Re: Is Everyone Here a Liberal Heathen?

Doink wrote:
How do you know "The existence of deities is unprovable"?

I'm not Pat, but I'll answer this.

The problem is that "the existence of a deity or deities" is not a
scientific proposition. It might sound like one, like "the existence of
a summer day" or "the existence of the Firth of Forth Bridge," but it
isn't, because it isn't ever stated what the criteria for establishing
the existence of a deity are.

For instance, suppose that a man comes into the room, and announces that
he's the Judeo-Christian god. Would that satisfy most people? Probably
not. What if he came in and performed some acts that would generally be
regarded as miraculous? Walked on water, changed a staff into a snake,
that sort of thing. That might convince people who already believed in
such a god, but I would hope it wouldn't convince non-believers.

OK, that's a little impersonal--what about personal matters? What if
this man then revealed his knowledge of events that you previously had
believed to be known only to you? The fact that you lost your favorite
marble in the second grade, even though you never told anyone this? Or
perhaps the man reads you mind when you think of a random number? Is
*that* evidence of a deity? Or just a very good mind-reading device?

In short, no one has ever set down criteria that, if satisfied, would
conclusively establish the existence of a god. It's not surprising that
few non-believers have tried, but I don't think that even most believers
have given it a serious attempt, for one very good reason: giving such
criteria would be admitting that their deity was non-transcendent and
finite, and this is something that most believers seem loath to do.

I'm not sure many believers have reasoned things out that far, though,
so they persist in attempting to prove the truth of their faith to
others. While I understand the impulse to do so, I don't think it's a
productive way to proceed in life.

--
Brian Tung <brian@xxxxxxx>
The Astronomy Corner at http://astro.isi.edu/
Unofficial C5+ Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/c5plus/
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My Own Personal FAQ (SAA) at http://astro.isi.edu/reference/faq.html
.

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