From: Blunderov (squooker@mweb.co.za)
Date: Tue Sep 09 2003 - 13:44:40 MDT
OK Jonathan - you've got me going again. Here at least we find some
definitions of this 'god' thing:
"But I just think there is another world view as well." > Colin
Humphreys
[Bl.]Colin Humphreys is free to think whatever he pleases. Whether he
can demonstrate any reasonable basis, other than his own preference, for
this fantasy is, of course, highly improbable.
"a Creator" Russell Stannard
[Bl.]Said it before. Say it again. Nothing from nothing. Therefore no
creator possible.
"God is the God of chance and He had His plan and purpose, which is
working out very subtly, but through these chance events." Colin
Humphreys.
[Bl.]Planned chance? Moving on...
I would say that God does take a personal interest in us. If you were
allowed one word to describe God by, that word would be love. Stannard
[Bl.]Aha! The semantic Mesada of theists, the last redoubt. Of course,
if god is love then god might reasonably be said to exist. Oddly, this
god of love that takes a personal interest in us seems to leave a lot of
'bones in the wake' (Tom Waits). Why does this love find it necessary to
create so many victims? Are we to take it that, say, cancer, is evidence
of this love? Or war? Or evil in general? If so, then this must be some
strange new usage of the word love with which I am not familiar. The
theist retort is usually that it doesn't matter because all good people
go to heaven anyway. So this love doesn't always look like love right
now but it all works out ok in the end. Snake-oil is what I say. I'd
rather buy time-share holidays.
Ironically, in the film "Contact", the Jodie Foster character (atheist)
is (supposedly) refuted by her religious lover when she asks him how he
can prove that god exists. He replies "Did you love your father?" She
replies "yes". He retorts "Prove it". At which she is speechless.
The import of this is, I gather, is that some things are intrinsically
un-provable. It is my view that she could have made a strong case for
her 'love' based on an appropriate definition of 'love', her own
observable behavior at the time and her own report of her subjective
state. Perhaps it would not amount to proof, but it certainly would
amount at least to a credible body of evidence for the proposition,
which is more than can be said for the theistic case.
Interesting that theists (so often) resort to this 'proof' of god (the
existence of love) and then (so often) deny their own proof by claiming
it be un-provable. I believe this is what is known technically as
'having your cake and eating it'. At bottom, though, this definition of
god is specious: one might as well say that god is a baby's smile, or
for that matter, a full bottle of whiskey and a starry night.
Fact is, everybody (well, mostly) dislikes the idea of dying and many
people leap at the chance, however slim, that it might not actually
happen to them like a trout leaps at a fly. With similar results.
Fond Regards
Blunderov
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