On Sat, 23 Sep 2000 11:11:30 -0700, Ken Stuart <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

>I'm afraid that your logic is not very good.
>
>There is a difference between proof and knowledge.
>
>I know that a grape tastes good to me, but I cannot prove to you that a
grape
>tastes good to me.
>
>In a similar way, no personal experience can be "proved" - BUT nevertheless
you
>cannot convince someone that they are "hallucinating" that a grape tastes
good
>to them.
>
>And, in a similar way, millions of people have experienced God.
>
>But, they cannot prove it any more than they can prove that a grape tastes
good
>to them to someone who has never eaten a grape.
>

Personal experience does not prove that God exists, except to that
individual.  It proves nothing to others.  Non-believers may question
the
existence of God, but it is not there burden to prove that GOd does or
does
not exist.  The burden of proof is the believers.  There are many ways
that
God can be proven not to exist (depends on your assumptions), but none
that
He does as far as I know.

>(more on the other illogical arguments in this message in part 2, but I
wanted
>this basic truth not to be diluted.)
>

Let me take a stab at disproving the existence of an "Intelligent
Designer"
(ID).  Occam's razor requires that the ID has a singular purpose, to
create
life.  Anything more involves a religious argument rather than
scientific.
We can assume that the ID will create life wherever and whenever
conditions
exist to sustain life.  We can assume that the ID will create only the
simplest form of life (and leave everything else to evolution).
Without
carrying this reasoning out further, we can eliminate the ID as being
an
outside agent for the creation of life and identify it as a natural
process.

Let's call it a natural process within the "Principles of Life".  The
"Principles of Flight", for example, have always existed, but was not
put to
use until all the conditions necessary for flight existed (i.e., the
first
flying object/critter).  There was a time when flight did not exist,
then suddenly it did.  Everyone will agree that birds are a product of
evolution, rather than a creature that was given flight by an agent
other
than the natural process of evolution.  In the same way, the
"Principles of
Life" were not put to use until all the conditions necessary to
sustain life
existed.  The formation of life is a natural process, not the work of
Gepeto
the Intelligent Designer.

Once we postulate the existence of an ID, we have no choice but to
postulate
the existence of an IDD ("Intelligent Designer Designer").

Comments (pro or con)?

Brad