(July 3, 2012 at 1:55 pm)Thor Wrote:(July 3, 2012 at 12:46 pm)Jeffonthenet Wrote: It suggests that when we consider God and when we consider goblins we find ourselves in a very different epistemic situation.
Not really. Both are beings of the supernatural and neither can be proven to exist.
Granted that they have similarities. They also have significant differences such that brilliant people believe the former and no intelligent people believe the latter.
Thor Wrote:Jeffonthenet Wrote:There are things, such as I mentioned, that suggest that God cannot be written off simply apriori as if it was self-evidently a children's fable.
You ever read some of the stories in the Babble? Noah's Ark, the Garden of Eden, Samson and Delilah, Jonah and the Whale.... the thing has stuff in it that belongs in a Hans Christian Andersen book.
That would, at most, be something against Christianity, and not God. Or could perhaps be against the belief that the bible is without error, and not against Jesus. I consider it possible that God used stories with some elements of fiction to teach us important things. Why would ever let such a situation come to pass? I wrote about it here,
http://sententias.org/2012/01/04/evoluti...ar-violin/
Quote:Quote: Darwin didn't believe in children's fables and neither did Einstein.
I would agree. So.....?
The both believed in God. Again it suggests that God is not the same as these fables.
Quote:Quote:In fact, I can reason as follows,
1. Darwin and Einstein would not seriously believe a children's fable is true
2. Darwin and Einstein seriously believed God existed
3. Therefore God is not a children's fable
Even if this path of logic holds water (it doesn't) all it proves is that "God" is not a children's fairy tale. It does nothing to prove that "God" is in any way real. Just like Roman mythology is not a children's fable, but it doesn't prove that Apollo is real.
People keep saying God is just like a children's fable and this is the reason they believe he doesn't exist without evidence or argument. However, I think I could make the same argument about roman mythology today.