Sunday, October 19, 2008

Absentee Diety

Here is an intriguing phenomenon: two atheists have popped up in a discussion thread on the Christian web site Network Norwich, one of whom created the thread and dubbed it “Religious Twaddle”. He then went straight in with all guns blazing declaring the backwardness and irrationality of religion. Not surprisingly he got a rather visceral response! Depending on how or if they respond to my own rather late-in-the-day input, it appears that we have here two atheists who, like many theists, see the question of God’s existence swinging very much on the subject of Divine "intervention": That is, these atheists believe there is no evidence of such "intervention" and that in any case the "proven laws of science" obviate any intervention or involvement by God. Hence, it’s then down to the "interventionist" believers (and there are plenty about) to provide evidence that God does intervene every now and again and punctuates reality with "supernatural" events. Presumably this anthropomorphized category of God, a category deeply rooted in the mind of believer and unbeliever alike, is of a God who relies on the laws of science to run the cosmic show when He is absent on holiday, sleeping or has to use the convenience. Presumably these atheists believe that since the number of well documented "interventions" is close to nothing, then absence of evidence of God is evidence of absence and you can't be more absent than not existing. Shucks, I never thought of that one.

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