(June 12, 2015 at 3:49 pm)abaris Wrote:(June 12, 2015 at 2:54 pm)Randy Carson Wrote: As for Abaris, well, yes...if a tu quoque CAN be employed, then there is no special pleading. And yes, there is science-of-the-gaps reasoning because all the atheist has to do is to say, "Well, if we wait a thousand years or so, I'm sure science will have found the answer."
No, science doesn't fill gaps. If they don't know, they don't know.
But, lover of analogies, you're taking the caveman approach as I pointed out. Something is beyond your understanding or simply unknown, it has to be god. But not just any god. It has to be the god you came to believe in. There are billions of people around the world doing the same. Just with one crucial exemption - it's a different god for them.
What defines me is the absence of faith. Science may or may not find the answers. I won't be around to check on them anyway. Because of genuine curiosity I do hope they find some additional big ones while I'm still alive, but my life won't be any poorer if they don't. Natural science, cosmology and astronomy aren't my fields anyway. My field is history, as I mentioned before. I freely admit to be a mathematical idiot. But knowing the methodology and checks applied I put more stock in scientific answers than I do in fiat claims.
Noted. Thanks.
