One God, One Book

[lightgigantic]

OK: How would tons of scriptural references cause one to take particular interpretations of them as normative descriptions surrounding claims of how real life does or doesn't function?

I think you miss the point.
How "real" functions in pursuit of a station of life or state of being relates to the normative issues that frame the said state or station.

For instance if we were determining why it is that a certain class of persons are/aren't wealthy, one would look at the normative issues that frame the acquisition of wealth (such as social/educational prerequisites, demographics, etc)

We weren't talking about spiritual inquiry.

If we're talking about the diametric opposite of it - namely atheism and how it manifests - it's certainly part of the discussion

An interesting hypothesis, which needs only some evidence.

Its quite simple. A lifestyle imbibed with attachment to ephemeral things reduces one's capacity to approach a spiritual state (or a state that isn't swayed by such attachments). Of course there are numerous means of approaching this issue eg - charity, sacrifice, and/or renunciation etc ... and furthermore a host of dissertations about how, what and why to implement these things.

I see little support for it, though, and much contradiction - for starters, atheism seems correlated with education and scholarship, not material wealth, in every culture in which theism is the societal norm.

so you don't see any connection between (contemporary norms of) education and acquisition of material wealth.

While there was an era when tertiary education wasn't geared towards job placement, its certainly not the case now. Ironically, universities were so named due to placing an emphasis on universal knowledge. Now you don't even have two departments clued in together.

We also note that spiritual inquiry correlates with greater tendency toward atheism, not lesser, in our own wealthy culture.

Hardly.

Generally, with atheists, there is a move to directly approach scripture without even bothering with any scriptural commentaries - kind of akin to picking up an advanced physics text meant for a PhD and trying to make heads or tails of it. Hardly call it relevant inquiry unless one already has the ground work .... More likely to be a case of falsely thinking "I already know what this is about so let me get a few things here to support my case". Tons of evidence for this being the case in atheist hate-sites

 

[iceaura]

I think you miss the point.

I deny the point, based on the evidence of my experience. Poor people are not more religious than middle class people, in my town. The opposite, if anything.

We weren't talking about spiritual inquiry.
”
If we're talking about the diametric opposite of it - namely atheism and how it manifests

Spiritual inquiry is not the opposite of atheism, or opposed in any way.

We also note that spiritual inquiry correlates with greater tendency toward atheism, not lesser, in our own wealthy culture.
”
Hardly.

Generally, with atheists, there is a move to directly approach scripture without even bothering with any scriptural commentaries

Your unfamiliarity with atheists in general is noted, along with your short horizon regarding "scripture".

An interesting hypothesis, which needs only some evidence.
”
Its quite simple.

And yet none appears.

so you don't see any connection between (contemporary norms of) education and acquisition of material wealth.

I don't see their equivalence. And I see lots of bourgeois people in church - the fastest growing and largest churches in the US.

 

[lightgigantic]

I deny the point, based on the evidence of my experience. Poor people are not more religious than middle class people, in my town. The opposite, if anything.

There's a host of tools that can turn the tables on your data points. On one side you have issues of charity/sacrifice/renunciation that enable spiritual life to co-exist within the confines of material prosperity ... on the other you have the complex issues of determining where a person's heart really lies, since an apparent theist can succumb to illusion at the point of death and similarly an apparent atheist can express deep remorse for their sins.

Spiritual inquiry is not the opposite of atheism, or opposed in any way.

Inasmuch as application is an integral part of pedagogy, you're wrong

(or even inasmuch as a theoretical investigation of application - as in reading a scriptural commentary- is an integral part of pedagogy, you're wrong)

Your unfamiliarity with atheists in general is noted, along with your short horizon regarding "scripture".

Strange that you should term comprehension of commentaries that stand as supportive of a text as diminishing the horizon of it.

As for my estimation of atheists and the extent of their spiritual inquiry, feel free to tell us which scriptural commentaries you are familiar with

I don't see their equivalence. And I see lots of bourgeois people in church - the fastest growing and largest churches in the US.

and merely placing one's backside in a place of worship constitutes the highest and most accurate norm for determining levels of spiritual inquiry?

Or is this simply an example of the broad comprehension of theistic norms entertained by atheists when they draw their conclusions?