About that stubborn comment: I think I inadvertently erased what was there; but in fact, what I ended up doing with it was graduating it to a blog post.

I noticed that your comment is a little stubborn about actually posting; ’till it comes up, I have a supporting point or two.

This fact that not every person can have the same access to empirical data is what I was getting at earlier, in that it would leave a great number of people without a way to know God. There are some who lack the experience, some who lack the intellect, or some who lack the opportunity to see every iota of empirical data or logical argumentation about God.

If God really wanted to make Himself available to everyone, it makes perfect sense for Him to do it using the one faculty that everyone has – “the heart”. Not in spite of logic and empirical data, not instead of them, but in conjunction with them. The well-established stalemate in the intellectual and empirical paths fits that idea quite well.

“Whenever we try methods to see if they match with reality, it turns out that the best method is to observe whether our theories match reality.  That’s empiricism.”

 
No, that’s just a truism, so I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here. Empiricism as a philosophy is the dependence on experience to determine natural truths. “Empirical evidence” means physical evidence, like weight, length, time, temperature, etc.
 
Where you run into trouble is this:
 

“Regarding empiricism, my claim is that it has the best track record of matching with reality.”

 
Matching with material realities? Perhaps. But this is where the worldview presumptions kick in. If you’ve already decided that there is nothing non-material which is also real, then you’ll never accept any examples, reasoning, or non-material evidence in the first place. Unfortunately, you’re creating an ad hoc exception for logic, which is wholly non-material and non-empirical.
 

“Logic must be assumed, so you can’t question logic for being logical on the basis of begging the question.”

 
No, but logic itself can’t be self-confirming. You can say that it must be assumed, but that doesn’t change the fact that logic is inherently non-empirical. Empirical observations don’t interpret themselves. You can’t observe a conclusion, or measure a prediction. I’m not suggesting that there’s a different method of comprehending reality, just that the method we use is three-dimensional, not two-dimensional. We comprehend reality in three modes: logic/reason, physical/empirical, and heart/emotional. If you choose to ignore one of those, then you’re getting a flattened picture of reality.
 
That’s why discussions of non-empirical realities, like beauty, love, or evil, won’t get us anywhere at this point in the conversation.
 
C.S. Lewis discussed this idea in “The Abolition of Man.” The reasoning you’re using to define away the heart creates an incomplete understanding of the universe. It says that my mind exists, because it apprehends logic, which is real. It says that my body exists, because it apprehends light, temperature, and color, which are real. But then it says that my heart/soul/spirit isn’t real, because it apprehends things that don’t actually exist, like morality, beauty, and love. That creates “men without chests”.
 
Lewis explains this problem like so:
 

“It may even be said that it is by this middle element that man is man: for by his intellect he is mere spirit and by his appetite mere animal.
 
The operation of The Green Book and its kind is to produce what may be called Men without Chests. It is an outrage that they should be commonly spoken of as Intellectuals. This gives them the chance to say that he who attacks them attacks Intelligence. It is not so. They are not distinguished from other men by any unusual skill in finding truth nor any virginal ardour to pursue her. Indeed it would be strange if they were: a persevering devotion to truth, a nice sense of intellectual honour, cannot be long maintained without the aid of a sentiment which [this kind of skeptic] could debunk as easily as any other. It is not excess of thought but defect of fertile and generous emotion that marks them out. Their heads are no bigger than the ordinary: it is the atrophy of the chest beneath that makes them seem so.
 
And all the time—such is the tragi-comedy of our situation—we continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more ‘drive’, or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or ‘creativity’. In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”

 
 
As I said, I’m expecting you to define “objective” as “empirical”, and on that basis none of the above will make a bit of difference to you. I don’t actually think that it’s possible to answer your question(s), as asked, for the reasons above. You’re operating from a set of assumptions that are self-defending; you’ve already excluded any possible answer through your assumptions. I’m pretty sure that you’re defining “objective” as “empirical”; so you’re sort of asking for empirical evidence of something non-empirical. That would be like asking for logical proof of something non-logical. It’s the reason that skeptics always slide towards postmodernism, since their worldview has to absolutely deny the existence of anything that’s non-empirical. Trying to discuss the reality of the non-material with a modern skeptic is like trying to discuss music with someone who has their fingers in their ears.
 
I’m sure you read the linked article, but I think it would be worthwhile to re-read it. Some of what you’re asking has at least been broached there.

Logic must be assumed, so you can’t question logic for being logical on the basis of begging the question.

True. But he wasn’t questioning logic. He was questioning why you would believe logic and empirical observation together comprise all knowledge.

Regarding empiricism, my claim is that it has the best track record of matching with reality.

