Philosoft

> wrap towel around my head

Danya

You are kidding right? I know this because I have given birth. Therefore, I am female. I have the children to prove it. If that were in doubt DNA testing can be used to convince others of this fact. I still hope you were kidding.

99Percent

Not Prince Hamlet: Most atheists will never claim that there is no god, only that such a god is extremely unlikely, and no more likely than a huge number of other equally improbable explanations.

When you deal with the logical impossibles you can certainly claim improbable explanations. For example you can claim that a circle cannot be squared. You can claim that 2+2 does not equal 5. You can claim that there cannot be an "afterlife" because life by itself means there has to be death. That is why I can claim that God cannot exist by its definition alone: omnibenevolent, omnipotent, omnipresent, omnivorous (oops, not )- I mean, omniscient, omniwhatever, these omni-etcs are just illogically contradictory so you can discard the existence of God by defintion alone.

Not Prince Hamlet

No, I am not kidding. How do you know that you have given birth? How do you know that you have children?

You have memories, yes, but how do you know they're not fake ones?

Perhaps, you never existed until just a nanosecond ago, but when you sprung into being you had full memories of a past you never had.

Perhaps you're tied up in a mental asylum right now, and only think you're here typing away.

Implausible, perhaps. But impossible? Totally impossible?

Solipsism is a frustrating way to look at things, but it's a valid approach. And since it can not be disproved (except in one bizarre way), nobody can "know" anything, only have high likelihood, which is not the same thing.

Jeff

Not Prince Hamlet

99,

I'm not so sure that a god can be disproven by definition alone. I agree that it's possible to show inconsistancies in definitions of a God's powers (for instance, omniscience + free will) but just because the definition of a god is flawed does not, in itself, prove that no god can exist.

Jeff

99Percent

Well, what defintion of "god" can be logically and reasonably be possible? God, by whatever definition you can derive, is logically imposible because God means by itself means going against logic, nature or empirical experience.

[ March 22, 2002: Message edited by: 99Percent ]</p>

Not Prince Hamlet

99,

Well, obviously I think a god is hooey for many of the same reasons that you do, but if a god did exist, he would trancend all those natural laws by definition.

Jeff

Samhain

Jeff,

Just curious, but if this god did exist, and transcended all nature, it would therefore mean that we could not possibly understand or comprehend it since we are bound by nature and have been taught that everything (even if we have not found it yet) has some kind of logical and natural explanation. I know you're not a theist, but what is the point of worship of something which you cannot possibly even comprehend, let alone have some kind of intimate creator/created relationship with?

Not Prince Hamlet

Samhain,

To play Devil's Advocate, just because we do not understand a god doesn't mean we can not understand a god.

It is conceivable (though not likely) that a god exists, and that his nature is consistent with causality, but at a level not currently understood by men: in much the same way that Relativity and Quantum Mechanics were not understood by Newton.

Again, I find it bloody unlikely, but to consider oneself rational, one must consider all possibilties.

Jeff

99Percent

Not Prince Hamlet, can't you see that once you understand a god, it ceased to be one, since it can be naturalistically explained.

[ March 23, 2002: Message edited by: 99Percent ]</p>