Subject:
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Re: Libertarian debate in danger of pollution (was Re: Will Libertopia cause the needy to get less?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 30 Nov 2000 18:03:43 GMT
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Viewed:
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1342 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Tim Courtney writes:
> And if I can go so far, I would say that if something
> cannot be proven naturally
Er, I think you mean "cannot be EXPLAINED naturally". Proven naturally has
no meaning.
And I'd add "and there is no hope of ever doing so" here, else you're toast.
> and yet
Add "verifiable" here, twice, else you're toast.
> historical accounts and archeological
> evidence can back it up, than it should be attributed to something >supernatural.
Because without the first addon, there are a lot of things that were
"supernatural" which no longer are. To pick an old example: Thunder. To pick
a recent example: particle pairs appearing "spontaneously" outside the
schwartzschild radius of a black hole, which appear to violate conservation
of matter/energy.
And without the second addons, you've got proof of nothing except good
storytelling.
With those adds and caveats you're right, I suppose. Fortunately for the
agnostic crowd, no such unexplainable thing has yet been brought forth.
Certainly not any of the biblical "miracles". (1)
This is one of the central tenets of the agnostic/atheist thesis: Adding god
doesn't explain anything additional, hence the system doesn't *require* the
existence of god, although it certainly doesn't preclude it.
Remember the test of a good theory: It has to explain things.
As I've said before, I'm willing to admit the possible existence of a god
that has no tangible effect on the observable universe and cannot be proven
or disproven to exist. (this god either permeates our universal structure,
or exists in another set of dimensions or parallel universe, your choice)
But for a god to be of any significance (other than as an internal comfort
to those who *must* have some higher power to believe in, and that ain't me)
that god must be able to have tangible effect on something. And *that*, no
religion has ever been able to prove.
1 - reminder: don't fall into the trap of asserting "it's a miracle because
Jesus said it was" as proof of miraculousness and don't fall into the trap
of asserting that "you can't explain the creation of the entire universe" or
"you can't explain how a cell works" as proof of god's mysterious and
ineffable ways.
++Lar
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