Comments on: Asteroids, Cathode Rays & Requisite Knowledge: More Thoughts On Evidence

By: A Message To The Uber-Rationalist « The Warfare Is Mental

A Message To The Uber-Rationalist « The Warfare Is Mental — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 17:53:23 +0000

[...] Asteroids are perhaps my penultimate example. “Huge, flying rocks in space? That’s absurd!” the uber-rationalist pompously declared to the free-thinker of centuries past. “It’s more likely that you were just hallucinating when that little rock fell out of the sky and cut your head, and as far as that huge, round hole in the ground, you’re probably just seeing a pattern where none really exists.” [...]

By: cl

cl — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:04:42 +0000

I’m not “trying to have it both ways.” The problem I have with your approach here is that it essentially accomplishes nothing but smoke-making. I don’t mean that to insult, either. Let me try to explain.

If God can do anything, then God doesn’t need asteroids for our existence.

By that token, God doesn’t even need our existence at all – right?
Your basic approach here takes the form of an argument from ignorance: “if A, then why B, C, or D?”
What I’m getting at is, our inability to discern the reason(s) X does Y cannot be an argument against the existence of X in the first place. I could just as easily say, “If evolution is true, why E, F or G?” But such accomplishes nothing.

Again, if God can do anything, then God could have made the universe just be the Earth, the Moon and the sun, and a few stars in the night sky merely for decorative purposes, and kept humanity in a permanent state of Bronze Age technology.

Sure – if you want to assume that we’re the only ones God’s concerned with – but what’s the basis for that? I don’t make that assumption. It very well could be that there are other “Earth’s” going through exactly the same trials we are. Right?

By: Tommykey

Tommykey — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:49:46 +0000

Is it not possible that asteroids perform vital functions in the cosmos? According to science, is it not true that without asteroids, we wouldn’t exist?
Come on CL, you can’t have it both ways. If God can do anything, then God doesn’t need asteroids for our existence.
If the most important thing for the Biblical God, if it exists, is that we worship it and that we have a personal relationship with it, then this God surely does not need a universe filled with billions of galaxies and asteroids floating around smashing into Mercury and Ganymede to make it happen. Again, if God can do anything, then God could have made the universe just be the Earth, the Moon and the sun, and a few stars in the night sky merely for decorative purposes, and kept humanity in a permanent state of Bronze Age technology. Heck, that was all Moses and the ancient Israelites needed, right?

By: cl

cl — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 23:21:59 +0000

Hey there Tommykey..

If God created us in order to have a relationship with it, what’s the point of creating asteroids to slam into the Earth and other planetary bodies?

My immediate answer would be utility.
1) Is it not possible that asteroids perform vital functions in the cosmos? According to science, is it not true that without asteroids, we wouldn’t exist?
2) While I realize it’s not the whole of your conclusion, how did you come to conclude that asteroids constitute reason for disbelief in the biblical God?

By: Tommykey

Tommykey — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:58:25 +0000

I don’t go so far as to say that there’s no evidence for God. As a former Catholic, I merely came to the conclusion for a variety of reasons that the Biblical god did not exist.
Interestingly, asteroids fit into one of my reasons for doing so. If God created us in order to have a relationship with it, what’s the point of creating asteroids to slam into the Earth and other planetary bodies?