(June 12, 2015 at 10:33 am)Randy Carson Wrote: For example, if one of your best friends told you about an online game that he discovered, would you check it out?
If 2.2 billion people downloaded a new app onto their smartphones, would you check it out?
If xx billion people believe that a god exists, would you check it out?
The third example is very different from the first two. My friend would explain how to find and try the game. My smartphone would allow me to locate and try the application. But how do I check out the claim regarding god? Those 2.2 billion people may have thousands --or possibly millions-- of different suggestions for how to do so, none of which would actually get me to a god that exists. And some of those suggestions would be in direct contrast to other suggestions, even among the people whose beliefs overlap in some areas. Why would I accept the general claim regarding the resurrection of Jesus, when those billions of believers can't even come to an agreement as to who or what he is?
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould