Monday, September 15, 2008
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The Xangalogical Argument For God's Existence, Pt. 2
by mr willowPerhaps I need to clear up some confusion from my previous installment. Judging from the comments, I think a lot of you got the impression that my argument so far is, "Having a personal God you can't see is just like having an online friend you can't see." That's not it. As several of you correctly pointed out, that's a very obvious logical fallacy. Admittedly, the question that originally appeared at the end of the post would quite understandably have led you to think I intended that conclusion. But that was a mistaken addition by the Revelife editors, not part of my original article, and it's since been corrected.
In fact, I haven't even got to the bit about God yet. I'm still hung up on this whole phenomenon of blogging and social networking. We take it for granted nowadays, but it's very intriguing from a philosophical viewpoint. All that happens is you see some words on your computer screen. With no further evidence than that, you are perfectly comfortable with the conclusion that a personal being exists to type them. Yet you can't see me, hear me, or touch me; you can comment to me but I may or may not respond. What is it that makes that reasoning so compelling on so little evidence?
Continued from The Xangalogical Argument For God's Existence, Pt. 1...
It’s not as though the existence of a personal being named "Mr. Willow" is the only satisfactory explanation for these words on your computer screen. Anyone with a good imagination can come up with half a dozen possibilities inside fifteen minutes:
- There could have been a series of random static pulses (caused by an electrical storm?) that affected the Xanga server and caused it to display a sequence of letters that just happened to take this form.
- Perhaps this was composed by a random text-generation computer program that selects and orders words according to the principles of English grammar.
- The Xanga webmasters write all these posts themselves, and they only pretend to believe that I exist. They deceive you with foolish ideas like me because they want to keep you enslaved to the restrictive rules of their social networking system.
- This site is actually a delusional creation of your subconscious mind: psychologically, you want there to be someone like me in the world (because everyone on MySpace uses bad grammar?), and thus you believe that I’m real. It is comforting to you to believe in me, so you continue to cling to the idea even in the face of evidence against it.
- It is only your cultural conditioning and educational upbringing that makes you believe these words were written by a person; in some cultures, they don’t even have computers.
- Your parents read you The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells as a child, and now you naïvely attribute any unexplained phenomenon to this fictional character instead of looking for its actual source.
- We all know what it means when people claim to communicate with people no one else can see: you’re having a psychotic episode and should seek professional help.
What do you think of those? Logically, there is nothing impossible or even especially impractical about any of them; I defy you to find a reason that any of them could not be true. (My computer can already beat me at chess; what’s so hard about a text-generation program?) But when I presented some of these ideas to my skeptical friend, he replied,
Yes, you’re right, there are a lot of other possibilities, but are they logical possibilities? Simply using common sense tells me that chances are, it’s a person that typed it up... I hope you can see that it is faulty to use your kind of logic, since if we do, nothing would ever be established as facts or common sense.
Of course, he’s absolutely right. It’s possible to raise these kinds of objections to anything, but, although they’re logical, they aren’t reasonable. (One of the things reason tells a truly reasonable person is when to stop reasoning and trust common sense.) And if we raised such objections to everything, we wouldn’t have anything left to believe in—which might include the fact that we existed and were raising objections!
What if you insisted on more proof than these words before you agreed to believe that I exist? Sure, you’ve seen my Xanga, but you’ve most likely never seen me in person, never heard my voice, and never touched my hand to see if it was solid. Why believe a man exists when you can’t even see him?
Again, this is quite logical, but it’s not reasonable. Millions of people have struck up online friendships with people they have never seen, and may never see. (Remember that movie You’ve Got Mail?) They don’t need to see them to communicate with them, and if they can communicate with them, that is surely sufficient grounds to believe that they exist. I corresponded online for a year with the beautiful young woman who is now my wife before I ever saw her in person. More evidence would have been nice, but it wouldn’t have been necessary. In fact, to deny that she existed would have been unreasonable, even if I never saw any other evidence. When I challenged my skeptical friend to prove his own existence, he returned, “This conversation is evidence enough.”
If someone were to present sound evidence that I don’t exist, or that I couldn’t possibly exist, that would be another matter. (If it could be shown, for instance, that I was a fictional character created by a novelist, then it would be less reasonable to believe I really wrote this blog.) Then (and only then) we would have to turn to another explanation for these words. Until that happens, I think we may regard it as pretty safely established that I, and the other people you meet on the internet, exist.
For the philosophers among us, let’s call this premise one of our argument:
1) As Xanga and other social networking websites demonstrate, if there exist words of communication that claim to be from a personal being P, and there is no conclusive evidence that P does not exist, then there is sufficient reason to believe in the existence of P, and to deny proposed alternative explanations.
Premise Two is simple:
2) There exist words of communication that claim to be from God.
Consider carefully the following words:
Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel
and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts:
“I am the first and I am the last;
besides me there is no god.
Who is like me? Let him proclaim it.
Let him declare and set it before me,
since I appointed an ancient people.
Let them declare what is to come, and what will happen.
Fear not, nor be afraid;
have I not told you from of old and declared it?
And you are my witnesses!
Is there a God besides me?
There is no Rock; I know not any.”What we have here are words that, so they claim, are spoken by God. (The source is in fact the Bible, in Isaiah 44:6-8, but please note I’m not arguing here that this fact by itself proves it’s true.) Given our argument so far, what does this mean?
It means you now have evidence for the existence of God that’s just as good as the evidence you have for the existence of me.
Our choice, following the logical law of non-contradiction, is simple: Either this (and the thousands of similar words in the Bible) is a word of communication from God, or it isn’t. Could it be a lie, a forgery, a delusion, a deception, a psychotic episode, a psychological rationalization, or a case of mistaken identity? Possibly. But remember Premise 1: When you are presented with words that claim to be from P, the most reasonable conclusion (all other things being equal) is that P exists to speak them. We rejected those alternative explanations as ridiculous when they applied to Xanga users. Why should any of those explanations be more appropriate for God than they are for Xanga users?
Even if there is no other tangible evidence, even if there are other explanations that logically cover the evidence, it is still perfectly reasonable on this evidence for you to believe that God exists. The only thing that could serve as a defeater, remember, is conclusive evidence that God doesn’t or couldn’t exist. And that is just what we don’t have. As my skeptical friend candidly said in his restatement of Bertrand Russell’s argument, such a belief is “impossible to disprove”!
So, here is the Xangalogical Argument for the existence of God:
1) As Xanga and other social networking websites demonstrate, if there exist words of communication that claim to be from a personal being P, and there is no conclusive evidence that P does not exist, then there is sufficient reason to believe in the existence of P, and to deny proposed alternative explanations.
2) There exist words of communication that claim to be from God, and there is no conclusive evidence that God does not exist.
3) Therefore, there is sufficient reason to believe in the existence of God, and to deny proposed alternative explanations.
At this point, Logic rests its case and Reason provides the concluding remarks. God, as I’ve claimed, is a personal being. The best way to know for sure whether a personal being exists is not to reason your way by logic to him but to meet him and have a conversation. As Xanga proves, you don’t need to see the person face-to-face for that to be possible. If God really exists, and if God is a personal being, then it’s possible to have a conversation with Him. That is precisely what God asserts in some more of those words of communication:
“Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me,
and I will listen to you.
And you will seek Me and find Me,
when you search for Me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:12-13It is no good to say you don’t believe God is real if you’ve never tried looking for Him. Looking for Him is easy enough as long as you’re open to the possibility that you might find Him—or that He might find you. As the Man who was actually able to back up His claim to be God in human form said,
“If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority.” John 7:17
Ultimately, just as deducing that I exist is merely an engaging bit of trivia until you get to know me, knowing that God exists is no good until you get to know Him. Though there are some competing claims to the title, I humbly submit that the best place to start is with the one who claims (as we saw above) to be the one and only article. If you still want more evidence, try asking Him yourself. It’s only reasonable, and it works a whole lot like what you’re doing right now.
Prayer
Our Father in heaven, you promise in your own words that everyone who seeks you with their heart will find you. If these words are true, then we know that we may know you in a real and personal way. Show us our need to know you, and the way you meet the need. We come to you as you have revealed yourself through your word, through your Son, and through your Spirit. Be a friend to the friendless, a help to the helpless, and a father to the fatherless. And fill us with the trust beyond argument that comes from this knowledge as you have revealed it.
For Further Study:
20 Arguments for the Existence of God A handy presentation by theologians Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli.
“Atheism is More Rational?” Ph.D. scientist and Christian apologist Jonathan Sarfati responds to an atheist who suggests (like my friend) that atheism is the most rational position. Several very good philosophical points that I couldn’t get into here.
The Dawkins Delusion: This cheeky but clever YouTube satire demonstrates how Richard Dawkins’ arguments against the existence of God can also be used as arguments against the existence of Richard Dawkins. “A parable within a parody.”
God and Other Minds: A technical study by eminent philosopher Alvin Plantinga analyzing the major arguments for and against the existence of God, and the arguments for and against the existence of minds other than our own. Though ultimately none of them can be set in a conclusive self-evident framework, it leads to some intriguing insights on the epistemological nature of belief in God. (This is not an easy book: If you don’t remember what “epistemological” means, you might want to start with something simpler.)
Advice to Christian Philosophers by Alvin Plantinga. Not as technical as the book but very helpful and quite witty.
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Comments (48)
:D Thank you for this. I've been trying to come up with a conclusive way to speak on the topic, and this is great.
I like this
I've always loved apologetics and this combines good logic with humor....w00t!
Keep in mind that if you accept this argument, you're also forced to accept the existence of an enormous number of gods and beings from other religions, given the existence of many other religious (and non-religious) texts in which various beings claim to exist...
If God could be known and understood through logic alone, then wouldn't the most intelligent minds of the world all have come to conclude that there is a God?
In I Corinthians 1, Paul wrote, "the world did not know God through wisdom." Yes, apologetics is a tool that can be used, but ultimately the Spirit of God is the One who opens our eyes to see God and ears to hear Him and opens our hearts and minds to believe in Him.
Apologetics certainly has its place, but consider that if we can logically persuade someone that God exists, someone else could come along the next day and logically persuade the same person God does not exist. A profession of faith based on logic alone is not a genuine profession.
"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God... Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God." In order to believe in God, in order to come into God's family, there must be a rebirth, a movement of the Spirit of God.
What the fuck?
How can you frame such a lame argument so seriously and with such earnest. I admire the time and effort in its construction, but it seriously, it sucks:
1) ..if there exist words of communication that claim to be from a personal being P, and there is no conclusive evidence that P does not exist, then there is sufficient reason to believe in the existence of P, and to deny proposed alternative explanations.
As stated, this premise doesn't stand on itself.
My understanding of you, as the author of these words doesn't spring from the unfalsibility of this claim. The extreme liklihood of a human being beind these words come from the knowledge that human effort as a mechanism for the production of xanga entries.
From our experience, nothing other than human authorship can produce a xanga entry. We deny any other sources for this xanga entry because from experience, there isn't any other likely sources.
2) There exist words of communication that claim to be from God, and there is no conclusive evidence that God does not exist.
a.) Firstly, this claim leads to contradictions.Numerous texts claim to be the communication of God. This premise links to each of the holy text, and woudl funnel into the conclusion that each God of each religious scripture exists.
Buddha doesn't walk side-by-side with Allah, Jesus, and Shiva.
b.) Secondly, I'll extend my rebuttal of 1.) here and expand on it.
The known mechanism for written works is by human effort. What more, Judeo-Christianity acknolwedges that at least directly, both the Old and New Testament were penned by mortal men.
The extended claim is that the Biblical authors were divinely inspired or guided. From our experience, we cannot verify such a mechanism. We have seen books written by ordinary Gods, but we have not seen a higher entity in the act of guiding human hands.
Just as we understand you, Xanga author, to not to be directly guided by God in this entry; we can understand the Bible to only be responsible by regular human beings.
@naphtali_deer@xanga - amen.
God is known by faith. If convinced by logic He exists you can also be convinced by logic He doesn't exist.
However a person converted in the heart can never be persuaded any other way but to believe in God.
The longer I serve my Creator, the more I see His existence. The more prayers I see answered. The more healings and miracles I have experienced.
God has a way to make himself very real to His Children.
@naphtali_deer@xanga - If God could be known and understood through logic alone, then wouldn't the most intelligent minds of the world all have come to conclude that there is a God?
Lame!
