(June 18, 2011 at 6:10 am)diffidus Wrote: Imagine a close friend returned from a journey and told you that he had seen a strange new land that does not appear on any map or in any book. You eventually try to find the land but it cannot be found. Does that mean it does not exist? Surely you are left in a suspended state. It is not a state of having faith or having no faith, it is simply a state of 'parking the idea'. Maybe my friend was delusional, maybe there really is such a land, I really don't know.
Which is why you ask that friend details about the land and if it is completely implausible you can dismiss it wholeheartedly.
Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own - Bertrand Russell
