NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/alt/atheism/27176

Internet Message Format | 1993-01-28 | 8.3 KB

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From: [e-mail]1 (Daniel Norman Johnson)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Deliberate Ignorance
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 27 Jan 93 01:51:00 GMT
References: <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]1
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Lines: 219
Nntp-Posting-Host: vccnw07.its.rpi.edu

In article [e-mail], [e-mail] (Bill Conner) writes:
>
>   Religion is simply the answer to question we don't understand.

It isn't clear who "we" are. Humans? Atheists? Theists? Fanged
Killer Kumquats? The Spam Eaters Consortium?

> If
>we reply correctly, we'd never know.

That does seem to follow from not understanding the question.

I dont quite see how you can say that religion is an answer to this
odd obscure question tho.

> Why would someone attempt to call
>himself reasonable whiie simultaneously proclaiming any certain
>evidence of for or against the existence of God;

Oh, I dunno, because he is trying to enguage in reason?

> one of the claims is necessarily false.

This is untrue sir, unless you assume that it is not possible
to prove whether God exists. Not all people assume this. In any
case, it depends on what "God" means. See below about that.

> A theist (let's say a Christian) believes himself
>to be possession of the "Truth", which to him means the reality of
>God, the atheist (or agnostic without the courage of his convictions)
>will claim there is no God. There is no way to settle this question.

You'll probably get flamed over the "claim there is no God" bit;
I suggest you read the FAQ to find out why. But I'll let it pass as
it seems irrelevant. (I am wonder what you think an agnostic is
however, if you think it is compatible with agnosticism to flatly
claim there Is No God)

I dispute that there is no way to settle this question. There are lots
of ways to settle it- once you DEFINE it. If God is a can of spam
sitting on my roomies closet-thing, then God does in deed exist.
(well, actually, three of them do. Don't ask.) Empirical evidence. You
can test for spamlyness. (eat them. If you can't, its spam! :) )

On the other hand, if God is a being that is Omnibenevolent, Omnipotent,
Omniscient, and did all that stuff the Bible sez he did, then he doesn't
exist. That's logic (proof by contradiction that is- some of the stuff
in the bible isn't very nice.)

If God should come down in a Second Coming type thing and explain real
well why he is late that would be pretty good proof that he exists too.
But it's not nearly as much fun to reason about as Spam.

>   Any resort to "reason" assumes first that your reasoning is going to
>be acceptable to the other person, which means either that your logic
>is perfect or that you're very persuasive, but your argument must also
>use the terms that the other person can accept.

Nope. Reason works even if nobody believes you. And can fail even if
EVERYONE does. Its independant of that.

If you mean PERSUADING someone with reason, yerright. But that's not what
you said.

>   The atheist will say, "You can't prove a negative",

Theists usually say this too. :/ Give 'em credit, willya? :)

> yet act and
>debate -as if- the negative, "God does not exist" had been proven.

Absolutely. We refuse to behave as if it God existed without proof,
because this seems unreasonable to us. Acting "as if God might or might
not exist" is tough.. what does it mean if not one of the first two?

> The
>Christian will say that God does exist and yet act as if He doesn't.

Oh?

They thing THEIR God exists and behaves as if HE did, but that may
not co-incide with YOUR God, or anything like that. Maybe their
God isn't very demanding. Maybe they don't care to acquise to their
Gods demands.

>In each case, there are inherent contradictions; both positions are
>compromised.

Nope. Neither has the contradictions your propose. (rather wild accusations
anyway.)

>    The tactic of quoting the Bible out of context is a favorite
>fallacy of both the atheist and the believer,

Calm down and stop accusing. I'm an atheist and I never quote the bible
(ok, 'cept the Let There Be Light part- but that was just to prove
that Gods can generally speak). Don't make these rash generalizations!

> and serves only to make
>the whole debate ridiculous.

It already is, hadn't you noticed? :)

> The atheist invents all manner of wildly
>inaccurate appeals to history to "prove" that the God of the
>Christians cannot possibly exist, or if He does, He's nothing like the
>God the Christians worship.

Substatiante that all atheists do this. Or even that a majority do.
Or that even ONE on alt.atheism does so intentionally.

Or apologize for this.

We don't need to resort to invented history.

> This is pure hyperbole and contributes
>nothing.

It would have been a LIE. This is what you accuse us of!
Pretty words do not change that!

> The Christian for his part, makes appeals to all manner of
>supernatural enities whose existence cannot be proved by any means an
>atheist can accept.

That's true, *some* of them do, but not all. The debate is partly
about whether they exist, ya know.

>   Each is speaking a different language.

Parle vous frances? :)

> The atheist demands evidence
>and yet rejects everything offered as evidence, a priori;

This is *just not true*. If it is true, demonstrate that it is!
Show me a post! Then show me that you can make this broad statement
about all atheists based on that! Or else apologize AGAIN.

> there is
>just no -admissible- evidence.

We don't know that until we have looked at it. We don't dismiss
evidence a priori.

> The Christian claims that God can only
>be known internally, through faith,

Untrue, plenty of Christians try to use logic to prove it.
(Ontological Arument), or evidence (Argument from Design).

You're simply wrong here.

>a concept no atheist can
>comprehend.

Untrue, this one does.

I even think its TRUE. I at least know of no other way!

I just don't think its VALID. It leads to false conclusions sometimes.

> An atheist and a Christian have no common ground for
>debate, anything either says will sound ludicrous to the other.

Perhaps so. But you have not demonstrated it.

Sure doesn't LOOK true.

>   What is especially absurd about all this is that each attacks the
>other without ceasing, what after all is the purpose of this
>news-group?

It has many purposes.

One is to let atheists and theists go at it.

Who are you to say we should not? If you don't like it,
there's always alt.atheism.moderated. (very relaxing it is, too!)

> That reason is not important to either side is obvious
>from the simple fact that the debate continues.

Not so. See talk.origins for an existance proof of the proposition
that "a debate can continue indefinitely even if at least one
side considers reason important." See alt.atheism for annother
(I'd even say that on a.a at least segments of BOTH sides feel
reason is important. I'd not say so much for t.o tho.)

> You think you've
>really got it all together, you use multi-syllable words, quote
>obscure sources, try so hard to appear logical, yet the very exitence
>of this group defeats everything you hope to accomkplish.
>

You know, I'm not usually one to accuse others of arrogance. That's
just because I'm rather arrogant at times also (to put it charitably).

But you really take the cake Bill. I've never seen anything so absurd.
You insult both sides of the debate, tell us we are being unreasonable,
faking logic, obfuscating the issues and pretend to know what we
hope to accomplish. You offer no evidence of your
incredible generalizations, you've obviously never read EITHER
the FAQ (you don't know what an atheist or an agnostic is) or this
group (you think all Christians believe that it is impossible to prove
the existance of God). It just defies belief.

I was going to call you arrogant at the end of that paragraph. But
it doesn't fit. It's not enough. I think I'll wait 'till I have a more...
suitable word. If there is one. Wish me luck. :)

So instead, I'll just ask what you think we all hope to accomplish here,
and how the group manages to defeat it?
---
            - Dan Johnson
And God said "Jeeze, this is dull"... and it *WAS* dull. Genesis 0:0

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