Now there’s an interesting point: “matching with reality.” Does what we know empirically match with reality? I happen to believe it does (to a reasonable approximation). Neither empiricism nor logic will show that to be the case, however (nor will the two paired together). Kant took care of that issue for us all. My belief on that is actually founded on my understanding of God and how he created humans.

If you want to claim that you’re using empiricism and logic alone for all your knowledge, then you cannot say empiricism has any track record at all of matching with reality. Logic and empiricism alone won’t deliver that result.

you seem utterly convinced that anything not verifiable by logic and empirical data is not to be taken seriously. It’s perfectly reasonable to ask what empiric-logical process you used to form that conviction.

 
Logic must be assumed, so you can’t question logic for being logical on the basis of begging the question.
Regarding empiricism, my claim is that it has the best track record of matching with reality.  Whenever we try methods to see if they match with reality, it turns out that the best method is to observe whether our theories match reality.  That’s empiricism.
This applies, however, only to objective questions about the universe.
Can you give me another method besides observing the universe, making theories, and then seeing if those theories match with reality that has a better track record for objective conclusions?   That’s empiricism.  I’d love to hear about the track record of another method, I’m not being rhetorical or sarcastic.
 

We are not talking here about feelings, which love to cheat us.

conviction (which the heart helps do) is not a leap.

But the heart, Pascal is saying, is not a springboard to choice . . . . It is not all done for us by logic and by sight.

There is still the reasoning of the heart.

What exactly is the reasoning of the heart, if it isn’t emotion, logic, or bias?

Also, can anyone give me an example of proper use of the heart in determining some other question of objective reality?

you seem utterly convinced that anything not verifiable by logic and empirical data is not to be taken seriously. It’s perfectly reasonable to ask what empiric-logical process you used to form that conviction.

Exactly, I’ll answer this soon when I have time.
Busy now, more later.

“Huh? How can sufficient and brilliant examples of X and Y lead us to conclude that X and Y are sufficient?  Please explain.”

 
There have been undeniably rational geniuses who were / are Christians (Newton, Galileo, Kepler, Kelvin, Maxwell, and Collins, Polkinghorne). There have been undeniably rational geniuses who were / are atheists (Russell, Crick, and others I’m sure you know of). There are no historically or rationally supported reasons to believe that pure reason and intellect lead conclusively or typically towards deciding either that God exists, or God does not exist. Therefore, it is most appropriate to consider that the question is answerable through an additional means of apprehension.
 

“…a plain reading of them does not necessitate this twisting.”

 
I don’t see a twisting; something is either empirically verifiable or not, and you seem utterly convinced that anything not verifiable by logic and empirical data is not to be taken seriously. It’s perfectly reasonable to ask what empiric-logical process you used to form that conviction.
 
Are you implying that any opinion that is influenced by a bias is automatically invalid? You connection to the pink unicorn is completely out of left field. What on earth does that have to do with anything? If you’re really going down that road, then feel free to continue alone.
 

“I’d love to hear your argument as to why the system is fair.”

 
Maybe some other time. It’s irrelevant whether or not you think it’s fair – it can be true all the same. The fact that you keep bringing this up belies your claim to rationality.
 

“If we must choose belief or disbelief without sufficient evidence”

 
Now you’re completely misrepresenting the argument, purposefully or not. I said that enough evidence was given. You’re demanding absolute proof, despite your claims otherwise.
 

“And tell me again why sufficient (not necessarily personal or direct, as I’ve argued before) evidence is irrational?”

 
Who said the evidence had to be irrational? You’re really losing me here. And I thought that personally tailored, direct evidence was all you were willing to accept, no?
 

“The word you want instead is “sufficient,” not “absolute.””

 
No, I said absolute and I meant it. God gives us sufficient proof, He does not give us absolute proof. Reword in whatever tangled way you choose, I prefer the straightforward: everyone chooses whether or not to believe in any given thing, to varying degrees based on the person and the thing in question. Only the skeptic who wants an excuse to deny everything says otherwise.
 

“To hold this would mean that you’d have to believe that no single person ever died honestly and sincerely not believing in God.”

 
Please, think this out before you argue it. I repeatedly said that no matter what God does, there will be those who will refuse to accept. Our “honesty” and “sincerity” are still colored by our preferences. You can believe something with all the honesty and sincerity in the world, and still be wrong. Just because you truly believe something does not mean that there was no choice on your part to adopt that view.
 
God’s method of apprehension is not inadequate just because some choose to reject it. To argue the opposite is sideways postmodernism, where every way that our whims take us is supposed to be acceptable. The attitude that God must always do everything on our terms is exactly the kind of egotistic rebellion that He’s not interested in.
 

“There’s not difference in the distinction you set up.  For the purposes of making a conclusion, it would be the same functionally as if you had a bias and concluded something in spite of it, or if you didn’t have a bias.”

