From: drake+@cs.cmu.edu (Drake)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Epistomological Discontinuity
Date: 31 Dec 92 08:42:30 GMT
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon

>God can't be seen, you can't point to something concrete and say 
>"this is God"; by nature he transcends nature and the realm of things 
>which are "proveable". In a sense, belief in God is similar to belief in
>evolution (although on a much higher level): you don't have "proofs"; you
>have *evidence*.

No, not even that.  You have *events* which you can then interpret as being
evidence for God.  You also have started out with an unspoken definition
of what God is - he can't be seen, he transcends nature, he isn't
proveable.

>	Children have no problem believing in God, providing they are
>presented with his existence at a young age by those they trust. If
>raised with this belief, they will often have little problem supporting
>their faith as adults, unlike a myth such as Santa Claus. 

Children have no problem believing in Krishna, providing they are
presented with his existence at a young age by those they trust.  If
raised with this belief, they will often have little problem supporting
their faith as adults, unlike a myth such as Santa Claus.

You can put anything in place of God/Krishna.  It still works.  Are we
to decide what the believe on the gullibility of our most immature
citizens?

>	The believer takes a *natural* law seriously: matter if left
>to itself tends to go from order to chaos (as do people, by the way!).

You understand, of course, that the things science calls "laws" are
really nothing but collections of good recipies?  "SO FAR," they say,
"we have observed nothing but order going toward chaos.  We only
ASSUME that it has always worked this way and will always work this
way; we can't prove it, though.  We only report what we observe."

>	The jew and the christian go much farther in their belief (assuming
>that they accept the biblical records as historically reliable): they
>believe that throughout history God has *acted* and revealed himself in
>the affairs of men, providing proof of his existence and power.

So you are prepard to grant that the argument from design is of no
value in proving that the Christian God is *the* God?

Further, what evidence do you have that the being who made the universe
(if there was one) is the God who "has *acted* and revealed himself in
the affairs of men, providing proof or his existence and power?"  They
could be two entirely separate beings.  The one that made this place
could be dead, murdered by the Christian God who is now claiming
credit for what is not rightfully his?

>life. You may freely doubt the veracity of these accounts, but I have
>never seen any account from a witness of Jesus' life dispute these
>claims--not even Jesus' Jewish contemporaries! 

The claims of supernatural events?  No.  The claims of virgin birth,
crucifixion, resurrection and divinity?  Most definitely.

>polycultural society: we are neither a christian country (I'm sure
>many believers will disagree, but the founding fathers were by no
>means homogenous in their religion) nor an atheistic country. Unspeak-

Probably one of the first times I've actually heard a Christian
admit to this.  From most of the televangelists, you'd think that
every one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence was
a fundamentalist pre-tribulation dispensationalist Baptist! <g>




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