Firstly, to be technical, no knowledge of the world can be arrived to through logic alone. Logic, combined with empirical observation, gives us knowledge of the outside world. But I understand what you mean, I'm quibbling a bit here.
Secondly, and more seriously, The Judeo-Christian God is understood to be pretty powerful, pretty smart, and pretty good. A higher entity with these characteristics would probably leave proof or knowledge of his existance to us, but he doesn't. What does this say about the existance of such a being?
Thirdly, the cynic (and atheist) would say that the paucity of tangible proof for God is consistent with the non-existance of God. There is little evidence of God because God doesn't exist.
In I Corinthians 1, Paul wrote, "the world did not know God through wisdom." Yes, apologetics is a tool that can be used, but ultimately the Spirit of God is the One who opens our eyes to see God and ears to hear Him and opens our hearts and minds to believe in Him.
Appealing to warm and fuzzy feelings seem a poor compass for truth and knowledge of the outside world.
a.) The religious experience isn't unique to Judeo-Christianity. Testament this is the existance of a handful of other world religions.
b.) The religious experience is nothing more than empty flails in the dark. Guess-work of warm, fuzzy feelings is unlikely to lead to correct knowledge of the outside world (e.g. God's exsitance and nature).
Any emotional and psychological experience can be intepreted a number of different ways. There is little good reason to force the explaination of "God."
@eagleendtime@xanga - God is known by faith. If convinced by logic He exists you can also be convinced by logic He doesn't exist.
What is faith, really? For faith to be meaningful, there must be firm basis for that trust. If there is no logical or empirical rooting for the faith, then it is a dumb stab in the dark.
Blind faith is no more than an appeal to ignorance-- a warrentless backing of one possiblity or one outcome. I can have faith in "2" and row a die. There is a chance that I have my faith confirmed in the outcome of the die row, but this itself signifies nothing . More likely than not, my blind faith would let me down.
Faith is a blind wager with our existance. It is stupid to play dice with belief.
@eagleendtime@xanga The longer I serve my Creator, the more I see His existence. The more prayers I see answered. The more healings and miracles I have experienced. God has a way to make himself very real to His Children..
Yes, exactly. Amen.
@huginn@xanga - Belief in God comes through the Spirit of God. He is the one that opens blind eyes and unstops deaf ears. Jesus' miracles were a picture of the work God does in our lives to translate us from the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of Light. We cannot get into His Kingdom apart from His grace and the Spirit's power. It's not warm fuzzies, it's not lame, it's not foolishness––it's the power of God, which appears to be foolishness to the world. It once seemed to be foolishness to me as well. As John Newton penned, "I once was lost, but now am found; Was blind, but now I see." That is the testimony of the Christian. Once blind, but now seeing, through the grace of God.
For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. I Cor. 1:18.
@huginn@xanga -
"Firstly, to be technical, no knowledge of the world can be arrived to through logic alone. Logic, combined with empirical observation, gives us knowledge of the outside world"
-- Perhaps I'm going off on a tangent here, but would knowledge of God be classified as "knowledge of the world"? Sure, if you want to arrive at knowledge of the composition of atoms, gestation periods of chimpanzees, or many other hosts of facts about the physical world, then empirical observation is necessary. But is it necessary for ALL types of knowledge? Logic alone can given us knowledge of mathematics without empirical observation. Empirical observation isn't used when we take for granted the laws of logic, or spatial and temporal symmetries (in fact, such things are already presupposed in order for us to use empirical observations to arrive at knowledge claims). Philosophy itself is necessary to construct a philosophy of science so that we have a framework to even use science at all.
Perhaps God can fall into this category as well (however, it does depend on the nature of God which one proposes). At the fundamental starting points of one's worldview (namely one's epistemology and ontology) is where the issue of God is first addressed. The epistemology and ontology that one adheres to is going to be dependent upon their belief in God (or lack of), since the existence of such a being will alter the very nature of the universe and how we come about various types of knowledge. If issue of God truly begins at such a fundamental level, then perhaps logic alone (or logic and philosophy alone) can allow us to tackle the issue without even addressing empirical observation.
@huginn@xanga - your right about the trust part.
But I have experienced a real God.