 
That’s not even close to what I said, let alone meant. I mean that opinion does not define reality. We don’t create truth, we apprehend – as in notice, sense, determine, or measure – it. Some are more interested in that than others.
 

“Do you have any evidence that no can ever subvert their biases sufficiently to reach a conclusion not based on them?  Do I really have to tell you how many stories of how mediators do that every day?”

 
No one said that biases could not be dealt with. They certainly can – but there’s a supreme arrogance in claiming that you can fully and completely divest yourself of all shreds of bias whenever you want. Please, deliver the predictable complaint that this is a straw man, but read and consider your own statements before you do. I’m talking about dealing with our biases, you’re claiming that you can take them off like a jacket.
 
I don’t think this is getting anywhere, so from here on out, I’m not really planning to respond to anything other than the very specific topic(s) of the linked article. That’s out of respect for Tom, and the blog. I think I’ve gone full circle on just about everything we’ve discussed, and don’t see that any greater understanding is imminent. Feel free to continue your responses, but I’m not going to do this forever.

There are sufficient examples of brilliant logical ability and empirical study on both sides of the question of God to conclude that those two paths alone can’t decide one way or the other.

Huh? How can sufficient and brilliant examples of X and Y lead us to conclude that X and Y are sufficient?  Please explain.

the question of how you use empirical data and logic to prove that only empirical data and logic reveal truth.

You’re merely using a verbal twisting of my ideas back on themselves in an attempt to invalidate them, when a plain reading of them does not necessitate this twisting.  To wit:
We can’t escape the empiricism of “the way to determine if some method (even empiricism) produces good results is to compare various methods and see which one works?”
 
Furthermore, your argument necessarily implies that personal bias does not make inaccurate conclusion about objective reality, which leaves open the door to me claiming that there is a pink unicorn in my backyard right now.  Surely a valid epistemology cannot support that reductio ad absurdam.

You are expecting absolute proof from God, on your terms, and labeling any system you find unfair as “irrational.”

I’d love to hear your argument as to why the system is fair.  That would dig into the heart of the matter.

He provides us with enough evidence to get us to up to where we must choose belief or disbelief.

This is nonsensical.  If we must choose belief or disbelief without sufficient evidence, then it doesn’t matter whether God has given us any (insufficient) evidence or not.  He might as well give us no evidence, we’d still have to choose belief or disbelief.  And tell me again why sufficient (not necessarily personal or direct, as I’ve argued before) evidence is irrational?

Believing only when you’re presented with absolute proof is not faith, nor is it trust.

The word you want instead is “sufficient,” not “absolute.”
Reworded: a choice can’t lead us to believe in any specific objective reality, but a choice can lead us to accept whatever objective reality is.  The existence of God is merely one question of objective reality to which this applies, as it does for all questions about objective reality.
 

The point is that the universal method is universal, meaning that there are no persons for whom it does not patch their “proclivities.” It’s possible for everyone.

This is patently untrue.  To hold this would mean that you’d have to believe that no single person ever died honestly and sincerely not believing in God.  Because if that were the case, surely God could have communicated in an alternate way in which that person would have believed.  Now, you might respond by saying that God would not change his communication style for reason X, but that still would not invalidate the hypothetical of a person sincerely being an atheist, which means that a universal style of communication is not adequate.  Furthermore, why should God communicate in a style which leads some people to believe in him and others not?  It cannot solely be the hearer’s responsibility, as communication is a two-way street.  My ability to understand you or God depends on not only my proclivities by the proclivities of you or God.

Truth is not something we create by removing bias, it’s something we apprehend in spite of them.

There’s not difference in the distinction you set up.  For the purposes of making a conclusion, it would be the same functionally as if you had a bias and concluded something in spite of it, or if you didn’t have a bias.
Do you have any evidence that no can ever subvert their biases sufficiently to reach a conclusion not based on them?  Do I really have to tell you how many stories of how mediators do that every day?
 
More later.
 
 
 

Another way to say it: a choice (is this what the heart is?) can’t lead us to believe in God, but it can lead to us believe in the truth.

may have been a Freudian slip, but you just defined “truth” and “belief in God” as different a priori. You just assumed that God is not a truth. Slip or not, misspoken or not, you’re making ad hoc exceptions for belief in God that you’re not making for other abstractions.

“Of course people sometimes choose things, especially in mediation. But choice should not be a part of objective conclusions, in the context of what we have been discussing.”

 
They always choose things, to some extent. My complaint is that you’re greatly exaggerating your own rationality to claim, even subconsciously, that when you want to, you can totally remove all influences of preference from decision-making. Acknowledging that you experience biases and preferences, but then claiming that you can perfectly subvert them at will is the problem I am noting.
 
