Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site opus.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!harpo!seismo!hao!cires!nbires!opus!rcd
From: rcd@opus.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.flame,net.religion
Subject: Re: evidence for the non-existence of God
Message-ID: <264@opus.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 30-Mar-84 00:29:36 EST
Article-I.D.: opus.264
Posted: Fri Mar 30 00:29:36 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 25-Mar-84 13:40:38 EST
References: <892@ssc-vax.UUCP>, <23@mako.UUCP> <606@pucc-h>
Organization: NBI, Boulder
Lines: 33

<>
Here we go round the logic tree...
> A lack of evidence..in favor of something is not positive evidence against it
But what ever happened to the null hypothesis and all that?  A lack of
evidence certainly isn't a counterargument...but without evidence why
should one believe something?  I cannot disprove an assertion that
leprechauns exist.  I don't need to, nor should I need to explain such
rational behavior, but...

> And, as so many opponents of Christianity do, you're imprisoning yourself by
> insisting that God be demonstrable solely to the rational mind;...
If the word "solely" were removed from this fragment, I think that you'd
have a good statement.  I'd like to insist that God be demonstrable EVEN to
the rational mind.  What the hell does "demonstrable" mean, anyway?  If you
discard the rational you can probably accept God on faith and bag the
"demonstrable" part altogether.

> ...God, who...deals with the whole person, not just the rational mind...
Still dancing around the issue.  We nonbelievers can handle most of the
"whole person" but we'd really like to see God deal with the rational
mind.

>> What about all the people who believed in God and don't now, such as
>> myself, what convinced them?
>
> Presumably you never actually came to KNOW God...
A cheap attack...which begs the question anyway.  It's only a slight
restatement, and not a distortion, to phrase this argument as "if you once
believed in God but now don't, you probably never did."  In other words,
you don't really know about God unless you believe in God.  Not logical,
but it effectively shuts off further discussion.
-- 
{hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd