Re: Tom Kratman at Baen -- cringeworthy?

On Jan 7, 5:34�pm, David Johnston <da...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Mon, 7 Jan 2008 13:59:05 -0800 (PST), Herr Oberst <nrv...@xxxxxxx>
wrote:





On Jan 7, 4:49?pm, "David V. Loewe, Jr" <davelo...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 7 Jan 2008 14:16:38 -0500, wdst...@xxxxxxxxx (William December

Starr) wrote:
"David V. Loewe, Jr" <davelo...@xxxxxxxxxxx> said:
wdst...@xxxxxxxxx (William December Starr) wrote:

It seems pretty simple:

"Do you believe in the truth of professed facts regarding the
objective nature of reality, where no supporting objective
evidence exists? ?Yes/no?"

How about "Do you believe there is some explanation behind the
fact that virtually every physical constant or number is set up to
favor the formation of life?"

I think that there does, by definition, exist an explanation for
any event, even if it's merely "that's just the way it happened to
happen." ?The problem is when someone believes, without supporting,
objective, evidence, that a particular proposed explanation is correct..

That's why it's called faith.
--
"No rational argument will have a rational effect on a man who
?does not want to adopt a rational attitude."
? ? Sir Karl Popper- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

You know, I'm not all that religious (even though the current project
has religion at its core), but I keep running into this "absence of
evidence is evidence of absence" proposition. �On its face it simply
goes past logic. �That's half the problem. �The other half is that
there is no absence of "evidence;" there's lots of evidence. �What
there isn't is abolute _proof_, where evidence and proof are not quite
the same.

Well the evidence as far as I'm concerned, suggests that the universe
is a pretty damn hostile place to life for the most part. �- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Sure, that's some of the evidence. Though what is it evidence of?
Maybe God, if he exists, simply prefers tougher people, or recognizes
that life without struggle isn't worth living. Dunno; He doesn't
deign to speak to me personally.

On the other hand, I was listening to the Dsouza-Hitchens debate a few
weeks ago, and was particularly struck by some of Hitchens reasons for
disbelief, which set of them boiled down to "God, if he existed, was
an incompetent designer," "God, if he existed, would never permit
unhappinessg," "God, if he existed, would have been quicker about it,"
and "God, if he existed, would meet my high moral standards." I
thought about that for quite a bit, then realized that, to the extent
of those objections, Hitchens could only believe in a God that was a
combination of Himmler ("designing better human beings for the
future"), Stalin ("hero of the working masses"), a railroad or airline
scheduler, and, of course, himself.

I think there may be a name for the god in which Hitchens could
believe...
.

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