One honest, sincere skeptic is still one honest, sincere person affected in some regards by his or her emotions and preferences. There is no such thing as a purely objective human being.
 
 

And at the end of that sufficiency is a choice to take the final step to believing that which you have sufficient cause to.

Agreed. I already said that. We must choose to commit ourselves to finding the truth, no matter where it leads, but it cannot guide us to a particular truth. Finding out what the truth is, among all the options, is only the realm of evidence and logic. So whether God exists or not has no role for choice, other than to choose to find the truth no matter what that truth is (God existing or not). So we don’t choose to believe a particular thing, we only choose to believe in the truth.
——
Lack of complete, personal knowledge is not the issue here. I already said that before. When we trust others’ knowledge, we do so on the basis that others have that sufficient evidence.

The only reason I trust relativity is that I understand that the sufficient evidence is there. If someone asked me to trust some knowledge on the basis that sufficient evidence wasn’t there, I wouldn’t do it. That’s how this issue isn’t one of personal knowledge but what is required to know something rationally as an intellectual issue.

Because we don’t personally have sufficent but direct knowledge is no reason to believe things that aren’t based on sufficient evidence by someone who we trust does have that sufficient evidence. Any trusting we do must be trusting that the sufficient evidence is there. This trusting doesn’t mean that we can trust without the sufficient evidence being there (somewhere).
——–

You acknowledge that personal preference bears on decision-making, and has to be recognized in order to make more objective judgments.

I did not. Personal preference has no place in making objective conclusions. I only said that personal biases or preference may bubble up within us, but in order to be objective we must reject those biases and ignore them.
——–

“This is consistent with my claim that we ultimately choose what to believe, to varying degrees.

The issue isn’t what people tend to do, statistically, but what is proper to do rationally and intellectually. Properly, we must only choose what is a proper rational or objective conclusion by evidence and logic.
———
Sincere repentance after conviction (or death) is only problematic because it goes against the system God has set up, but I’m questioning that entire system. I again ask, why does God require repentance before death? There is no rational reason for this. Your answer cannot now be that such repentance is insincere, because you’ve just admitted that it can happen.
——–

No matter what line you draw, you’ll have to admit that some people still won’t cross it. That makes disagreement with God over where the line is placed purely a question of preferences, not rationality. No matter how I define the difference between the saved and the un-saved, someone can and will complain that “there’s no reason for God to do it that way.

I agree that someone can refuse without valid or rational reason to accept a rational plan. But my point is that some people *may* cross the line in a way that makes God’s plans have no sense. These are two different cases. If you sincerely repent after death because you sincerely and honestly believed that God didn’t exist, then it makes no sense for God to insist that you repent before death. That is the aspect of God’s plan that is irrational, not the case in which someone rejects God’s plan for no good reason. This is the absurdity that you claim I haven’t identified. Well, that was it. The lack of direct communication is another good one.
———

A universally available means of understanding is limited?

Yes, exactly. It forces everyone to adopt a single method. Universal means single, which forces everyone to conform to that method regardless of whether that method fits that person’s proclivities. That is a limitation, QED. If God altered his means of communication to suit everyone’s individual needs, he would increase his chances of effective communication. We would succeed 100%.
———-

I guess if I invented a language that everyone on earth could speak and understand, you’d call that “limited”. But God hasn’t done that. I have sincerely and honestly tried to figure out if God exists, and it appears to me that he doesn’t.

And it would be begging the question to claiming that *everyone* who doesn’t think God exists isn’t being sincere or honest. So if there is one person out there who sinceerely and honest says that it looks like God doesn’t exist, it is absurd and irrational of God to not communicate directly with that person and remove all doubt.
———

There is no other option. My decision does not affect the reality of the truth, but I cannot see how someone who participates in negotiations or mediation can actually say that people don’t apply choices to their beliefs.

The other option is to not choose to believe, but to let the truth define what we believe. We seek what the truth is without our willful belief. BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT TRUTH IS! How can truth be something we willfully make up? The truth is what remains after we give up our biases.
——–
Of course people sometimes choose things, especially in mediation. But choice should not be a part of objective conclusions, in the context of what we have been discussing.
——–
Believing in God because you want to is a horrible reason if you merely put it aside, as you must. You don’t balance biases with reason, you put them completely aside, you ignore them. They have no place in a search for the truth. They may exist, but they have no place in an objective search for reality and truth.
———

totally in control of your own biases

I never, ever said “totally.” We recognize that biases can intrude, and when they do, they are inappropriate and have no place in an objective search for truth. Just because they can intrude and people can act on them does not validate their use. The rest of that paragraph by you is a straw man.
——-
I retract my authority fallacy argument. It still remains that it only takes one counter-example to disprove a claim. So if one skeptic is honest and sincere, your argument fails.
——–
Regarding the heart, I’ve shown that, given a few initial assumptions, evidence and logic will lead us to the truth. That is my argument against the heart. I see nothing that the heart provides that is appropriate in a search for the truth and that isn’t provided by evidence and logic.

