Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!bcm!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: salem@racquel.sri.com (Bruce B. Salem) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Why believe? Message-ID: Date: 7 Mar 91 08:53:08 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Lines: 56 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu lindborg@cs.washington.edu (Jeff Lindborg) writes: >In article gross@dg-rtp.dg.com (Gene Gross) writes: >>A while back somebody posted that she wondered why Christians could >>believe in such superstitious nonsense. >[several circular argument modles delted for brevity] >>In point of fact, the only person who can be an atheist is God Himself. >>To say dogmatically, "There is no God!" requires one to know all things, >>to be all places at the same time, and have all power. Thus, you would >>have to be omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent, i.e., God! Atheism >>is a theological absurdity. It is self-refuting. A cleaver argument, indeed! Only God can have Absolute Knowledge. >I must agree with you here. Athiests are every bit as dogmatic (and many >times much more annoying) than fundamentalists. Which is, of course, why >I'm an agnostic. The Atheist says that he KNOWS God doesn't exist. In arguing with Theists an Atheist is falling into the same trap of having Absolute Knowledge as some Theists. [My use of caps is intentional.] The Agnostic says that he doesn't know if God exists. He can behave either as if God does or does not exist. I have heard that there is an additional school of thought which holds that the question "Does God Exist?" not only can't be answered, it is meaningless. I lean toward this opinion. I have heard that there is a recognized term for this view. Does anyone know what it is, and please no flippant response? >>As for Christianity being a crutch, Christianity is shown to be true >>because it does meet all the needs of man. > How does Christianity "meet the needs" of man any better than, say, >Buddhism? Or Islam or Judaism? Or any other realigion or system of >beliefs (ie New Age)? It would seem to me that some other religions or >systems of belief are equaly as effective at "meeting the needs" of >men (or women), if not better, than Christianity. On what do you base >idea that Christianity meets these needs? Because it has worked for >you? Fine! But it falls should for many other people (ie those of us >with skeptical minds...). This may relate to the opinion that the question of God's existance is meaningless. Where in the scheme of things does an ad hoc justification of any religion such as "meets the needs of man" fit in? If the justification for religion or God hinges on some self-referential state in people, then can it be distinguished from any other idle thought, fantesy, dream, myth, or prejudice of Man? It seems to me that nay self-respecting Theist would have to do better than the above as a justification for God or religion. Bruce Salem