I have had miracles in my life. An injured knee on a hike in the mountains gone in seconds after Mind over Matter failed but a request to God got results. That's just one of many.
For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
I have experienced the above scripture, countless times. Without telling a soul what I have been thinking, I have seen those very thoughts put forward by dedicated men of God.
Scoff you may. But when you draw your last breath you will know if you are right or not. I just prefer to know here.
@naphtali_deer@xanga - Belief in God comes through the Spirit of God. He is the one that opens blind eyes and unstops deaf ears.
What is this exactly, though? A particular warm and fuzzy feeling in my heart?
The religious experience is not distinct. It takes a measure of interpretation to say that, "Yeah, this and that event in my life can be attributed to my faith in Jesus."
Jesus' miracles were a picture of the work God does in our lives to translate us from the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of Light.
It's hard to buy this argument when God's answer to prayers seem arbitrary and cruel.
Every year, there's a case or two of Christian parents deciding to treat a child's illness with faith healing, only to find that their child dies of the untreated illness.
God worked no miralces when he folded his arms and stood around as Hitler murdered six million of his chosen people. Apparently, the collective prayer of tens of millions of people in Europe counted for nothing.
I see no miracles here.
It's not warm fuzzies, it's not lame, it's not foolishness––it's the power of God, which appears to be foolishness to the world.
Then help me understand.
How can the religions experience, the Christian's 'relationship' with God, be anymore than quilt of guessowrk and unwarrented interpretations?
@thechris38@xanga - Perhaps I'm going off on a tangent here, but would knowledge of God be classified as "knowledge of the world"?
I love tangents. =)
And yes, I take the knowledge of God as an understanding of the outside-world.
...But is it necessary for ALL types of knowledge? Logic alone can given us knowledge of mathematics without empirical observation.
Mathematics is an abstraction of elements of the outsideworld. But certainly: Given the ground-rules and a handful of basic ideas, lots of beautiful mathematics can be derived from logic alone.
Philosophy itself is necessary to construct a philosophy of science so that we have a framework to even use science at all.
*nods*
Perhaps God can fall into this category as well (however, it does depend on the nature of God which one proposes).
He could, I suppose. The usual Christian, God, though, has external properties; he is (I believe) understood as a physical being. Or at the very least, a part of God must be physical in order to interface with the physical world.
...If issue of God truly begins at such a fundamental level, then perhaps logic alone (or logic and philosophy alone) can allow us to tackle the issue without even addressing empirical observation.
*shrugs* Sure. But I don't see how this can be the case.
The ontological argument is fishy: It says that from no knowledge of the outside workd, we can arrive to knowledge of the outside world (e.g. God). There is a host of traditional rebuttals to the argument.
@eagleendtime@xanga - I have had miracles in my life. An injured knee on a hike in the mountains gone in seconds after Mind over Matter failed but a request to God got results. That's just one of many.
I don't mean to be insincere, but it's hard to take claims of personal experience without at least a bit of skepticism. (Just as you may question the claim that golden tablets magically appeared to a Joseph Smith).
I don't know the details of your story, but there may be ordinary explainations to your situations. Perhaps it's only happenstance that you prayed to God as you understood a minor knee tweek as a serious injury.
Of course, if it were the case of torn ACL stitching itself back together, it would be something... supernatural.
I reapply an argument of unanswerd prayers from an earlier comment here. It does seem cruel in how selective God is in answering prayers. It certainly isn't the case that all unanswered prayers were made by persons undeserving or unfaithful.
For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword...
At the level of Christian apologetics or atheist-Christian discussion, the question (or mine, at least), is the validity fo the Bible before its supposed contents.
..But when you draw your last breath you will know if you are right or not. I just prefer to know here.
Sadly, as an atheist, I don't have a witty comeback.
@huginn@xanga -
Hahaha, screw you. You just covered the three main errors I viewed in this arguement. And Chris already addressed the issues I could have raised with your first paragraph. Well I'm shit out of things to talk about.
In response to the original post- I do appreciate the more formal layout of the arguement. It is done in a very clear and precise manner, but it does contain some apparent faults within the premises, which the main ones already being mentioned. Ultimately, even overlooking the faults in comparison, taking these premises to their logical conclusion comes up with impossible conclusions (the existence of many Gods that contradict one another), which I know has already been mentioned so I'll stop talking (err...writing).