 Our reason is quite satisfied, in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of every thousand of us, if it can find a few arguments that will do to recite in case our credulity is criticised by some one else. Our faith is faith in some one else’s faith, and in the greatest matters this is most the case. Our belief in truth itself, for instance, that there is a truth, and that our minds and it are made for each other,–what is it but a passionate affirmation of desire, in which our social system backs us up? We want to have a truth; we want to believe that our experiments and studies and discussions must put us in a continually better and better position towards it; and on this line we agree to fight out our thinking lives. But if a pyrrhonistic sceptic asks us how we know all this, can our logic find a reply? No! certainly it cannot. It is just one volition against another,–we willing to go in for life upon a trust or assumption which he, for his part, does not care to make.
As a rule we disbelieve all facts and theories for which we have no use. 
…

This very law which the logicians would impose upon us–if I may give the name of logicians to those who would rule out our willing nature here–is based on nothing but their own natural wish to exclude all elements for which they, in their professional quality of logicians, can find no use.
Evidently, then, our non-intellectual nature does influence our convictions. There are passional tendencies and volitions which run before and others which come after belief, and it is only the latter that are too late for the fair; and they are not too late when the previous passional work has been already in their own direction. Pascal’s argument, instead of being powerless, then seems a regular clincher, and is the last stroke needed to make our faith in masses and holy water complete. The state of things is evidently far from simple; and pure insight and logic, whatever they might do ideally, are not the only things that really do produce our creeds.
…
 Scepticism, then, is not avoidance of option; it is option of a certain particular kind of risk. Better risk loss of truth than chance of error,-that is your faith-vetoer’s exact position. He is actively playing his stake as much as the believer is; he is backing the field against the religious hypothesis, just as the believer is backing the religious hypothesis against the field. To preach scepticism to us as a duty until ’sufficient evidence’ for religion be found, is tantamount therefore to telling us, when in presence of the religious hypothesis, that to yield to our fear of its being error is wiser and better than to yield to our hope that it may be true. It is not intellect against all passions, then; it is only intellect with one passion laying down its law. And by what, forsooth, is the supreme wisdom of this passion warranted? Dupery for dupery, what proof is there that dupery through hope is so much worse than dupery through fear ? I, for one, can see no proof; and I simply refuse obedience to the scientist’s command to imitate his kind of option, in a case where my own stake is important enough to give me the right to choose my own form of risk. If religion be true and the evidence for it be still insufficient, I do not wish, by putting your extinguisher upon my nature (which feels to me as if it had after all some business in this matter), to forfeit my sole chance in life of getting upon the winning side,–that chance depending, of course, on my willingness to run the risk of acting as if my passional need of taking the world religiously might be prophetic and right.
…
 

I speak, of course, here of the purely judging mind. For purposes of discovery such indifference is to be less highly recommended, and science would be far less advanced than she is if the passionate desires of individuals to get their own faiths confirmed had been kept out of the game. See for example the sagacity which Spencer and Weismann now display. On the other hand, if you want an absolute duffer in an investigation, you must, after all, take the man who has no interest whatever in its results: he is the warranted incapable, the positive fool. The most useful investigator, because the most sensitive observer, is always he whose eager interest in one side of the question is balanced by an equally keen nervousness lest he become deceived.

“I’m merely saying that God’s irrationality is one reason to suspect he doesn’t exist.”

 
I understand this, which is why I keep saying “perceived irrationality.” I’m contending that your’e going in the disagree-means-irrational direction, not the irrational-means-disagree direction. That is, you’re not responding to the idea that there are reasons why God might do as He does, you’re just re-asserting that you don’t like them. Calling it “irrational” does not make it so, and all you’ve done is assert, not support.
 

“The standard does not have to be exhaustive, merely sufficient.”

 
And at the end of that sufficiency is a choice to take the final step to believing that which you have sufficient cause to.
 

“But assumptions and logic cannot be sufficient to prove the existence of an object or a being.”

 
No, evidence is needed. But there is no such thing as “exhaustive” or “perfect” evidence. Nor can any person ever hope to amass all of it, even if there were. And there are more kinds of evidence than just the empirical. Just because one acknowledges their limited knowledge and accepts something based on rational “faith” does not make them irrational.
 

“Eventually you get down to the assumptions (non-contradiction, rationality, etc.)”

