garys@bunker.UUCP (Gary M. Samuelson) (10/31/84)
This is in response to Rich Rosen. I'll start by admitting that I'm not going to respond to most of his points, and save him the trouble of saying so in his next article. I'm not going to respond to many of his points because they have been repeated so often. > What I said was that those who say > they won't believe unless a suitable (to them) laboratory experiment > was devised were going to be disappointed (on second thought, they > probably would be more disappointed if such an experiment could be > devised). [SAMUELSON] > The final presumptive parenthetical remark notwithstanding, [ROSEN] What's presumptive about it? Since you have stated many times that belief in God is based on wishful thinking, I think it safe to conclude that you do not wish to believe in God. Therefore, anything that might convince you that God exists would come as a disappointment, in that you would be led to do something you do not wish to do. If you like, I'll even admit that I can't prove, on purely rational grounds, that God exists. I can't even prove, on purely rational grounds, that I exist, or that you do. So why am I wasting my time arguing with you, when I have no reason to believe that either of us is real? And you can't have my time machine. You cannot know that I am the one suffering from indoctrination. You cannot know that you are not suffering from indoctrination. Quoting arbitrarily from some of your other recent article: > "What he thinks he believes is simply based on incorrect > assumptions and faulty reasoning, whereas what *I* believe > is really true." Sounds awfully familiar. Does this apply to everyone but yourself? > I'm getting sick of having my ideas labelled with newly > invented or re-used "-isms". Me, too. I seem to remember being called "religionist" and "fascist" and several other less-than-appealing things by someone claiming to be Rich Rosen ("mindless" is another epithet this illusion seems to remember being called; it's not an "-ism," but it certainly isn't a compliment). > would an all-powerful and hopefully benevolent god let Ken > suffer in his delusions? If such a god also thought that free will was important, he might. > why would an entity that sees all space and time at once be > interested in or even be aware of some insignificant beings > on an obscure planet? Obviously, if the entity sees all space and time, it would be aware of them. And if the entity had created all of them (as well as the rest of space and time), that would seem to be reason enough to be interested. Such an entity would not have to limit its interests the way we must, since it sees all space and time, so it could be interested in everything at once. And I see no relation between the physical location or size of an object and its value. > Even asking for a test of God's existence and power presupposes > His existence. [indirect quote -- I'm not sure the article with > Rich's own words got here. I'm pretty confident it is not a > misquote. -- GMS] I don't understand. Does this apply to other existence-tests, also? When physicists first decided to test for (your favorite subatomic particle), did they presuppose it existed, or did they think that it might, and wanted to find out if it did? Does this mean that when you ask for hard evidence for belief in God, that you are also presupposing his existence? > Assuming that something doesn't exist in the absence of evidence > (say, unicorns or mermaids) is equivalent to having an open mind > about unicorns and mermaids. Having an open mind about unicorns or mermaids would require not assuming either that they don't exist or that they do. Assuming that they don't seems pretty closed minded to me. And, since any test for their existence would, according to your view, pre- suppose their existence, you could never accept any evidence that they do. Gary Samuelson bunker!garys