"If the Gospel is not good news for everybody, then it is not good news."

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

The Gospel is terrible news for Ed Miliband the smug and comfortable.

Also, yes, Dule, you are in fact better than these kinds of misrepresentations and two-cent insults. If you think (as you evidently do) that the Christian belief in an ever-present God is simply not supported by observable reality, then just say that so this conversation can continue to other topics.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I find it unfortunate that on this forum any attempts to engage in a question about philosophy of religion from a non-believer’s perspective is all too often immediately shut down as not intellectually serious.

Dule has made plenty of efforts to engage questions like this that are intellectually serious. Hell, he's being intellectually serious now; if someone feels that a religious claim (or any other kind of claim for that matter) doesn't meet that person's evidentiary standards for entertaining a belief about the world, that's an intellectually serious position. What did I say that implied I thought otherwise?

Go and ask most physicists what they think is the more mature approach to the universe.

I'm not sure which aspect of this conversation this remark is supposed to be germane to.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I find it unfortunate that on this forum any attempts to engage in a question about philosophy of religion from a non-believer’s perspective is all too often immediately shut down as not intellectually serious.

Dule has made plenty of efforts to engage questions like this that are intellectually serious. Hell, he's being intellectual serious now. My issue with the way he's conduction this discussion isn't a perceived lack of intellectual seriousness, and I don't think that's Scott's issue either.

Go and ask most physicists what they think is the more mature approach to the universe.

I'm not sure which aspect of this conversation this remark is supposed to be germane to.

Sorry if I misjudged the tone of the responses to him, but that was what I gathered from them (especially as many of his comments were made in a, shall I say, typically Dulean fashion).

As for the second remark, it was more a general comment on how some posters seems to think that any attempt to comment on Christian metaphysics from a more rational, scientific point of view is ridiculed as being “edgy” etc. Again, apologies if this perception is incorrect.

So, I anticipated that this would be part of what your concern was, so I edited the post you're quoting to address it. I'll quote that again so it's in this post as a response to you:

Dule has made plenty of efforts to engage questions like this that are intellectually serious. Hell, he's being intellectually serious now; if someone feels that a religious claim (or any other kind of claim for that matter) doesn't meet that person's evidentiary standards for entertaining a belief about the world, that's an intellectually serious position.

It's the (as you say) Dulean rhetorical style with which Dule is advancing his position that I think is irking people, rather than the position itself, which is standard empiricism. People tend not to respond well to arguments against their beliefs that begin with the assertion that those beliefs are self-evidently wrong; it's the same reason presuppositional apologetics is so impotent. It's not that it's bad logic or unserious thought given Dule's premises, it's just that it could be better as an argument.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I find it unfortunate that on this forum any attempts to engage in a question about philosophy of religion from a non-believer’s perspective is all too often immediately shut down as not intellectually serious.

Dule has made plenty of efforts to engage questions like this that are intellectually serious. Hell, he's being intellectual serious now. My issue with the way he's conduction this discussion isn't a perceived lack of intellectual seriousness, and I don't think that's Scott's issue either.

Go and ask most physicists what they think is the more mature approach to the universe.

I'm not sure which aspect of this conversation this remark is supposed to be germane to.

Sorry if I misjudged the tone of the responses to him, but that was what I gathered from them (especially as many of his comments were made in a, shall I say, typically Dulean fashion).

As for the second remark, it was more a general comment on how some posters seems to think that any attempt to comment on Christian metaphysics from a more rational, scientific point of view is ridiculed as being “edgy” etc. Again, apologies if this perception is incorrect.

Woah, edgelord. Neckbeard much? Get out of the basement and start handling poisonous snakes and speaking in tongues with the rest of us well-adjusted individuals.

I knew a snake handler (they prefer "Church of God with Signs Following") once. An interesting guy. He sure didn't like gays or Jews, though.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I actually consider the "moral legislator who must not be disobeyed" model of God significantly more authoritarian and fear-oriented than the "personal guardian who must not be disrespected" model, possibly because in my own life I've been treated abusively by administrators and public officials but never by teachers or parents. It's one reason I've never really cared for most of the Western Church Fathers.