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From: tim@cmu-cs-k.ARPA (Tim Maroney)
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian
Subject: re: The true God lives in the real world
Message-ID: <515@cmu-cs-k.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 28-Aug-85 20:35:19 EDT
Article-I.D.: cmu-cs-k.515
Posted: Wed Aug 28 20:35:19 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 31-Aug-85 07:32:13 EDT
References: <314@pyuxn.UUCP>
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, Networking
Lines: 23

Without commenting on the merit or lack thereof of Paul Zimmerman's belief
system, I would like to point out that he is misrepresenting my position in
the essay "Even If I Did Believe".  I did not therein conclude that the God
described does not exist, and I do not know where Mr. Zimmerman got the idea
that I had.  The thesis of the essay was that =if= the God described by
fundamentalists exists, it would not be deserving of worship.  The essay did
not deal at all with the issue of existence or non-existence of this God,
only with the appropriateness of worshipping such an entity.

In fact, I do not believe in such a being, because a simple application of
skeptical thought to the issue makes it clear that such an extraordinary
claim as the existence of an omnipotent, sentient, universe-creating entity
requires extraordinary proof.  But this was not touched upon in "Even If I
Did Believe", in which the question was explicitly left open.

I'd also like to add that the willingness of many posters to believe what
they want to believe regardless of evidence and experience is amazing.  I am
referring not to Paul, but to such loony tunes as Arndt and Dyer.  Wishful
thinking reigns, and these people seem to think it is some kind of virtue.
-=-
Tim Maroney, Carnegie-Mellon University, Networking
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