Thanks Huggin for taking away my chance at a real rebuttal. Real cool.
...so, how can you prove that the bible is true...couldn't anyone have just you know...written it thousand of years ago and said it was from god...just like how you must assume about Thor and Zeus...what makes your ancient likely mistranslated book different then some other religions ancient, likely mistranslated book? Don't you think if you were raised in a different part of the world with a different religion you'd just believe that one with unwavering faith? Why believe in God and not unicorns or dragons (which are mentioned in the bible) and magic and all that other jazz that you'd likely laugh at someone else for believing despite the fact you think a talking snake spoke to some rib lady and made an all loving being sentence all of humanity out of heaven forever, and if you dont' blindly follow his every word, essentially be his slave, you're going to burn forever...BUT HE LOVES YOU! You'd think a perfect being wouldn't be so...petty and immature.
Mr willow brings up that readers should seek God because otherwise the
xangalogical argument amounts to a trivia bit, and not worth anything. I ask: a. why do I have to search
for him? why not he, me? b. how long does one search?
I wonder if the nature of the being whose existence you're trying to prove has anything to do with having sufficient reason to believe in him/her/it. IOW, it is more believable that mr. willow is a real person than that God exists, just as it is more believable that I am in my chair typing than that I am balancing on a tightrope at the circus, (though I don't rule it out). Thus, can it be that one believes the Xangalogical argument for mr willow (premise 1) but not for God (premise 2), because the nature of God (for one Person in the whole history of the universe to fulfill the criteria that come with a Divine being) makes it that much harder to believe?
@huginn@xanga - Then Pilate said to him, So you are a king? Jesus answered, You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice. 38 Pilate said to him, What is truth? John 18:37-38.
Your words, "Then help me understand," are somewhat akin to Pilate's "What is truth?"
Those who have no ears to hear the Shepherd's voice, have no resulting faith, trust and belief in Jesus Christ as God and Savior.
In 1 John 4, John wrote: "We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us."
In contrast, we have someone like Lydia (Acts 16:14) whose heart the Lord opened to receive the Gospel.
The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. John 10:3-4.
Not a "quilt of guesswork and unwarranted interpretations," but the working of God to produce saving faith in unbelieving hearts.
@DanFivefivefivethree@xanga - You sound like this article.
@huginn@xanga - @whataboutbahb@xanga - @drgold@xanga -
This is an article I wrote rather a long time ago, and frankly I don't have all that much interest in defending it. As you point out, there are some holes in the way it's presented that probably could have been tightened or reworked. If I were writing something on this subject today, I'd probably take a line more like @thechris38@xanga, as I think that's where the gold is from a philosophical perspective.
My main point as I'd put it now: God (assuming He exists) is a personal being, and the way you find out the truth about a personal being is not primarily through empirical reasoning but through communication -- which doesn't need any more evidence than plain words to be compelling. Trying to merely reason your way to (or away from) God's existence is therefore missing the point and cutting yourself off from some major lines of evidence.
The other point is that the grounds that atheists / skeptics often use for denying the existence of God can also be used for denying the existence of many other things, including real ones (see the video "The Dawkins Delusion" linked above!), so perhaps they are not as valid as they seem at first glance.
I still think there's something to be said for those ideas, although the way I put it here... well, let's just say that Revelife thought it was worth publishing, so there it is, and if someone gets something out of it, I won't complain. But I'm not all all inclined to debate it.
@mrwillow - That's cool, I didn't want to get into a big debate about it either, just thought it was worth pointing out. :)
@mrwillow - This is an article I wrote rather a long time ago, and frankly I don't have all that much interest in defending it. As you point out, there are some holes in the way it's presented that probably could have been tightened or reworked.
Okey dokey. Fair enough.
The other point is that the grounds that atheists / skeptics often use for denying the existence of God can also be used for denying the existence of many other things...
While the type of argument would be the same, but their contexts are very different.
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." Chat on AIM or correspondance by mail is pretty usual. Claim of supernatural authorship is a bit more special and deserves greater scrutiny.
@whataboutbahb@xanga - I'm glad that you had similar thoughts on the post. You probably would have formulated the argumenst a bit more cleanly, but: =P.