Thanks for kick this ball into the playground Kuro. You are quite right to comment on the trend towards physicalism in philosophy. It compliments the trend towards scientism,

The problem with physicalism is that it cannot account for function. However exhaustive my physical explanation is for a hammer there is no explanation as to the function of a hammer. Within physical systems, parts may have their functions although this cannot be known until one considers the system as a whole. In the case of human behaviours such as banging in nails with a hammer, physicalist explanations are invariably insufficient.

Thanks 'Universeness' - I don't think that we can write off an experience that seems to be very common among mankind. The experience is a psychological event which would suggest some kind of cause or trigger. What is it that people are susceptible to that would cause such experiences? I have no idea myself, but it would be churlish to simply say that they were all confused or mistaken.

Faith is not evidence of anything. The fact that somebody has faith does not imply the reliability of that faith. Faith might be closely related to trust. Some people take great reassurance from their trust in God. I don't think that we should necessarily disrespect that trust, even if we do not regard the object as reliable.

In your reference to the Higgs Boson particular you are confusing propositions that are held as hypotheticals and those that are held as a matter of faith. The validation of hypothetical propositions is certainly progress, but those of faith do not need such validation. They are different insofar as they are not held on the basis of any evidence.

The truth of philosophical propositions is not a matter of popular belief. Philosophy, like any other discipline, is not a matter of democracy. Those qualified to arbitrate on philosophical claims are those that have had some training in philosophy.

On the more general matter of 'faith' or trust in humanity I have always been cautious when it comes to the kindness of strangers. Human beings are equally capable of great intelligence and great stupidity.

Letting the readers act as arbiters might be a bit like letting the blind lead the blind!

Thanks Agent Smith - neither theism nor atheism are arguments but rather beliefs. If requests/demands are made for justification then an argument might follow. Theism might be partly justified by reference to empirical experience. Many people claim to 'sense' the existence of a God. This is not the kind of formal empirical evidence used to justify scientific propositions but nevertheless it is perhaps some kind of psychological evidence of something. On the empirical side, simply because atheists have not shared this religious experience, that would not justify the statement that there was no object to this experience. Just because I don't see it does not mean that it does not exist. There have been plenty of arguments for the existence of God, dating back to Aristotle and carried forward by Aquinas. Are any of them valid? Logical arguments can be less than valid without necessarily being invalid. They can be persuasive, plausible and intriguing. Descartes ontological argument is a case in point.

Most religious people however would argue that their beliefs were a matter of faith, not subject to empirical or rational validation. If they were validated there would be no basis for faith. If you want to understand the nature and importance of faith I would recommend two sources, the first, the gospels and teachings of Jesus, and the second Wittgenstein's book 'On Certainty' (as well as the Philosophical Investigations).

If the simple living of life was enough then people would not feel impelled to seek further meaning of significance. Simply living life is enough for some, but others seem to want more. No problem with that is there?

Most concepts of God have him as incomprehensible, inexplicable and unknowable to human intelligence. So what am I saying if I claim either to believe or not to believe in something that is like this? God might be seen as a kind of surmise, or an assumption, much in the same way as reality. We can only know reality as a possibility, an assumption, or maybe as a necessary condition to our knowing, but we cannot know reality 'as it really is'. God might be the same.

It is difficult to see what is the content of the proposition, x=x is being presented to the reader. You might only say this if somebody was trying to persuade you that x was not x but under what are the conditions might this be a possibility? Of course there is the assumption that x is a constant but even then is it difficult to see how the proposition really carries any meaning.

1+1=2 is a more meaningful proposition than simply 1=1. It tells us something about the definition of each quantity in the relationship and something about the relationship itself. As with the x=x proposition it makes an assumption that numerical values remain constant, that 1 today is the same as 1 tomorrow and unlike the x=x proposition, this is a significant assumption.

This set of posts is getting in bit like a herd of cats - perhaps the opening comment, as rich and engaging as it was did not really offer anything like a particular question. There are some confusions on the nature of language games. Every use of language is necessarily part of a language game. It involves rules, agreements between players and some kind of shared objective or purpose. Even if one is speaking to oneself, the activity is conducted as if it was an internal dialogue, as it one were speaking to somebody else.