RE: Atheism, Evidence and the God-of-the-Gaps
June 14, 2015 at 12:23 am
(This post was last modified: June 14, 2015 at 1:08 am by JuliaL.)
(June 13, 2015 at 7:31 pm)Randy Carson Wrote:Quote:Suppose...that on next Tuesday morning, just after breakfast, all of us in this one world are knocked to our knees by a percussive and ear-shattering thunderclap...the heavens open—the clouds pull apart—revealing an unbelievably immense and Zeus-like figure, towering above us like a hundred Everests. He frowns darkly as lightning plays across the features of his Michaelangeloid face. He then points down—at me!—and exclaims, for every man, woman and child to hear "I have had quite enough of your too-clever logic-chopping and word-watching in matters of theology. Be assured, N.R. Hanson, that I do most certainly exist. (N.R. Hanson. What I Do Not Believe and Other Essays. Springer, 1971)
If God did this, then surely we would know he existed, right? Well, why wouldn’t this kind of evidence also be subject to the “God-of-the-gaps” objection? Just because we don’t know how a giant man can appear in the sky doesn’t mean there is no natural explanation for him. Maybe aliens or time-travelers are at work, deceiving us?
Agreed, without godlike powers you can't know absolutely that the evidence for a god is not false or contrived.
So, barring having those, you are correct in your contention that no evidence is absolute proof.
Unless a deity gives such powers, we poor mortals must apportion our belief to the evidence knowing that that knowledge will never be without some doubt.
And the evidence for the Christian god is so meager.
It is indistinguishable from tales told to illiterate goatherds by slightly more clever clerics which provided the clerics with a livelihood without actually having to work for it. Or to make sufficient distinctions requires Olympic class mental gymnastics.
Religion is just the worlds oldest scam.
It is slightly newer than the world's oldest profession which is a little newer than the world's oldest lie,"Of course I'll respect you in the morning."
So how, exactly, does God know that She's NOT a brain in a vat?