RE: Earth - Proof of God?
February 8, 2013 at 5:09 pm
(This post was last modified: February 8, 2013 at 5:10 pm by Cyberman.)
(February 8, 2013 at 4:52 pm)Drich Wrote: can you explain how you think this is a case of special pleading?
Certainly. In this case, you have urged anyone interested to follow the instructions you say are written in scripture to obtain enlightenment, or whatever phrase you want to plug in there. Doing so in the manner you say you have done will yield the stated results. CD and others have explained that they have done just as you say, not once and then giving up but persisting in it for many years, without any result. To them, this means there is nothing to find and nothing to ask, or at least that the prescribed method does not work. To you, it means that they did something wrong, though you base this conclusion on the lack of result rather than knowledge of what they actually did (since you could not possibly know). In other words, it looks like this:
D: Hey, try pressing this button; you get chocolate!
CD: [presses button] It doesn't seem to work.
D: Oh, it works alright. Try pressing harder!
CD: [presses harder] Nope.
D: Come on - you nearly had it!
[CD keeps pressing; nothing happens]
D: You've got to want it more than that! Maybe you just don't believe enough!
Ten years later...
D: ... Oh, come on, you're just not trying!
CD: This damn thing's got to be broken!
D: Well, it worked for me. Obviously you didn't want chocolate in the first place.
And so on. Special pleading. The button works every time, but only if your heart is pure, you really want it to work, you press it precisely as it wants to be pressed etc etc etc.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
