Some questions (either answers, or summaries of answers plus pointers elsewhere for the full treatment, would be fine):
the existence of God is not an empirical question
What kind of question is it?
God is not a supernatural agent
What kind of agent is he?
“theologically necessary level of denial”
In what sense is “theologically necessary” a relevant or interesting category in epistemological terms? (More bluntly, if you like: why should we care what is, or is not, theologically necessary, as distinct from what is epistemologically necessary?)
it’s not that the specific claim being made by the atheist is incorrect, it’s that the implication that is believed to follow does not actually follow
What is the specific claim, and what is the believed implication?
techniques to enable a closer appropriation of the truth
What, exactly, is an “appropriation of the truth”? I have never encountered this phrase, and am unsure what it could mean.
In so far as institutions succeed in cultivating such honesty then they are operating as spiritual bodies.
This claim seems to beg the question by defining ‘spiritual’ in a way very different than how it’s normally defined. No conclusions that might be reached after starting with such an unusual usage could possibly apply to ‘spirituality’ in the way the term is normally used.
I would personally argue that the edifice of science that we presently have is structurally dependent on that Thomistic tradition I mentioned above, and that it could not exist separately from that tradition, but that’s an argument that might be distracting as it is very contentious
Indeed.
lastly, that an important form of spirituality that is also massively understood in contemporary culture, although it is of major historical significance in the West, is that of magic. Rightly understood, this is not about Harry Potter-esque actions that violate natural law but about ‘change of consciousness in accordance with will’ - in other words, it is about the training of the intellect in ways of seeing. (Some of the ways of seeing can be bonkers of course.)
Needless to say, this runs into the usual “show me the money” (a.k.a. “cake”) kinds of problems that we see with ‘Looking’, ‘kensho’, and all the rest. Absent an answer to such demands for demonstration of effectiveness, the mere fact that ‘magic’ is not judged to be important or worthy of study is simply correct and appropriate.
Some questions (either answers, or summaries of answers plus pointers elsewhere for the full treatment, would be fine):
What kind of question is it?
What kind of agent is he?
In what sense is “theologically necessary” a relevant or interesting category in epistemological terms? (More bluntly, if you like: why should we care what is, or is not, theologically necessary, as distinct from what is epistemologically necessary?)
What is the specific claim, and what is the believed implication?
What, exactly, is an “appropriation of the truth”? I have never encountered this phrase, and am unsure what it could mean.
This claim seems to beg the question by defining ‘spiritual’ in a way very different than how it’s normally defined. No conclusions that might be reached after starting with such an unusual usage could possibly apply to ‘spirituality’ in the way the term is normally used.
Indeed.
Needless to say, this runs into the usual “show me the money” (a.k.a. “cake”) kinds of problems that we see with ‘Looking’, ‘kensho’, and all the rest. Absent an answer to such demands for demonstration of effectiveness, the mere fact that ‘magic’ is not judged to be important or worthy of study is simply correct and appropriate.