 
Also not true. You (presumably) don’t know everything about the equations Einstein used to develop special relativity, nor the mathematical equations to support it, nor could you re-create the experiments used to verify it. Nor are you seeing any practically observable effects of relativity. You’re trusting that what you are told by scientists is true – you’re not basing your belief in an extensive set of evidence to prove relativity. You’re making the reasonable choice to believe that relativity is an accurate theory based on your best understanding of what you’ve been told, and your best understanding of the people telling you. You can’t really say that you’re in a position to judge the evidence for special relativity, nor Quantum theory, since neither you nor I have really observed the evidence for either.
 

“There is no basis for claiming that leaning one way or the other is inescapable.  I’m a mediator, and while I may often personally favor one party or another for idiosyncratic reasons…”

 
Paul, you’ve just expressed an almost immediate contradiction, and now it seems like you’re disagreeing just to disagree. We’re saying the same basic thing, here. You acknowledge that personal preference bears on decision-making, and has to be recognized in order to make more objective judgments. Yet, you’re asserting that your own biases are not influencing your judgment, but mine are – claiming to be above the influence of preference. I’m almost obligated to suggest that my ability to openly recognize that preference weighs in my metaphysical decision-making suggests that I have a better handle on it than you do.
 

“We cannot choose to make reality what we want.  Reality is what it is, regardless of our wishes or desires.  As Tom says, the truth holds us.”

 
And I’m sure you’ve seen, even just on this blog, the lengths to which some people will go in order to disbelieve that which most people consider overtly obvious. This is consistent with my claim that we ultimately choose what to believe, to varying degrees.
 

“You can’t claim that everyone who repents after conviction is insincere, on what basis can you claim that for *everyone?”

 
I’m sure they’re all very, very, very sincere in at least some sense, but sincerity has nothing to do with it – sincere confession and repentance of murder after sentencing won’t change the sentence. You had your chance, and now there are consequences for the choice that was made. Feeling sorry is not the issue, either. There is a trusting, submissive component to faith that can’t be reached after death.
 
This is exactly why there’s no reason for God to conform to your preferences:
 

“Note I’m not saying everyone would do that…”

 
Precisely. No matter what line you draw, you’ll have to admit that some people still won’t cross it. That makes disagreement with God over where the line is placed purely a question of preferences, not rationality. No matter how I define the difference between the saved and the un-saved, someone can and will complain that “there’s no reason for God to do it that way.”
 

“..please allow me to define what I’m trying to argue and when.”

 
Frankly, I’m just not patient enough to keep waiting for that to happen. You keep claiming that it’s irrational, but the only supporting statements you make for this are pure moral outrage. There’s nothing contradictory, impossible, or absurd about the system that’s being espoused. Unless you were able to define this issue in something other way than “because I don’t like it that way”, your argument’s pretty well defined as it is.
 

“People are different, why must it be universal?  It’s God limiting himself, for no good reason.”

 
I really don’t know how to argue with this. A universally available means of understanding is limited? I guess if I invented a language that everyone on earth could speak and understand, you’d call that “limited”. This is as clear an example of committed skepticism as I can think of. “God created a way in which everyone can know Him.” “Oh, then He’s limited.” What?
That’s typical closed-door anti-theism – instead of recognizing that God made one way that can work for everyone, you’re upset that there aren’t three. If there were five, you’d be upset that there weren’t six. Sooner or later, you’re the postmodernist who wants every conceivable way to lead to God.
 

“So it still makes no sense for you talk about willfully deciding what the truth is in any particular case.”

 
There is no other option. My decision does not affect the reality of the truth, but I cannot see how someone who participates in negotiations or mediation can actually say that people don’t apply choices to their beliefs.
 
What followed this…
 

“It’s a *horrible* reason.”

 
…demonstrates that you didn’t read the very next phrase after “it’s a reason, but…”. That reason enters into the equation whether I want it to, or not. All I can do is recognize it, and judge accordingly. I thought you said that you noticed your own biases in mediation. Are you not balancing those biases against reason, rationality, and so forth? Are you not making a deliberate choice to set your biases aside in your mediating?
 

“I was saying that if someone lets biases intrude, all the evidence won’t convince neither a believer nor a disbeliever.”
…
“I understand that I must keep my biases out of the process…”
…
“Then why do you insist on incorporating choice into belief…we willfully decide no content of the truth, we only apply proper process…”
…
“After the initial decision to be unbiased, there is no willful choice to believe in any one particular belief or not,”

 
The above just proves that you’re making exactly the mistake most skeptics make. You tell yourself that you’re perfectly objective, perfectly rational, and totally in control of your own biases. It’s a cop-out, if you’ll pardon the blunt terminology. That attitude allows you to make the kind of arguments you have, because it suggests that any thoughts deviant from your own can be written off a priori as irrational. After all, you are an intellectual machine, bound only by the purest and most unadulterated reason, totally free from the imperfections of baser humanity – at least when it comes to the question of God.
 
