of possible perfection? Both The Avengers and the Handmaids Tale describe an improbable event. It is surely all speculative
fiction, but also possibly comparable to some ideas within 'philosophies'. And within the latter context, does the idea of 'perfection' necessarily demand the idea of 'transcendence' as a metaphysical 'absolute? Is not the application of this concept applied to improving one's ability to do a particular task,
(techne, or technology) as well as the prerequisites assumed as necessary for the development of virtue, for instance, or character, more properly associated with human consciousness per se and the aesthetics of life as well as art?

Can the ideas of Nazism be regarded as a kind of religious mythos which can be truly compared to a fictional representation such as that described within the story of The Avengers? Similarly, are the ideas of love, home, truth,
beauty, and goodness, the transcendentals presented in this discussion to be equated only with a concept of imagination arising from the reproductive, as in the case of fictional stories, rather than with the productive imagination, which describes those images that are immediate within perception. For example, what would be the case if the concept of God truly was a fiction and identified with the ideas which arise within the sphere of literature, alone? But even here the lines are not firmly drawn, for is not fiction even as functional art an aspect of cultural determinants, both as they affect the social and the individual? Have not the stories in the bible, like the ideology of Nazism, been compared to mythology. and questioned as a matter of fact? Thus, even within this distinction (between
the real and the ideal), is there not the possibility of confusion with respect to the relationship between consciousness and 'the world', as well as a need for further development of awareness and understanding regarding both the meaning of words, and (the) effect of our ideas on self and others?

For me, at least, this problem of hermeneutics or interpretation is a constantly evolving process of learning. Yet, I do not believe I have the capacity to imagine the concept of 'perfection' when placed within a relationship to the category of 'transcendence' within a Platonic context alone. There is always the need to relate a concept to my individual experience. Perhaps, to counter the Catholic explanation, that belief, grace,
faith come from and through God, there could, within the secular context, be some kind of modal linguistic operative that demands always something more from me as a result merely of these concepts being placed in juxtaposition. Is it the linguistic idea or the consciousness of the thought that requires a primacy of focus in any particular case?

.

Who can explain to me 'how' I/we think? Yet, even within seeming limitation with respect to the understanding of transcendence, or the transcendental, I am aware of the importance of developing the capacity to think 'good thoughts', and the need to be directed to a higher development within the sphere we call 'personhood'. Is such an aspiration towards the transcendent within the individual more relevant within such a context, or is it the focus on the transcendent, specifically regarded as 'O/other', including the concept or being of God that is primary? Is there a necessary interrelationship between
the two, whether regarded as fiction or fact?

Will I ever find it possible to define or recognize possible delusions within the compass of such philosophical distinctions as what is the 'real', and what is 'ideal'; between what Kant called the phenomena and what within his philosophy
is unknowable: the noumena? But the idealistic philosophers following Hegel were unable to find even the Buddhist ideal of a personal Nirvana within their philosophical explorations, and so there developed the various schools of neo-Kantianism, from the analytic scientific philosophers, to the post-modernism
of Heidegger in the late 19th century. Within this context the debate continued as to whether or not God is indeed 'dead'.

But then I think of all the work being done in an attempt to understand both language and consciousness. In this context I wonder whether these philosophers have found a relationship between them that can be explicated. And then I question again: What do these continental philosophers want? What are they
thinking, as they contemplate these transcendentals within a context that has been referred to as the 'death of logos'?

I trust you understand how Judea-Christian traditions and pagan philosophy were integrated, but is it possibly questionable whether a true synthesis has ever been attained? Perhaps the death of god refers to religion and the death
of the logos refers to philosophy. I can only speculate. Perhaps new meaning, interpretation and indeed structure will be appended to such concepts as the resurrection within Christianity, and Wittgenstein's reference to the 'end' of philosophy will be understood to refer to a goal or purpose. In any case, surely even an application these ideas have
something to do with how we think of the 'transcendentals'.

P.S. Obviously I could not tackle the current discussion on reductionism vs. transcendence within such an illustrative context. Even though I don't this I desire a 'transcendental perfection' !!!! Carry on. William, I admire what you are doing! Thanks.

So I'm back. Just in case you are still 'interested' I dare again. But with all these posts, how can you read them all. Anyway I worked hours and hours on this, trying to make a 'synthesis' of personal experience, which I hope in some way you find 'ironically serious comedy'!!

Thank you Michael Davis for expressing interest in my attempts to develop an essay on this subject. I am daring to post this here, rather than as a direct response to you, in order to test whether my belief that there is at least 'some coherence' is justified. Thanks all. (This is not on the list of required reading.)

Part One:

The concept 'transcendental' has many possible meanings. It can refer to what is beyond space and time; it may refer to the inner experiences of mind in relation to the external
world, or it may refer to the overcoming of an obstacle or limitation.. Such distinctions are placed within the
consideration of several stories that I hope can be regarded as fact in contrast to fictions, (words which also have multiple meanings) as they constitute the material from which is drawn alternative ways of classifying meaning. This is but an attempt to adopt the criteria of scientific method to a study that is not based on direct empirical evidence. Several possibilities will be considered.

