Letters to the Editor
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Published Letters: 359 Editor's Choice: 44
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Evidence
[Read the article: The believer]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Your asking me to do your job.
No, I'm asking you to provide evidence for something you yourself asserted, namely that there (and I'm quoting you here) "has never been a time when god didn't exist in the mind of man." That's quite a claim. Do you have anything to back that up? And which god? Or are they all the same? Is Isis the same as Ganesh? Don't the differences matter? And if they don't matter, why don't they matter?
The vast majority of mankind believes in God.
The vast majority of mankind believes in *which* god or gods? Since many are mutually exclusive, that makes the vast majority of mankind atheists, at least when it comes to another man's god.
Whoops!
Outside of history and personal experience it can't be proven beyond doubt.
If god isn't capable of leaving any trace of physical evidence about, how powerful can this god be? Even bacteria can manage that much.
On the other hand you insist there is no God but you provide no proof, not even evidence, just your belief, your faith that there is no God.
So, if I assert that there's an invisible pink unicorn flying around your living room, and that it wants you to sacrifice a child to its magnificent glory, is it an act of faith to deny the existence of the IPU and refuse to commit such a despicable act?
Theists are the ones asserting there's a god or god out there, in spite of a pronounced inability to come up with any evidence an entity like this could exist. As an atheist, I'm simply saying there's no evidence to support this assertion, so it's baseless. I'm confident none of these god entities exist in the same way you're presumably confident there's no invisible pink unicorn flying around your living room demanding child sacrifice.
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What difference would that make?
[Read the article: The believer]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Who cares who made which incoherent statements or baseless assertions in the defense of religion? I could certainly care less about the source of the statements - if I had, I'd have bothered with attribution. It's irrelevant. It's their substance (or lack thereof) that's in question, not their origin. And on that count, it's all been pretty much a sea of unsubstantiated rubbish, punctuated by the occasional sophism or demonstration of abject scientific illiteracy.
And now, it's a debate regarding debating styles – the last refuge of someone who has no answers for the questions which many here have been patiently asking over the past day.
If anything, you fellas ought to be glad the many millstones you've dropped into the discussion haven't explicitly been hung around your necks.
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Beyond understanding
[Read the article: The believer]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]God is beyond man's understanding
That's nice. Still doesn't explain why there's no evidence for this god. "God", however you define it, may well be beyond our understanding, but if it doesn't interact with the material world, it's irrelevant, and so are the religions wrapped around such gods.
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Cause and effect
[Read the article: The believer]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The strongest evidence for a personal-infinite Creator is within each person, not complexity, not moral law, but human will—the ability to act (to some degree) independently from a cause and effect universe, an ability which can not come from within that universe.
How do you know you're acting independently from a "cause and effect" universe? Seems to me that assumption itself is a pretty profound bit of hubris, if it's not backed up with some kind of evidence.
The physicists are the ones doing the most interesting research and coming up with the most intriguing theories at the moment regarding causality. Unlike theists, these aren't simply unfounded assertions that "feel" good to them or "angels on the head of a pin" debates involving mutually contradictory theological assertions. The stuff the physicists are working on is actually supported by empirical evidence.
Some philosophers find the whole question of "free will" ridiculous. Assigning an attribute like "free" to a force like "will" would be like assigning the attribute "square" to "fear."
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Free Will
[Read the article: The believer]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]How do you know you're acting independently from a "cause and effect" universe?
From 50 some years of intimate observation.
No hubris, just observation, and I can experiment anytime I like.
Well, why don't you describe one of these experiments then, and the outcome.
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Lieberman is an evil Smurf
[Read the article: Clueless Joe]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I can't believe he actually had the audacity to say this:
"For the sake of our state, our country and my party, I cannot and will not let that result stand." - Sen. Joseph Lieberman
YOUR party, Joe? Sorry, THE party - which I thought belonged to Democratic voters in Connecticut - has spoken. Now shut the hell up, you quisling elitist hemorrhoid.
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Good luck getting a reply
[Read the article: The believer]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'd like some examples as a courtesy for hearing your persistent evangelizing. Please.
Don't hold your breath waiting for an answer. As I said yesterday, these guys think that the same vague handwaving, repetition of baseless assertions and irrational appeals to emotion that work so well for reinforcing religion (i.e. brainwashing) are gonna cut it when discussing the subject with someone who has a more critical mind. You might as well try to hold a rational discussion with my cat regarding her fear of the vacuum cleaner. They simply cannot understand what it is you're trying to tell them - they're too scared, to emotionally worked up for whatever reason to behave rationally. Whatever's short circuited inside their head is drowning out all the signals coming in from outside.
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Read many of her short stories and novellas as a teenager
[Read the article: Stranger than science fiction]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]And they've stuck with me for 25 years in a way nothing much else I read back then has. A truly gifted woman whatever her demons (perhaps because of them) who helped expand written science fiction beyond those clichés which, sadly, still dominate the visual form of the genre almost four decades later.