Friday, November 05, 2010

Science has no answer

As the Shuttle has closed the comments I've no opportunity to reply to Jon except here: (I hope he sees it)

Avoidance Jon? "Whereas in your story we know for sure there isn't a monster with the God question we don't know for sure there isn't a God therefore the two are not analogous." Really and exactly how did you determine there isn't a monster? My story didn't state that and left it open to interpretation which is the entire point. Why can't the existence or non existence of the monster also be agnostic (i.e. not knowable)?

How can you clearly come down on the side of non-monster, but not do so with God?

This is my point which you seem to refuse to see. By classifying the existence of God as unknowable you are not in a position to tell those that have faith in Him (or Them) that the actions they take are wrong as for all you know they may be right. God may be beyond knowledge but still like worship.

Now you argue that your actions don't affect others, that your refusal to come down on one side or another makes no difference to those who worship or don't. Except that's what implicit means, by not countering the actions of those who worship (in particular teaching their children to worship) you are implicitly condoning that behaviour.

Now you've argued that you're not because being agnostic doesn't mean you can't take a position regarding such activity yet your position is based on no greater basis than that of the theists who are doing the worship.

This was the point of my monster analogy and your 'belief' system. The atheist is saying that you shouldn't worship because there's nothing there to worship, the agnostic can't say that because there may well be.

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