matt wrote:
What’s Sky?
Esprix
Polycarp, I like your style. However, I must note that if you posit that slythe is DavidB’s sock puppet, you bear the burden of proof. Making silly suppositions and requiring others to disprove them is hardly firm logical ground.
As to the meat of the above quote, I understand your point, but my problem is that religious folk (in my personal experience, they have all been Christians of some stripe BTW) try to prove their theology using my assumptions, or pretending to use my assumptions. I have plenty of friends and family members who have faith. We don’t have to discuss it. I approach the world as a skeptic, and include religion in my skeptical analysis. I don’t make an exemption for faith, I require proof. My religious friends/family have decided to embrace faith. There is no argument to be had here, as you seem to be pointing out. That’s fine.
But when certain religious folks find out I’m an atheist, they may assume that I am ignorant of their faith. Okay, once I tell you that I know enough of your beliefs to have examined and rejected them, please accept that we are on different philosophical turf and stop trying to convince me! Things like Pascal’s Wager and the Watchmaker argument are attempts to use “logic” and thereby somehow lasso me into the faith camp. Ain’t gonna happen! Just admit that one has to make a leap of faith to believe what you beieve, and leave it at that. Don’t even get me started on “creation science.”
So my plea to proselytizers is, once you have determined that I have knowledge of your faith and have decided to reject it, stop trying to use “logical” or (snigger) “scientific” arguments to make me embrace faith. Let’s agree to disagree and talk about something more interesting!
I’m not certain there is any particular call on me to prove any points as regards God’s existence. If He has a particular reason for wanting anyone to be convinced, He is quite capable of revealing Himself in a way that will convince him/her/them. I’m simply asking for a level playing field on that sort of debate, in much the same way that, on a largely liberal-oriented board, a conservative would expect not to be laughed out of court but have his political assertions taken as seriously as the evidence he could adduce in their support would justify.
As for another sidelight:
Just visualizing the two of them getting down to a dance remix of the old '60s “Spirit in the Sky”