Re: The Case for a Designer

Vend wrote:

On 19 Mar, 14:18, John Harshman <jharshman.diespam...@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

I'll challenge him. Arguments of this sort have always struck me as
silly. For one thing, it means that Moses, the apostles, and all those
people who witnessed divine miracles regularly, and so had objective
evidence of god (or even talked to him, not inside their heads but
physically) could have had no faith or belief. Apparently it's only
recently that faith without evidence became important to god.


It's the "Doubting Thomas" kind of argument: "Jesus saith unto him,
Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are
they that have not seen, and yet have believed."

It always stuck me as a contraddictory part: Thomas becomes a Saint
despite (or thanks to) his increduly, yet we are told of the great
value of faith without evidence.


It goes beyond just being valuable. The idea is that evidence destroys
faith, or makes faith impossible, and that's why there is no concrete
evidence of God working in the world. What's odd is that this rule
didn't apply in the biblical past, and nobody who makes this argument
seems to notice.

.

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