A Usenet persona calling itself Michael Daly wrote:

On 20-Feb-2005, Scott Weiser wrote:

You appear to be saying that God does not exist and that belief in God is
proof of a lack of intelligence. Since you've just admitted that science
cannot disprove the existence of God, that would appear to impeach your
intellectual credibility somewhat.

Please quote where I have said anything of the kind. I have _never_ said
that God does not exist. I have never said that belief in God is a sign
of a lack of intelligence.

"Just because a bunch of fundies pull some numbers out of their
asses and make claims, doesn't prove anything."

Sounds pretty derisory to me.

I said that we can neither prove, nor disprove, the existance of God and
that people who can't cope with that are fools.

Well, since that's an incorrect statement, they are not the fools.

There are two failures in your thesis:

1. That we have not yet proven the existence of God does not mean that we
cannot do so.

2. Proof of the existence of God requires, first, a definition of what "God"
is. For example, if one defines "God" as the physical universe, then we can
indeed prove the existence of "God" because the universe exists.

Many major religions have
no problems with this view of God - the Roman Catholic Church, the
Anglican Church and many others state clearly that belief in God is an
act of faith.

The fact that such belief is an act of faith does not mean that either
church does not believe that God does, in fact, exist. It's merely
recognition of the difficulties in proving God's existence. If you ask those
who have experienced "miracles," they will tell you that there is no belief
involved, but that their experiences prove without any doubt that God does
exist.

The incidence of "miracles" that science cannot explain is not trivial.

They also can deal with scientific enquiry that neither
requires nor forces the existance of God.

Well, not quite. Some Catholics (of personal acquaintance) deal just fine
with the conundrum because they understand the limitations of human
intellect and "scientific" enquiry.


--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser