Now, I always thought of athiests as a pretty bright bunch, why does everybody insist on characterizing them as stubborn and slow. How many athiests need to be eaten before one decides, “Hey, what about that God guy, He seemed to be OK.”
…wait a minute, we are talking about a fictional beast and a fictional encounter right? Because if not, I’m awfully low on crosses over here.
Well, speaking as an atheist, given the state of the world, I really can’t imagine anything that would convince me that God is good. Given the implausibility of the concept, I can’t think of anything that would convince of God, either. I’d find it more believable that I was hallucinating, or had been kidnapped by aliens and wired into a VR experiment, or just about anything else.
I think an encounter with one supernatural creature does not indicate the presence of a supreme being. Our second atheist in this case would likely develop a sudden faith in wooden stakes which could possibly be just as bad from the vampire’s perspective.
By “faith” do you mean “belief in God” or “devotion to God”? I reject the notion that I must worship God in the first place, even if there were proof that He exists. If I am confronted by a vampire, have a cross, and believe in God, but choose not to worship Him, what good does a cross do me? Is my belief that crosses repel vampires “just 'cuz” (see my previous post in this thread) enough?
Huh? What does one have to do with the other?
You might as well ask: How many atheists need to be eaten before one decides, “You know, New Jersey isn’t really as bad as everyone says.”
I’m not understanding the connection you see between vampires and gods.
Maybe because they are both fictional?
I think the point is that suddenly be faced with proof that one exists tells you nothing about if the other exists.
Would finding proof of leprechauns make you believe in a god? Or would it make you believe in leprechauns?
Shure would open me up to the possibility. Throw in a little fear of death, and I’m a devoted Catholic. I’m not going to be vampire food thats for sure.
Does the effect of wooden stakes depend on faith in the usual vampire mythos, or is it simply the nature of the beast to be vulnerable to that particular attack? My impression is that it’s the latter.
Anyway, I agree with Der Trihs (clip & save, cause that’s a statement you won’t see every day). I’d think that it’s more likely that I’m having a stroke or in a coma than that what I’m seeing is actually real.
Shure :smack:
Sure
Thinking about this some more. Since vampires (specifically the ones where being an athiest makes a difference), are vulnerable to the cross and are burned by holy water, I would think that the existence of a vampire would be pretty direct proof of the existence of God.
Not necessarily. As several people have written, it could be a person’s faith that’s the true power. A person who really believed that the Flying Spaghetti Monster protected him would be safe, even if the FSM doesn’t exist.
WHAT? Infidel!
Well, I’m going to write my own vampire story and it’s going to prove you all wrong. So there!
Yeah? Well I’m going to write a cross-toting-atheist story to kill your vampire story! No tagbacks!
“Hmmm, we have a deadly and aggressive creature and I’ve found that it is scared/damaged by crosses with one arm longer than the others or water that I’m mumbled mumbo jumbo over, therefore, there is an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipowerful, omnnibenevolent creator of the universe.”
This is the sort of “logic” that makes the baby Og cry.
Heh; the gamer/comic/geek-universe webcomic FANS had a plotline going where a Mulder-type federal agent turns out to be a vampire; the lead geek tries to use a crucifix against him, and the vampire scoffs, using the faith-based argument. The hardcore Trekker then holds him off with the Vulcan hand sign (Aleph, to them as knows). It later turns out that the vampire was faking it, manipulating the kids into faking his death, but it was a pretty good moment.
My favorite vampire fiction tends to lend crosses no efficacy; either they’re good Catholics themselves, or just pretty decent, or they’re really frickin’ evil, with crosses and holy water being icons of mere wishful thinking on the part of tonight’s chef’s special.