This will be a discussion, not an argument, of the implications of a dystopian novel written by Margaret Atwood.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Handmaid%27s_Tale In contrast to this religious example, a contrary position is offered, based on a movie called The Avengers, but in order to correspond with The Handmaid's Tale, it is placed within the context of the ideal grounds for raising children enunciated by Plato in his Republic. If you recall, he held that raising children was too important a task to be assigned to 'parent(s)' and thus should be placed within the jurisdiction of the Republic. Within parallel considerations of issues within today's society, we can take note that this was also the age when Oedipus as an infant was abandoned on a mountain, and high ranking officials
were allowed to commit suicide in order to avoid even loss of face.

The 'story' proposed, but unlike The Handmaiden, (not actually written), would consider the possibility of a situation in which childbearing by a woman is no longer considered to be essential, efficient or necessary in a world governed by self-programming robots who have adopted the scientific method in order to guarantee a perfectly ordered state. There is after all, cloning, technology and over population, and within the perspective of the superior intelligence of the computers, who indeed can be regarded as gods, this is particularly relevant with respect to those irresponsible 'humans'. Well, not
much detail here but hopefully the plot presents The Avenger as having returned within an appropriate context relative to the concerns of women's liberation. Do you think hopefully I could sell the idea? I could use a few 'bucks'.

Within both stories there is a major focus on the placement of contrasting negative perspectives on women, a theme which remains a primary concern within various feminist movements. These constitute the empirical, or rather factual elements, and include mental 'data' considered also as 'facts'; within this
attempt to examine or become more subjectively aware of specific thought processes involved and invoked when thinking about the concept of transcendence. There are other issues obviously related to our times, but with a little imaginative thought I suggest the reader can contribute his/her own
ideas to make up for the omissions resulting from limited time and space.

Within the context of over-riding theories there are attitudes,
presumptions, or even cognitive bias, that perhaps can be considered in some way as theoretical in relation to factual content under study, thus there can be a possible difficulty with respect to identifying what would be the most appropriate
category in which to place a thought. In any event, surely it would be justified to regard such concerns within the context of general theories with respect to both the structure and meaning of 'transcendence'.

So are these stories merely a fiction? What is a fiction? Is such a scenario as The Handmaiden a possibility, even as a productive idea of fact? Do these disclosures, whether fiction or not, increase the potential for their actualization. Can we
ever find a precise indication that, whether, as fact or fiction, such considerations anticipate, or indeed predict or guarantee the actuality of a specific 'future', despite any thought of absurdity within the idea that we can ever know what might actually develop within in this world? (We don't always get what we want!!!) (or desire!!!)

As an illustration of mere possibility, could anyone have had precise conscious awareness with respect to what retroactively can be regarded as the rise of the 'mythos' of the Master Race, which (together with the opposite Marxist interpretation) is now considered to be a possible consequence of the philosophy of Hegel? Can such a question be 'scientifically' predicted, or ‘religiously’ prophesied within either the context of fiction or fact?

Nietzsche I understand rejected Christianity because of the servitude he felt was characteristic within a relationship he identified with the image of the shepherd and his flock. Far more preferable was a world of science, reason, and
self-governance by the individual. This could be regarded, I suggest as a governing transcendental concept, although I do not believe it's specific nature has been identified through this description. Yet, following his example, some Post-Moderns, also laud the example of the ancient Romans, Greeks
and the pre-Socrates. For this is/was the age they identify as the first culture to be based on a scientific philosophical perspective rather than one based on a religious worldview.

Yet would not such a perspective be classified, without contest, as being more subjective than objective, if those parameters were related primarily to cultural interests? To reiterate, this historical perspective is a development of Nietzsche's idea, promoted as a kind of 'renaissance', a deliberate restructuring and reformulation of past events, which included a specific
interpretation of the philosophy 'The Will to Power',. directed towards a future consolidation of multiple possibilities; a theoretical framework that is identified with a specific teleology.

I shall however, merely note that within the above contexts, the
transcendental ideal involved within such philosophic ideologies includes within its conception the attainment of some kind of better world, or perfected 'state' although both its origins and focus remains within a construct of the temporal order., and the teleology is directed more to the universal than to the
particular or individual.. By contrast, it is generally considered that the religious perspective of a transcendental purpose is primarily directed to some understanding of the 'eternal'. But within Catholicism perhaps there is a basis for multiple interpretations in this regard, for the concept of transcendental
is not consistently or explicitly associated with either the eternal or temporal. This leads to a subsequent confusion as to the possibility or meaning of a disembodied immaterial human soul awaiting a glorified bodily resurrection within a heaven on earth. and thus the idea that the transcendental, as a mystery of faith. is logically beyond the understanding of or by the individual.
(To be continued.) (Just my attempt to 'understand'!!!

He is 'the good Overlord'!!!!! (an acceptance of all of these polarities!!!!???)