RE: 3 Questions For Believers (A work in progress.)
June 29, 2014 at 10:20 pm
(This post was last modified: June 29, 2014 at 10:20 pm by Lek.)
(June 29, 2014 at 8:55 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Now, with the analogy about power sources - what does your new understanding have to say about any of those experiences you had in the past? Nothing. You now know that there are electric cars, but that doesn't mean that you saw one as a kid, and it certainly doesn't even increase the possibility of any of those cars having been electric cars. If you walked through the countryside circa 1920 - considering just how many of those cars might be electric- I;d call you a loon..and I;d be right. I don't think you would though, because again you are making a special pleading argument. I doubt that a special pleading argument can convince you of anything.
I might have seen an electric car in the past before I knew there were electric cars and thought it was gasoline powered. Later when I learned there were electric cars, I might have thought "that car was really quiet and there was no exhaust. It must have been an electric car." I made my latest decision based on new found information.
(June 29, 2014 at 8:55 pm)Rhythm Wrote: In this response Itrrational you made allusions between faith and science. I have to point out that "taking a leap of faith" is in no way interchangeable with "starting with a fact"
This invalidates the rest of that response by itself. I understand that you may feel that the two are somehow similar, I would love to hear about why you think that - but again, right from the outset, I can't call that anything but dead wrong from the ground floor to the penthouse.
We're not on common ground here because we're defining things differently. To me God is a fact and to you he's not. I guess the only way we could arrive at a conclusion that we both accept is for you to experience God or for me to drop my belief in him.
(June 29, 2014 at 8:55 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Here, let me try:
There is no god, I don't have to prove it or give any evidence, because in this special case none of the normal rules apply. I know this because I started believing it was true, and then realized that it was true, ad infinitum.
Do you concede?
If I thought you were sincere in what you believed, though it wasn't a proven fact, and I saw that your life was effected in a good way by that belief, I might consider investigating the validity of what you are saying. Another thing I wanted to throw in, but I forgot where I wanted to put it - have you ever made a decision based on an unproven fact, but you acted on that decision because you felt sure that it was true?
