(October 2, 2013 at 10:16 am)Doubting Thomas Wrote: Exactly. Once in an internet chat room someone came in purporting to be a young female TV/movie star. Needless to say I was pretty skeptical, as were most people in the chat room. Could it have been her? Possibly. Should I have believed it just because that person said so? I wasn't born yesterday. Could I prove it one way or another? No.
But according to Vinny's logic my skepticism was irrational because I couldn't prove that she wasn't who she said she was. According to Vinny, it's only logical to be totally naive and believe everything and skepticism is illogical.
So why doesn't Vinny believe in every other god out there that has ever been worshiped throughout history? He can't prove that they don't or never existed, so his disbelief is totally irrational according to his own flawed logic.
D'oh. Way to completely misunderstand everything that was being said.
Using your own example, the atheist position would look like "Well, I don't see enough proof that you're a movie star. Therefore you're not a movie star."
Everyone in the chat room would call that atheist an idiot. A total lack of evidence is not a total lack of a movie star. There's nothing stopping Summer Glau (whatever happened to her?) from logging into a chat room (although would you really want to?) and declining every sleazebag's attempt at proving who she was.
The sensible position is really agnosticism.
