Quote Originally Posted by Grendel View Post
Arguments from the nature of the mind's ability to perceive the world can be made to defend the likelihood of a god, but they are hardly evidence of the existence of any specific god as past cultures knew him, that is, as the Abrahamic god or a Hindu god. On the other hand, arguments both from specific and nonspecific understandings of god's nature have been used by those that claim to understand him, as justification for fettering or persecuting those who will never be his children, in the physical world.
And that's just annoying.
That's exactly the argument I've made. I don't think you're allowed to shoot down an argument solely because you think it's more detrimental than beneficial, but, even if you do, I think it's more beneficial to have a non-specific god than to have no god. Having no god always turns into a hedonistic philosophy based on avoiding pain, which I think is invalid. What if we could make humans live forever naturalistically by editing genes so we don't age combined with repairing broken organs like in Star Trek? While I think eternal biological life is never guaranteed, the fact that it's possible in theory and there are no inherent human limitations makes me feel inclined to separate the pantheist god from atheism based on having very different results of belief. Apparently when astronauts first landed on the Moon they attributed it to God, and people in previous times would definitely consider humans on the Moon a supernatural type phenomenon. Atheism always turns into an inversion of the religion it rejects, such as: we need God to go to the heavens, and there is no God, therefore we can't go to the heavens, while pantheism says instead of being slaves to Sky Wizard, we work our own miracles.