From: Mathemagician <bevans%carina.unm.edu@lynx.unm.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.atheism.moderated
Subject: Re: Non-New Testament Documentation
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 92 09:20:01 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: Society for the Preservation of E. coli

In article <1992Aug24.173532.12462@Princeton.EDU> John Daly <daly@strawber.princeton.edu> writes:
>In article <1992Aug22.032817.2723@usenet.ins.cwru.edu>, Dan Diaz <bl275@cleveland.freenet.edu> writes:
>|> Who cares if Jesus
>|> healed people, brought them back from the dead, rose from
>|> the dead himself.  These events, even if accepted, do not
>|> point to supernatural supervision.  They could have occurred
>|> by natural processes beyond our/their understanding.

>How did Jesus do all those things if HE didn't understand the
>natural processes?  If He figured out the processes then why
>can't we?

Doing something is not proof that one knows how to do it.

Many idiot savants have no idea how it is that they are able to divide
huge numbers so quickly...they just do it.

Personally, I don't believe Jesus performed any of the "miracles"
attributed to him, but let us assume that he did.  That we haven't
been able to duplicate his feats isn't necessarily proof that they
cannot be done.  Why?  We have no idea what his methods were.  Many
things in science and mathematics have been "rediscovered" due to the
simple fact that the previous discoverer's methodology was lost.

And if we consider the possibility that Jesus, himself, didn't know
how he was doing what he was doing, we compound the problem.

>|> They could be made easy if your god would reveal
>|> himself and explain his plan to us as he supposedly did to
>|> Abraham, Moses,and others.  If we do not believe in god, it
>|> can only be his own fault.

>We never really know if our cars have airbags until we get into
>an accident.  Is it the car maker's fault if I'm afraid to drive
>because I don't REALLY believe that cars have airbags?  Is the
>automotive industry to blame if I'm killed in an accident where
>I was not wearing my seatbelt because I didn't believe that it
>REALLY worked?

I have quite a bit of tangible proof that there is an airbag in my
car.  How?  I actually looked my car over.  And if that still isn't
enough, I can go to a mechanic and watch him take apart my car's
airbag system in order to show me that it's there.

It's quite possible that I have three kidneys...just like my mother
had.  However, I'll never know for sure until I go looking.  But, that
isn't such a difficult thing to do.  An X-ray will easily show me
whether or not I have three, two, four, one, or however many I have.

With god, however, I can't do that.  According to many definitions of
god, I am incapable of having a direct manifestation of the deity in
my presence.  I don't have the equivalent of a mechanic to take apart
my car or a doctor perform an X-ray.

How am I to be expected to believe in something where a person looking
for tangible proof cannot find any?  I believe that there's an airbag
in my car, but I haven't seen it.  But, if I went looking for tangible
proof, I could get it.

There is a simple way for any god to prove to me that it exists:
manifest itself directly in my presence.

Is that really too much to ask?

-- 
Brian Evans                |     "Bad mood, bad mood...Sure I'm in a bad mood!
bevans@carina.unm.edu      |      I haven't had sex...*EVER!*" -- Virgin Mary