If you think referencing Huxley was an appeal to authority, then I again don’t know where to go from here. It’s a concise summary of the attitude that I encounter all the time. I didn’t say that there were absolutely no skeptics deviating from that norm, I only said “a great number of skeptics.” That’s pretty clear.
 

“To summarize, there is no valid third way.  The heart has nothing to do with it.”

 
Then we start all over from the beginning, with the premise of the linked article. You haven’t given a single support for how a person rationally refutes the existence of a “third way.” You’re right in the cross-hairs of the very accusation made above:
 

“Unbelievers think that skepticism is their special virtue, the key virtue believers lack.”

 
There are brilliant, rational minds on both sides, so it makes sense to posit that the truth has to be confirmed in some other way. History will not let you, or anyone else, claim that the skeptics are the only ones on the side of reason. If you’re going to slip into that silly rut, then nothing else I say is going to matter one way or the other.

I keep bringing this up because you keep conflating perceived irrationality with non-existence.

I’m not conflating them, I’m merely saying that God’s irrationality is one reason to suspect he doesn’t exist.  If I hypothesized that another god existed, and laid out a theology that was nonsensical, are you saying that fact of its nonsensicality wouldn’t be a factor in your rejecting the truth of that theology (forget for a moment your supposed evidence for the truth of Christianity)?  Could you still believe in your god if you were shown that he was irrational?

There are things in this world that you believe, for which you do not have exhaustive empirical evidence, logical support, or experience. . . .

The standard does not have to be exhaustive, merely sufficient.  But the real issue here is discussed below.

You have good reasons to believe them, and some questions about how they actually work.

If the reasons for believing in them are good, then they are relying on evidence, assumptions, or logic.  But assumptions and logic cannot be sufficient to prove the existence of an object or a being.

Pick any topic, whether you think you know something about it, or not. There will come a point where you have no other answer to the successive questions “why” and “how” other than “I don’t know.”

Not at all.  Eventually you get down to the assumptions (non-contradiction, rationality, etc.).

Quantum physics is an example. The vast majority of people on earth have never observed experimental verification of a quark. They’ve never learned all of the sophisticated mathematics behind how quantum theory works. All the same, they can and do trust in the conclusions that scientists say that they’ve come to – on the basis of a reasonable faith.__That reasonable faith is necessary for belief in anything. You can’t possibly know everything, so there is no escaping some exercise of faith.

The issue isn’t whether one has personal (direct) knowledge or whether one trusts others’ personal (direct) knowledge.  The issue is what that knowledge is based on, ultimately.  Whether you have personal knowledge of a claim or not, we judge the validity of a claim the evidence, assumptions, and logic, no matter who personally observed the evidence, stated the assumptions, etc.

Exercising of free will is absolutely necessary, but that exercise is not meant to be devoid of intellectual or evidential influences.__Yes, we have to avoid extremes in the “want to”-“don’t want to” divide. But leaning one way or the other is inescapable. All we can do is acknowledge that internal bias, and judge our own reactions accordingly.

There is no basis for claiming that leaning one way or the other is inescapable.  I’m a mediator, and while I may often personally favor one party or another for idiosyncratic reasons, I am trained to ignore those considerations, and I can tell you from personal experience, that both I and other mediators are quite capable of ignoring those considerations.  It sounds like, though, it’s more difficult for you to do so, which may be one reason why your biases lead you to believe in God.

God wants us to trust in Him. He wants us to admit that we need Him, and that He is who He claims to be. Once a person dies, then belief in God is no longer their choice – it’s a truth forced on them. It’s not an expression of respect and worship at that point.

You’re conflating respect, worship, and belief in truth.  In what sense of the words “respect” and “worship” is the assumption of another’s existence necessary, because it’s the truth of God’s existence that is in question here?  These definitions are ad hoc definitions, convenient for covering up the irrationality of the theology.
Furthermore, truth is *always* forced on us.  We cannot choose to make reality what we want.  Reality is what it is, regardless of our wishes or desires.  As Tom says, the truth holds us.

The person who feels repentant post-mortem is like the criminal who only feels sorry once they get caught. Prior to that, they’d have been perfectly happy to continue on violating the law. After their capture, they’re only sorry to be in trouble, not sorry for the wrongdoing.

You can’t claim that in every case.  What about the criminal who truly and honestly feels sorry after he’s caught?  You can’t claim that never happens.

Confession after conviction in a courtroom is meaningless, and repentance after judgment is as well.

Confession isn’t the issue, repentance is, see above.  You can’t claim that everyone who repents after conviction is insincere, on what basis can you claim that for *everyone?

