Eric, in your spare time please do a little research on Immanuel Kant's critique of pure reason. I recommend this encyclopedia as your general referrence and this article as your starting point.
Kant's Account of Reason (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
After you do this, you will have an idea of what I am talking about.
What follows is a set of extremely difficult concepts that I will attempt to describe as succinctly as possible without sacrificing content.
Kant argues that the world we experience is not the real world( which I say is infinite for reasons mentioned above) but our finite representation of such a world. This is not solipsism because we, as humans, have similar minds. Thus for this reason we all see the same external world.
We translate the infinite realm or the real world into our finite world by imposing time, space, and matter. Accordingly, to say something exists outside of time, or space or matter is the same thing as saying it does not exist at all. This is the case because such things are outside of human understanding. From the standpoint of formal logic, their truth value is nill, as they are undefinable. We cannot say that there may be a God who exists in a realm that we cannot understand because by definition of such a realm we know nothing about it. To speculate that this realm may be god means to attribute a quality to it which we are not in the position to do for the aforementioned reasons.
In conclusion, it is hopeless non-sense to talk of a God who exists in a different realm that we cannot understand because he is outside of time or space, or whatever the 'reason' may be.
Comprende?
What do theists expect from their god.
1)They expect that he exists.
2)They expect that they be responded to when they converse with him in the form of prayer.
3)They expect that their behavior is monitored by god and is rewarded or punished accordingly.
4)They expect to be granted an eternal life either in hellfire or in heaven.
1)Does god exist? What is god? If he is a person, he cannot exist in a different realm. Perhaps he is an impersonal entity.
2)Can they reach him through prayer? If he is not a person, there is no reason to talk to him. However, their prayers may be answered in an indirect way. For example someone may argue that prayer makes them think and feel in a certain way where positive consequences ensue. Much like the kind of meditation the Buddhists support.
3)One may presume that the person who has developed a positive mindset by being true to himself, which he may reach through the endeavors of the aformentioned meditations will be likely to live a happy life. A person who lacks the qualities he could have cultivated through the meditations will be less likely to be happy.
4)We know that something exists because we have observed it in the external world. For example, I could imagine an existence of an extremely complex robot that has not been created yet and may never be created. But I could never have imagined such a thing if I have not seen a simple robot on earth. Thus, the existence of the non-physical entities are a result of the analysis of the physical world conducted by our cognitive faculties. What is not physical can not exist. Because our minds in their own right do not hold a physical property, they cannot survive the death of our bodies. Moreover, the kingdom of heaven cannot exist outside of the planet earth or on earth, nor can the kingdom of hell. I doubt I need to give the heaven and hell thing any further treatment. Nevermind that, could there be any chance of life after death in bodily form? For example, maybe the positive religious meditations will allow us to discover certain laws of nature that make our decayed bodies recollect back to their original structure? No, for two reasons. Number one, we cease interacting with those meditations after we die, and they are not stored anywhere when our body dies. Much like we cannot think or recollect things when we are alseep or in a coma.
The theists can marginally have 3 of their expectations met.
