rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) (10/26/84)
> Am I to understand that Rich believes that even asking for a test of > God's existence and power presupposes His existence? What utter rubbish! Yeah!! Just like asking for a test of Ubizmo's power doesn't presuppose Ubizmo's existence!! What utter rubbish!! (MORAL: asking for a test of god's existence doesn't presuppose its existence, as long as you've already taken for granted [presupposed] the "fact" of its existence.) > How can you ever prove something doesn't exist, except to first assume > that it does, and show that this causes some problem? Unfortunately, what you seem to have done is to "first assume that it does [exist]", and since that doesn't "cause some problem" (for you), you accept that as proof of existence. Which is what I've been saying all along. Perhaps one of the reasons that it doesn't "cause some problem" is because you haven't chosen to examine potential problems (logical flaws) that carefully. And perhaps THAT is because you wish to see ONLY certain solutions to these problems. (These are "perhaps"es. If there's another explanation for why it doesn't "cause some problem", please convey it if you will. From reading the Nichols Papers alone, I have found so many contradictions and holes that I can't see how it WOULDN'T cause a LOT of problems.) > You certainly can't come to any valid conclusion by assuming that something > doesn't exist, and then concluding that any test of its existence would be > worthless. One can assume that something doesn't exist in the absence of evidence of its existence for the following reasons. If there is no evidence of its existence, there is thus no effect on the world resulting from the supposedly existing object. In that case, 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. If evidence is shown proving the existence of unicorns or mermaids, then that would change one's opinion on their existence. It just so happens that the "tests" of god's existence are, as you say, quite worthless. There are less presumptive scenarios (ones that don't assume the outcome in favor of existence) than the explanations offered. > Isn't the commonest way to find out if someone is in a room to call out > to them? If they answer, then.... If not, well, PERHAPS they aren't > there. Perhaps. To use a crude joke for purposes of analogy here: If I ask you to check to see if Dick Hertz is in a room, and you call out "Who's Dick Hertz?" and twenty people respond "Mine does", does that imply that Dick Hertz was in the room? If you expect a certain answer, if you assume that any voice telling you that it is coming from god (or Dick Hertz :-) is actually what it claims to be (or what you *perceived* it to be claiming to be)... well, we're back to square one. -- "If we took the bones out, it wouldn't be crunchy!" Rich Rosen pyuxd!rlr