*If God operated in the way you suggested, then there would be no reason for anyone to believe in Him. They could just ignore Him, wait until they died, and then say, “Oh, so you are real. Well, then, please don’t hold me responsible for my actions before.”

The rational option would be to establish that he is real as clearly as you imply he will after we die.  No rational reason not to, then there’s no reason not to be clear and take his commandments seriously.  Note I’m not saying everyone would do that, but there would be no reason for God not to.  Which is why my claim is that this system God has set up is not rational in the way that we understand the word.
Not to open up another can of worms, but if this is a question of being held responsible for actions on earth, how can an infinite punishment (hell) be just for finite (earthly) crimes?

You seem to be making the two functionally identical. You’re expressing an incredulous attitude towards the idea that a rational God might do things that way. If we can acknowledge that other human beings can rationally disagree, why can’t God?

The issue is that I claim that God’s system is irrational, and you think it is.  You’re trying to inflate my issue for me, please allow me to define what I’m trying to argue and when.

I suggested that God has created a means by which to know Him that’s accessible for all mankind, and you response is to criticize it as a “one-size-fits-all” limitation? How is that a limitation, rather than an expression of His power? Isn’t that something you should be expecting – a universal means of apprehension?

Not at all.  People are different, why must it be universal?  It’s God limiting himself, for no good reason.  I’ve given you an example in which God could communicate, by any *rational* measure, more effectively by using more means than the ones he currently uses (like having an actual conversation with someone, especially me), and it’s surely within his power to do so.

If you want to know God, you’ll find a way. If you want to find reasons to disbelieve, you’ll find them.

Recall that my issue is not what I’m doing, but what God is doing, and whether it makes sense or not.  And I’ve already (and will do so more below) addressed the issue of willfulness in a proper, rational approach to this issue (that is, it plays no role).

I don’t know or care to say much more than that. God exists, He created ways for us to know Him, and those who want to use them will use them. If you’re going to insist that God only communicate with you in a specifically narrow way, then you’re not really interested in truth, just validation.

I’m not insisting how God communicate, I’m only judging, accurately, as I claim, that God’s methods are not rational, as we understand the term.

Yes, and part of that commitment is to acknowledge truths that we do not like. It is to accept that things do not have to conform to our own personal whims in order to be real, rational, or meaningful. Even in those times, there is a deliberate choice to believe what we not have wanted to, a decision to accept what we don’t prefer. I made it quite clear that my own beliefs do not entirely match my preferences. There are truths, which I acknowledge, that I sincerely wish were not so.

The only choice we need make is to decide that we will let the truth guide us, and not the reverse.  So it still makes no sense for you talk about willfully deciding what the truth is in any particular case.  You can use the words, but the actual meaning falls apart upon examination.  Our goal should be to *not* decided willfully what is true, but only to commit to following the truth whever it leads.

*“Your comments here make me think that the real reason why you believe in God is because you want to.”
—It’s “a” reason,

It’s a *horrible* reason.  That reason should never enter into the calculation as to what is objectively true.  How can you say this?  It may be true that you want to believe, but that can’t be a valid, rational reason why you believe the particular thing that you believe.

It works both ways. This encapsulates the foundation of the atheist case.”

—But you seem to be vehemently denying that choice has anything to do with your own belief, or lack of it. And besides, if it works both ways, why are you resisting the connection of choice to belief in general? If it (beliefs have a component of choice) is so fundamental to the atheist case, and this is so plainly obvious:

I was saying that if someone lets biases intrude, all the evidence won’t convince neither a believer nor a disbeliever.  That’s what is working both ways.  Re-read that section again.

You will be convinced of what you want to believe in no matter what.”
—Then why are you speaking as though that distinction does not apply to you?

See directly above.
I understand that I must keep my biases out of the process, whereas you are making the case that biases should be part of it.

Then you misunderstand. Truth is not necessarily what we want, of course – but no one is obligated to believe in the truth!

Then why do you insist on incorporating choice into belief (“we willfully decide to believe in God”).  I can only say it again – properly, and rationally, we willfully decide no content of the truth, we only apply proper process (logic, evidence, etc.) and let the chips fall where they may.  After the initial decision to be unbiased, there is no willful choice to believe in any one particular belief or not, especially beliefs about whether something exists in the real universe or not.

That’s not a fringe belief Huxley’s espousing. It’s an honest look into the motivations of a great number of skeptics.

Fallacy from authority.  Furthermore, for you argument to be logically valid, it’s not just a large number of skeptics (and the argument from authority doesn’t even establish that), but even one skeptic will invalidate your claim.

To summarize, there is no valid third way.  The heart has nothing to do with it.  All rationality requires is a couple initial assumptions that are necessary for any conversation at all (law of non-contradiction, etc.), logic (closely tied to those initial assumptions, actually), and evidence.